 Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Paul Gerua-House. I was born here at the center of my ancestral country at the Old Canberra Hospital. So I am now born here in New Zealand, for the time being. Ladies and gentlemen, young men, young women, distinguished guests, Vice Chancellor, Chancellor, Council, Deans, Maramurall Dine teachers, Nyaari Njomali, Nyaembri, Gumawa Ogilu, Wala'balawa, Nunawa, Muji Gang, Yanengbu Jayandu, Maraspexton, Nyaembri, Gumawa Ogilu, Wala'balawa, Heradry Elders past and present. Nyaari in Jamarrabo, Muji Yango, Nurembanjiguo, Nini Yiridu in my respects to all people and elders from all parts of the country. Nyaambri, Awogulu, Wollabalawa, Nunuwa, Heradry, Maiangauinbanyo Niniwa, Nurembangodara, Nyaambri and Nunuwa people, welcome you all to country. Nadu Wurigabigi, Balabambo Gobo, Balagivangobo, Nguungulila, Dumbali now, Murawe Marambu. We listen to the elders, our ancestors, our old people. They show us the straight, the correct, right path, Tulegang, Murawe. Mambu Wara Naminya Gu, Wodagabinyu Wododaraiguo, Winninggala Gu, Balagu, looking to see and listening to hear and learning to understand. Yinja Maugiri, Yinja Mali, Yinja Maugijuo, respect. Walungun Malagu, Maramara Gurei, be brave, make change. Mura Maginya, Yinja Mara, Mura Mura Wurimbodara, a respectful way of life, cares for country. Nuiagoye Malang, Mara Mangmalang, it's wonderful to be here today to share, this welcome to the country protocol during NADOC week, 2022. Yinja Mara Wurimbodara, Marando Gobo, Yidagobo Yandagobo, respect his taken responsibility for the now, the past, the present, in the future. We've cared for mothers into dawn of time and evidence of our state, for our sovereignty, our ownership can be seen everywhere throughout the land. And without our ancestors, we know that our ancestors never ceded this country, never gave this land up. It was stolen without consent or treaty and we've never been compensated for our losses. And these are matters yet to be resolved in this day and age. So the law of the land talks about giving respect and honour to all people in all parts of the country, being patient, being gentle, then people will respect you. I'd like to acknowledge my mother, Dr. Arnie Matilda-House, who can't be here, who was the first Indigenous Australian to be awarded honorary doctorate here at the ANU. Because of her, I can because of all of our matriarchs, we can, we have to acknowledge our matriarchs on country. Mother Earth, we cared for it since the dawn of time. So Yinja Mara, Bala Bidadabinabirah, or Wurru and Yambri Jolong, respect, is in the Canberra Creek, flying through country. The name Canberra is derived from the name of our ancestral group and people, the Yambri, the Canberra. It was gazetted here as Canberra Station under the New South Wales colonial government in 1834 by J.J. Moore. The evidence, the facts, are powerful and compelling. This is a big part of the truth-telling of country. The truth has to be told. Yinja Mara, Yinja Mara Mara Mara Nyi Ngirama Mara Nya, respect shapes us and lifts up the people. So on behalf of our families, all our families here on country, Mara Mbang Malang, Yinja Mara, happy Nadeok week. And before I go, I want to share a song. Before I introduce the wonderful Chancellor, hand it over to the Chancellor, I want to play a song on the Yiriki, a welcome to country song. So I'm looking for four volunteers. So reconciliation is about many things. The restoration of friendly relations is one of them. There's so much we can do around reconciliation. We've been doing it since both people arrived in Sydney Cove in 1788, and we continue to do what every day of our lives. So with that, I just want to play a welcome song for volunteers, Bangu, for volunteers. Thank you. Come on up. MUNDAN GURU WURU GURU WURU MUNDAN GURU WURU GURU WURU and Gaen Banya Gurubari, welcome. Apologies, I've been just informed that I've been kept saying Nadeok week, apparently. They're very similar. Every day is Nadeok week for Aboriginal people, and reconciliation week. So I'd like to introduce the Vice-Chancellor, the Honourable Julie Bishop. Thank you. Thank you, Paul, for your very gracious welcome to country and to the volunteers who took part in that very special ceremony. With the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Brian Schmidt, and as Chancellor, I welcome you all to this very special event, and I too acknowledge and celebrate the First Nations people on whose traditional lands we meet today and pay respects to Elders past and present. We are here on the last day of National Reconciliation Week for our flagship event, the lecture to be delivered today by Andrea Kelly, and I'll come back to that in a moment. But I want to welcome you all, particularly Indigenous staff and students and supporters of ANU who are here, but also our Council members. Earlier today, we met for the Third ANU Council meeting for 2022, and we noted that it was indeed an auspicious day because not only is it the end of National Reconciliation Week, but today happens to be the 30th anniversary of the High Court decision in the Marlborough case. And we were privileged at our Council meeting to hear from a number of Council members and our Executive, Padman Raman Azmi Wood, PDU, Tanya Hosh, Ian Anderson, and our Pro-Chancellor Naomi Flutter who delivered last year's National Reconciliation Week lecture. And it was a privilege to hear their reflections on that milestone event, where we came from, where we are, where we're going. The Australian National University was established nearly 76 years ago in a