 What we're going to do in this session is to, I'll get the facilitators from this morning's sessions to give us a pricy of what was raised in each of those individual groups. And then we'll open up for both the combination of questions and also any comments or any input anyone wants to have about this. What we'd like to get to in the end, I mean everything, there's a potential for a lot of this to be very abstract, to try to get to the point where we can speak fairly specifically about what has been discussed so far and what the potential outcomes may be for Australia and what are the road, what is the road map to moving some of those things forward. So first of all we'll just begin with a bit of a rundown of what happened in each of the sessions today from each of our facilitators. We'll start with Robert. Robert. Thank you Stan. We had an incredibly rich conversation described at one point as a fruit salad and so I'm going to try and reduce the fruit salad to four points. Juice it. Juice the fruit salad to four points. So probably the most important thing to say was a strong endorsement of the importance of the Uluru statement as unfinished business coming from an authentic process from the group. So there was a strong sense that we need not to be advancing interesting and stimulating though all the input has been there was a strong kind of sentiment about not dropping the ball on that and not letting government off the hook on that. So the conversation in that domain quickly moved to how to go forward and there was quite a lot of discussion about the question of voice. A sophisticated and then textured discussion which I can't do full service to which explored the notion of voice being rooted in identity and personal jurisdiction and community not some simple national representative kind of question. A notion of starting at something like a regional building block acknowledging that regions themselves are problematic and that populations in different parts of the country are very differently constituted and in some places we might be talking about men's and women's and children's and old people's sort of tables as a building block in other places it might be about a nation identity language place. There was a sense there also about not ignoring existing structures and again the importance so Congress was discussed and the importance of the peaks but also the PBCs came up again and the importance in the post-determination of world of actually acknowledging the importance that PBCs will play and the need for resources to make that even a possibility. There's a kind of tension here which was acknowledged in the room between on the one hand a kind of just do it sentiment and a great disappointment that government and the parliament haven't taken up the challenge with a strong sense about the pace has to be though the right place and start at a grassroots level not on a top-down level and so there's a potential tension between those two in terms of timing which in the end the group decided to sit with I don't think the group had a resolution for that. The closest to a proposal on this question was a process was sort of coming up with a proposal for a process which might be quite well defined and would be constructed so as to pay respect to the issues I've just gone through. Three other points more quickly about governance there's a lot of discussion about the importance of governance about the importance of agencies the good news that flows from jurisdiction including that when people have to deal with you then good things come from that an example being the way in which the resources sector in various countries post-colonial nations the world has turned around from being very hostile to getting into the reality of agreement making and good things have flowed from that on the flip side the absence of agency is still a shocking burden on Aboriginal communities around the country and people talked about very personal kind of experience of witnessing the pain that flows from that and the shocking inability of government and all its agencies to actually listen second point about governance governance not a panacea so there was quite a lot of talk about this is an important conversation but it doesn't supplant conversations about land the importance of leveraging opportunity from land and pragmatic kind of progress in the range of concrete things around health education community economic development and so on there was now Miriam one of our panellists quoted from someone else's name I forget practices crystallize into rights so the way in which we engage in in the concrete and pragmatic world of progress is governance building and the last point about governance governance not is not linear there's a lot of healing and nation building work to do both inside indigenous communities and in non-indigenous Australia and we there was a reference to again one of Miriam's terms oblique progress that somebody said yesterday about launching an armada and hoping some ships land on a shore there was a very strong sentiment here about government is not the place to start the conversation about governance governments have to be drawn into a conversation about governance but the thing about all the roux was that it started somewhere else and so then the stage of teasing out has to not be lost from community and the last point was a point about celebrating success the lot of what the kind of building of coalition and wider community support in some ways being rooted in the kind of constant deluge of bad news and the resilient refusal of many in the media to celebrate or publicize success and strength in the Aboriginal community. Thank you Tala. Interestingly but probably not surprisingly there were there was quite a lot of alignment amongst the groups certainly I think with everything being on the table we found that we still did centre around those options that had come out of all the route quite firmly again I think to reflect what you've said there there was a fair bit of tension around timing so whose agenda are we being driven by and for what purpose and a need to recognize taking the opportunity to ride a wave of momentum but also taking the time to do things when it makes sense for us and in a way that makes sense for us and the young people in the room urged us not to feel the need to push ahead for the sake of it in order to hand over something that was finished but rather to take a multi-generational approach to such big pieces of change and that they would rather inherit I guess the fight than inherit something they then had to go back and try and fix at a later point in time with respect to ordering the action that it was felt was required I think noting there too that these concurrent approaches are really important that we can't take a very linear view of what should be done next and then comes next and then comes next but rather recognize that we are at a point in time that is a part of a very long journey that will continue much further after we've handed the baton on but that we can with an understanding of the here and now of the political climate of the social climate of the cultural climate of our country and what's happening internationally make some very informed decisions about the sorts of change we go for in the near future with that in mind the order of the action if there is to be one else our conversation centered a little bit away from constitutional reform as the next step and towards the establishment of a body that would or or a body is a good word that a Macorata commission if you like that could start to look at furthering the work of healing and education and understanding both amongst our own population and amongst the broader Australian population about the need for this work it was very important amongst the group that that was an independently funded and brought together body and that it was representative