spirit of post-war optimism as the first and still the only national university with a mandate to assist this country in its post-war reconstruction, to carry out research to help this nation meet the challenges that were ahead, but also to assist in forging national unity and national identity. So it's indeed appropriate that as part of our mandate we should, as a university, provide as many opportunities as we can to First Nations people, to be part of the ANU family. Indeed, we aim to be the University of Choice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, either as staff, students. Indeed, I'm very proud of the fact that we have the highest completion rate for undergraduate Indigenous students across the higher education sector in Australia. This aim and the work that we do is made possible by the extraordinary work of the Jubile Center and Ann Martin. Her nurturing and dedicated leadership in providing that home away from home is absolutely invaluable. I'm also very proud of the work being done by Professor PDU, the Vice President of our First Nations portfolio, and Peter will ensure that ANU is a world leader in Indigenous research, public policy, considerations, and teaching. Indeed, I'm looking forward to attending the First Nations Economics Symposium and the wealth forum that Peter is hosting here at ANU on the 21st and 22nd of June. Here at ANU, National Reconciliation Week is not just a week. It's the culmination of year-round advocacy and day-by-day action and a whole-of-university approach. In 2018, we commenced holding a lecture for National Reconciliation Week, and we've had some very distinguished speakers in that time. And this year, we're delighted that Andrea Kelly is our guest lecturer. She's a proud Oramanga-Larakea woman. She has family connections through the Northern Territory, and she is an alumna of the Australian National University, having completed her Executive Masters in Public Administration in 2015. Andrea also holds a Bachelor of Business from Charles Sturt University. She's currently the Acting Group Manager of Social and Policy Programs at the National Indigenous Australians Agency, and there's now a very close connection between the NIAAA and ANU as we are hosting a graduate program through the ANU College of Business and Economics for Indigenous members of the public service to gain a qualification here at ANU. Andrea has a long history in public service. Her record is outstanding. She is committed to ensuring that Indigenous people and Indigenous matters are recognised in public policy in Australia. And so we are honoured to have you here, Andrea, and we look forward to your words of wisdom. Please join with me in thanking Andrea Kelly for being our lecturer at the ANU Reconciliation Week Lecture this year. Can't do that very well. Sorry, I'll just get organised, if you don't mind. I was just saying the Chancellor did well to remember all that off the top of her head. I still have to look at notes to think about what I've done in my career. So thank you for that very warm welcome. Paul, you've disappeared. Oh, you're right up the back. So, Paul, I acknowledge you, your elders and ancestors, as the traditional custodians of the country on which we're meeting today. It is upon your ancestral lands I have made my home. Although I question the decision every winter. And I thank you for allowing me to leave my footprints on your country. In return, I offer my deepest respects to your people and your continuing connection to the land and waterways. I extend this respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here today. I acknowledge you, your cultures and country. Thank you, Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor and the ANU Council for your gracious invitation and warm welcome. I'm extremely honoured to present at your annual Reconciliation Week lecture. And I hope that all of you have been actively involved in activities this week. I also acknowledge the positive relationship between the ANU and the National Indigenous Australians Agency through the ANU Management Program. An initiative that has developed for and open to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees within our agency. The ANU has already taken many steps to elevate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples voices through the National Centre for Indigenous Studies and the Jubile Centre. The work and efforts of Aunty Ann Martin in managing Jubile and her advocacy work for students over more than 20 years needs to be recognised and acknowledged. Also credit to you Vice-Chancellor on your commitment to reprioritise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples at the ANU. I recall graduating from ANU not long after your appointment and in your address you spoke of your desire to do this so you should be proud. So a little bit about me. So my kinship runs through my Warramunga grandmother and my Larakia grandfather. I also have connections to Arundel Country through my second grandfather and Arundel lawman. I was born and raised in our Springs on Arundel Country. As an Aboriginal woman, I connect to my culture through my mother, her mother, my grandmother. I'm also the daughter of a Welsh-born Australian but raised from a baby by my dad, a Maori from Aotearoa, New Zealand. I'm often asked why I don't acknowledge my Welsh heritage and the answer is I had a relationship with my father. I loved him but I didn't grow up with him. He didn't have an influence on my education or the sports I played or the footy teams I supported. I never met my grandparents or his family. Therefore, I have no connection. My cultural learning is in two Indigenous cultures. I was raised in these two cultures by two very strong and loving grandmothers. There was a stark difference between the two women, however. One was able to speak her language. The other was beaten every time she spoke Warramunga, eventually never speaking it again. I now live in Canberra, a long way from my grandmother's country. Yet my soul, my heart, are planted deep in my ancestor's land. A place I know, a place I belong. It calls the hills and the land. And yet I straddle a different world that hasn't merged from others. I was raised to be part of this world, a home where education was not negotiable. A world where I have secure employment, the financial capacity to buy a home and the ability to choose my own doctor or dentist. A changing world that accepts me, but not always for who I am. A world that denied my great grandmother, my great grandmother, my grandmother and my mother, basic human dignity. A world that did not accept them because they are Aboriginal. I'm their legacy. I'm doing well. Perhaps I'm excelling. So today I stand here proud that I walk these two worlds successfully. On a professional front, as the acting group manager, social policy and programs at the NIAA, we have a great responsibility to deliver for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In 2019, when the NIAA was established, I stood outside our building. A building named after remarkable Calcudon, Irenda Mann, Dr. Charles Perkins. A man, my grandmother, called Son. I stood there with so much hope and optimism that this was the new beginning. And my reason for being there today are the same as they were 30 years ago when I joined the Australian Public Service. In 2022, I'm proud to work in an agency where the CEO and my deputy CEO are Aboriginal women and where we now have three Aboriginal ministers slash special envoy. This week across our nation, we take the time to acknowledge that reconciliation is an ongoing journey. We recognise that generations before us have fought for change and justice. And we commit ourselves to continue working towards these goals. Reconciliation is a responsibility of all Australians. This year's theme, Be Brave, Make Change serves as a reminder to all of us the opportunities we have as individuals to make a meaningful, positive impact. National Reconciliation Week may only come once a year, but there are countless ways we, as individuals and organisations, can contribute to reconciliation in our communities year round. This week's National Reconciliation Week comes at an interesting time. The recent change of government sets a nation on an adjusted path. Without a doubt, there is a full and exciting gender ahead of us, and particularly for the NIAA. We have a big agenda to deliver. National Reconciliation Week is bookended by the anniversaries of two significant events, the 1967 referendum and the Marbeau decision. On the 27th of May, 1967, Australia's most successful referendum saw more than 90% of Australians' vote to give the Australian government powers to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and recognise us in the census. Today marks the 30th anniversary of the High Court decision on Marbeau versus Queensland, the legal case which introduced the principle of native title into the Australian legal system. The decision formally delegitimised the principle used to justify the dispossession of this continent from its first peoples. Terrain Nullius, or land belonging to no one. I pay tribute today to Mr. Eddie Coyke Marbeau and the mayor people, as well as to all of those who have contributed to the work for recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' rights and interests to land and mortars, according to their traditional law and customs. Another important commemoration, one that is close to my heart, is the day before National Reconciliation Week commences, the 26th of May, Mark National Sorry Day, and this year was the 25th anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report. Sorry Day is not apology day. Sorry comes from sorry business. It is a national day of remembrance and advocacy started by stolen generation members and their families. I'm particularly proud of the Territory Stolen Generations Readers Scheme that I lead. A scheme that when it was designed over a year ago and still today, we have underpinned all of our work on the principle of do no further harm. And more importantly, we have done this in partnership with stolen generation survivors and we will continue to listen to their voices as we deliver on the important scheme over the next four years. I mentioned these anniversaries and significant milestones because it is a reflection of where we have come as a nation but we still have a lot of work to do. I'm proud, I'm also proud that the NIAA is now a supporter organization of the racism that stops with me campaign. This is a national campaign that provides tools and resources to help people and organizations learn about racism and stand against it by acting for positive change. By becoming a supporter organization, we are sending a strong and loud message that our agency stands against racism in all its form. This year's theme is a challenge to us all, for us to be brave and tackle the unfinished business of reconciliation so we can make change for all. Change begins with brave actions in your daily life, where you live, work, play and socialize. People often want to know about practical ways to engage in reconciliation and generally the response is join a local reconciliation group, organize events to commemorate other days and weeks of national significance or simply educate yourself on the stories, cultures, experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. But truly, is this enough? Ask yourself, is this brave enough? Is this change enough? I suspect the answer will be no. It might be time to give us a voice and give us space for that voice. And I'm not talking about the voice to parliament, I'm talking about our voice. In the workplace, in the lecture halls, on the sports field, in everyday conversations. We've been talking about reconciliation since the early 2000s. Well, even earlier, if you think about Anthony Fernando in London or Jimmy Billy King Clements, William Cooper, the Freedom Writers, Charles Perkins, Adam Goods with his stand on racism, Paul Keating in his Red Fern speech and Kevin Rudd with the apology. These were brave, these were change. And before I go on, I just want to point out that what I'm going to talk to you about now is my, they're my personal views, they're not a reflection of my employer or certainly the government. And I shared some of these reflections some years ago and it's worth repeating today, given Prime Minister Albanese referred a number of times in his incoming government commitments to First Nations peoples. Key among them is the commitment to implement the Uluru statement from the heart in its entirety. Despite the killings, the sexual enslavement of women and children, the theft of land and resources, the prohibition of ceremony and use of mother tongue. Despite the forced removal of children and the destruction of sacred and other sites of significance, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to survive and identify. For my own people, the Waramungu and Larakia, the process of dispossession began 40 years after the Ngunnawal, but the impact was similar. Driven by a similar set of policies and the same colonial attitudes of superiority and racism, policies and attitudes enforced by the system, a system my parents and grandparents lived under and unfortunately lived by. A few years ago, I asked my mother why she was not angry. She said it was just the way it was. But as she said those words, I saw the hurt and pain in her eyes. I often wonder how my grandparents and great-grandparents would have reacted to that question. 234 years since the dispossession began, 55 years after the 1967 referendum and 14 years after the formation of the Council of Australian Governments, closing the GAP framework, we are finally talking partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Herein lies the greatest obstacle to overcoming the deprivation endured by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the greatest source of our frustration and sometimes despair. The national project of disempowerment and diminishing our voices that has continued unabated since 1788. The national project started with the concept of Terranullius, the legal fiction that found that despite more than 60,000 years of occupation of this continent, the 500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations had no claim of ownership of their lands and mortars. Can there be a greater act of disempowerment than negating 60,000-plus years of life on this continent? Negating the hugely complex land management techniques developed by our people and negating the unique and complex laws and cultural practices that were created in direct consequence of these ancient ties between human beings, their land, and their waters. These precious knowledges were discounted out of hand by successions of Australians who saw our occupation of land as little more than nomads roaming the lands like so many kangaroos and emus. One of my favorite passages in the novel by Bruce Pascoe in his book, Dark Emu, reads, you would have to work hard to convince yourself or the governor that Aboriginal people were delighted to give away their land. It continued with the casual and callous killings of our families during the long period of conquest and frontier violence. We know there were at least 270 documented frontier massacres over a period of 140 years, starting in 1794. And this is being updated more as research is completed. The first reported massacre occurred when British settlers in the Hawkesbury River area killed seven Bidigal people in reprisal for the theft of clothing and provisions. Some of the surviving children of this raid were taken by the settlers and detained as farm laborers. One boy, who was considered a spy, was later dragged through a fire thrown into the river and shot dead. And the last documented massacre occurred only 90 years ago. This project of disempowerment and demoralisation has seen child removals rise to historically high levels. At present, the rate at which our kids are removed from their families increased by 80% between 2007-08 and 2016-17. I suspect that figure is much higher now. This disempowerment and deafness to our voices has seen our children locked up in detention centres at astronomical rates. According to AIHW's report, Youth Justice in Australia 2020-2021, 53% of youth detention population aged 10 to 17 are Indigenous young people. That's 18 times likely to be in detention as a non-Indigenous person. Indigenous young people comprise approximately, I apologise, there's a figure missing there. I'm not gonna read that bit. So it has seen Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples massively over-represented in the criminal justice system in Australia. As reported by the Productivity Commission as at June last year, Indigenous prisoners made up 30% of all prisoners Australia-wide, despite us making up only 3% of the Australian population. I don't share these undeniably horrifying histories and statistics to gender shame or guilt, but rather to suggest that the predicament so many of my people find themselves in today is a direct result of attitudes largely uninterrupted from 1788 until present day. My speaking to you today is really just another chapter in this ongoing struggle, another chapter in our process for truth-telling, another chapter in understanding a nation's shared history. I need to say at this point that the other key characteristics of Australia's history is the unbroken resistance of the continent's first nations, a resistance which runs parallel with the colonial actions and policies I've just described. It needs to be acknowledged that, despite the false history so often taught in our schools, Australia's first nations never passively accepted the dispossession and the theft of our lands. We resisted in any and every way available to us. In a very early case of this armed resistance, the Bidigal warrior, Pemawai, against the earliest encroachment on Aboriginal lands around Paramatta was so effective that in 1801, Governor Philip Gidley King issued an order which authorized settlers to shoot Aboriginal people on site. Pemawai was shot dead in June 1902. His head was cut off and sent to Sir Joseph Banks for his collection. The Wiradjuri resistance was ultimately defeated. A basic understanding of history teaches us that it wasn't a lack of Aboriginal determination or courage which won the War of Conquest for the British, but the six-shot Colt Revolver, the Snyder Single Shot Breach Loading Rifle, and later the Martini Henry Rifle, as well as the Winchester Rifle. The military defeat of Aboriginal warriors was not by any means the end of our resistance. I want to refer here to the remarkable story of Anthony Fernando, an Aboriginal man who travelled to Europe to protest the genocide of his people during the formation of the League of Nations in 1920. Mr Fernando then went on to unsuccessfully seek an audience with the Pope before picketing the Australian High Commission in London wearing a black coat on which he had painted numerous carved wooden skeletons. Around his neck, he wore a placard proclaiming, this is all Australia has left of my people. Please try to imagine for a minute the courage and perseverance it required for an Aboriginal man in the 1900s to even travel to Europe, let alone to do so in order to publicly protest the treatment of his people. Mr Fernando's extraordinary campaign was followed soon after in the 1930s by the establishment of the Australian Aborigines League in Victoria by the great Aboriginal leader, William Cooper. It was Cooper who, in another story largely unknown to Australians, temporarily put aside his own people's suffering to lead an Aboriginal protest outside the Melbourne German Consulate, which delivered a petition condemning the cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government of Germany. Mr Cooper wrote to Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, calling on him to intervene in the States with the States to persevere, to preserve our race from extinction. Just as the recent Uluru statement from the heart did 80 years later, in 1937 William Cooper and his supporters called on Joseph Lyons to grant representation of our race in the federal parliament. In 1936 Torres Strait Islander Pearl Divers struck for equal wages and the right to control their own affairs. They stayed out for four months and won major concessions from the Pearl Boat owners and the Queensland government. On January 26, 1938, 150 years after the first flits arrival in Sydney Cove, Aboriginal people protested the anniversary celebrations of white Australians in the day of mourning. Strikes, walk-offs, pickets, protests, Aboriginal embassies, freedom ride, the long walk for reconciliation led by Michael Long and pleas from First Nations have continued uninterrupted from these times until the present. Our women were at the forefront of many of these actions from Trugginini to Gladys Elfing, to the late Mum Shirley Smith, to the late Dr. Evelyn Scott and of course, Lowercher O'Donoghue. Women who have been leaders in our communities and organisations. All of these political interventions I've just described have had one common demand. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people want the right to determine our own affairs, to have greater control over our own lives and our ancestral lands and waters. The most recent collective manifestation of First Nations aspirations is the Uluru Statement from the Heart, endorsed by more than 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives from around Australia. The statement starts with a declaration of First Nations sovereignty. Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from their creation, according to the common law, from time immemorial and according to science more than 60,000 years ago. The statement goes on to remind the Australian people that this sovereignty, and I'll quote from the document, has never been ceded or extinguished and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown. A few paragraphs later in this succinct and powerful statement, its writers also endorses get right to the point. Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are alienated from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future. These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness. These few words so well described the cause of our contemporary predicament and the outcome. Powerlessness and torment. And it's not just Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people ourselves who have noticed this truth. Fred Cheney, AO and former Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Founding Co-Chair of Reconciliation Australia delivered the Kran-Lana Governor's Oration in 2018. In his address, Mr. Cheney spoke about the denial and diminishment of Aboriginal agency in repeated government interventions into our affairs. These changes remove Aboriginal agency, the right and capacity to make their own decisions on matters affecting their lives. They diminish both Aboriginal authority and engagement. They deny a right to be different. They serve to strip away the dignity of those who suffer the humiliation and despair of being characterised as not only welfare dependent, but without any social value within their own communities and territories. The Dean of the Australian New Zealand School of Government Professor Ken Smith wrote in an article titled Trust in First Peoples as the Guardians of their Own Futures. In his article, Professor Smith spells out the particular challenges for government and the public service charged with the responsibility of designing and implementing Indigenous policy. Smith wrote, it is difficult for government and those of us in the public sector to acknowledge that we do not have their policy answers. We do not know best. The public policy challenge in Indigenous affairs is immense and the substantive rethink of our assumptions and approaches is necessary. It is vital that we acknowledge this only by recognising our failings can we open ourselves to a new way. These words of prominent white Australians mirror the perspectives of Aboriginal leaders including Senior Gulmach Leader, Gullaroy Inapingu who wrote the following words in the monthly. What Aboriginal people ask is that the modern world now makes the sacrifices necessary to give us a real future, to lax its grip on us, to let us breathe, to let us be free of the determined control exerted on us to make us like you. When we are discussing the power and balance between government, the public service and other key Australian institutions, it's important to be clear about what we mean. We're not talking about the power or strength or resilience of individuals but rather the lack of structural power, our lack of power to direct or even influence the institutions which govern us. Whereas constitutional law expert, Professor Megan Davis wrote, highlighting structural problems is not about highlighting deficits, talking about powerlessness and voicelessness is not to strip away people of agency. We know our people have inner strength and are resilient but we are not talking about personal or cultural power. We are talking about structural power. Indeed, we're talking about structural power. So let me just recap some of what I've said. We know that prior to the arrival of the British, this entire continent and its surrounding islands were owned and occupied by an estimated 500 distinct cultural groups or nations as we describe them. We know that the colonisation or invasion of Australia was not a peaceful settlement as I and many of you were taught in schools but rather a violent and brutal war of conquest in which tens of thousands of Aboriginal men, women and children were killed by cutlass, rifle, disease or neglect. And we know that apart from one or two exceptional cases, the British and then Australian legal systems have generally failed to protect either the rights or the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We know that the First Nations resisted the theft of their lands and waters in all and any ways open to them, military, industrially, diplomatically and through the legal system. We know that at no time did the 500 distinct nations who owned Australia formally cede their sovereignty to the British occupiers. I hope my perspectives today have allowed you to better grasp the enormous power imbalance in the relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the Australian institutions which govern us and why it is this continuing unequal relationship which causes and maintains the powerlessness and disadvantage suffered by many. These two issues, a greater voice for First Nations and an honest conversation about our national history, are the two key demands of the Uluru Statement. The messages I would like to leave with you, however, are these. As academics and students, as Australians, we all have a role to play in promoting reconciliation and breaking with the past policies of control and disempowerment. A new arrangement with First Nations must be negotiated and there is no doubt that many members of your profession will be intimately involved in this process. What brings you to this lecture today? Whatever your reason, whatever your background, whatever your profession, I ask you to consider the potential impact of your work on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Will your professional work serve to further reduce the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people or empower them? We may never be perfect, but we should always be genuine. My challenge to you is to read and understand the Uluru Statement from the heart and what it means. There are supporters and there are critics, but the modest proposals of the Uluru Statement are a great gift from our people to the Australian public, a gift to the Australian nation of a means to drag ourselves out of the interminable tragedy of our dispossession. The gift, if accepted, may mean that your children will live in a reconciled society truly based on a fair go and the off quoted concept of mateship will finally include First Australians. My husband, a non-indigenous, retired policeman, has since prior to the 2019 election worn his Truth Treaty voice shirt every Saturday. Yes, he has a couple. It's not the same shirt. And he told me he will continue to wear this until the day the Uluru Statement is implemented in its entirety. This is his practical step to bring about knowledge, understanding and giving a voice to First Nations people. I want you all to have confidence in the capacity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to make our own decisions, to find the solutions to the dire predicaments so many face. What is preventing us from doing this is not our incompetence, but the refusal of Australia to relinquish any power to us. Before I finish, I wanna read another section from the Uluru Statement from the heart. We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and make a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny, our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to this country. We call for the establishment of a First Nations voice enshrined in the constitution. Makarata is the culmination of our agenda, the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination. We seek a Makarata commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history. The statement finishes with a simple invitation. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future. Sharing this with you today is really just another chapter in this ongoing struggle, another chapter in our process for truth-telling, another chapter in understanding our nation's shared history. The Territory Stolen Generations Redress Scheme contributes to reconciliation and truth-telling. Importantly, it highlights the bravery, strength and resilience of stolen generation survivors in telling their story, as difficult as it is for them to do so, so that people and governments can understand the impact, sometimes devastating, of the decisions previous governments made and continue to make on their lives. These share a common message that there is a need to understand the truths of the past and avoid repeating these wrongs today. Telling the truth about our history not only brings to light colonial conflict and dispossession, but also acknowledges the strength and resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and our cultures. Can I thank everyone for coming today to all non-Indigenous people? Thank you for walking this path with us for there's much to gain. For us to be a truly reconciled nation, a nation that understands, recognise and celebrates our shared history, not a nation that ignores past injustices, ignores our cultural and historical place in our nation, but one that truly acknowledges the past and accepts the truth, our truth. We need you on this path. We need you to help change the hearts and minds of all Australians. And I hope that you will take a quiet moment over the next few days to imagine what a truly reconciled nation we could be. Thank you. Well, thank you, Andrea. Really a confronting but very real reflection of the journey of, I guess, First Nations Australians over the more than last couple of centuries. I think it's really important to understand the struggle and the basis of how we have gotten to where we are today. Now, we're gonna have a chance to take a question and answer. There is a microphone which will move up here, so if you'd like to ask a question, please don't be shy and come down. We are A and U are always about asking questions, and I prefer it to be a question rather than a statement or a diodron. I'm sure Andrea would appreciate that too, but I will start off. In 2016, I really focused on, as the National University, we're part of the Commonwealth, that we have a certain responsibility, probably more so than other universities, but not exclusive, of empowerment, empowerment that we talked about at the end. And so we are seeing that manifest, but it's leading to some interesting challenges that I'd like to reflect on and get your advice as a student who was here not that long ago. We're getting a larger and more diverse set of students as we want from all sorts of walks of life, all sorts of cultures, so it's not a small number of people or actually have, I think, a record number of undergraduate applications and then post-graduates. So do you have any advice for me as Vice Chancellor and staff and students of what we can do to make A and U a place that is a place that can take all of that diversity in from First Nations people and help people adjust and thrive and create this empowerment that we want as a university? Well, that's a tricky question. Straight off the bat. Look, to be really honest, I think the university has come a long way, even since I left here a few years ago. And I think that's certainly a great credit to you all. The establishment and being led by Mr. Yu, those kind of having those faculties and the understanding, I think we just need to engage people more. I don't think people are that engaged. They're interested, but I don't think they're engaged. How we engage them is to keep talking, keep sharing our stories, keep sharing some of the stuff I talked about today. I mean, that's the iceberg. And I probably don't have to tell a university this, but this is just basic research. But I think we just need to continue sharing and learning so that people can understand what empowering us feels like, not only for us as Aboriginal people, but also non-Aboriginal people. I think we've all got a lot to learn. Come on, people. I know I will not be the only person in the audience with questions, so I'll do it, please. Yeah. My question is about that, I guess, empowerment and learning. How do we learn well and learn the right things without relying too much on our First Nations people to take that burden on? Yeah. I kind of struggle with that one a bit because I know a lot of my friends feel it's a burden and that's their prerogative. But certainly for me, I'm more than happy to share. But in sharing as well and learning, we also risk people hearing things about our culture and then taking it as, I've learnt this, so therefore I know about it and then repeating it. Now, I can't speak for Paul's country. I can't speak for anyone's country. And in fact, even on my own country, I can't speak for my country because I'm not an elder. I know my place. But we do run a risk of, and I have seen it, where people have listened to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and then taken that information. But I would rather that, I would rather people hear and learn and talk and for me to share than us to say, we want you on this journey, we want you to understand our histories and where we're going and what we're doing. But I'm not gonna have that conversation with you. I'm the only Indigenous SES in our agency based in Canberra, sorry, I apologise, there's another one. The rest of our SES, Indigenous SES, are out in our regions. So we're called on often for a lot of things, including supporting Indigenous staff. But I'm okay with that. I'm okay to mentor Indigenous staff, non-Indigenous staff because I think that is part of, again, we're talking about truth-telling and understanding history. So I know for some it's a burden but even my call out to my Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander friends is if we're gonna keep standing up and saying we want to be empowered, we want people to understand our histories and our cultures, we've gotta be prepared to step forward as well. Thank you. So one of the reflections that we had at council, so we did have a number of people who were involved directly in the 1992 Margo decision and its aftermath. And I think I guess some of the reflections were that it was a very important place in time but in the last 30 years, maybe not as much change as ended up following as one would have expected, maybe in 1992 and indeed some of the change was not altogether positive. So I guess my reflection is that universities have the opportunity to provide some of the follow through that happens when major changes occur. So the current incoming government has stated that they want to go through a statement of the heart. So provide some advice for the university of how we can help the follow through. So it's a political decision that will hopefully deliver that outcome. But I think we have a lot to do on once that outcomes occurs to get the follow through. So I'm curious to get where you think some of the follow through could happen. Well, our CEO and deputy CEOs had the first opportunity to meet with the new minister yesterday. So we will know more about that ourselves in the coming weeks. But certainly, which I touched on, I think people really need to understand what it means. And I think that's the first place where we all need to start. There are various views about what should come first in the Truth Treaty voice. Is it a third chamber of parliament? All of these sorts of things. So I think the role we all play as individuals, but certainly as an institution, is actually understand what it means and what it's gonna mean. And like I said, there'll be a lot of us who'll be involved in designing that. I will probably lead within my group the what's Macarata look like. Up until now, up until two weeks ago, we were sitting there going, which way is this gonna go? Now we're sitting here going, how are we gonna do this? Big expectations on the agency. Big expectations on the minister, as was with the previous minister, minister Wyatt. You've got two indigenous people leading an agency and the expectation on them has been huge. We've now got an indigenous CEO. Expectation on who is gonna be huge. So an expectation from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-indigenous Australians for us to deliver and make these things happen for First Nations people is significant. But I think it's something that we're all ready for. We're ready for that challenge. And we've got a huge agenda. Not only that, closing the gap. How do we connect all of those things together? So yeah, I'm happy to ring you in a couple of weeks time and say this is what we're doing. These are some of the things. And I know, as I said, we do have a close relationship with the uni, our agency, and further conversations. I know Professor Ian Anderson was my boss, my mentor when he was at the agency. So we've got connections within the uni and the agency to make sure we keep having these conversations. All right, well, I can certainly say that on behalf of the university, we are looking at ways to help Commonwealth and all of its forms get on with the business and not tell you what to do, but be a resource, a resource that is not a think tank, but rather a wide spread set of knowledges. And so we hope that you and others across government will take us up on the opportunity. I think being able to use knowledge, wisdom, experience, evidence as part of the process will be really important. So I'd like everyone once again to thank Andrea and I think a good round of applause would be one of you. Thank you.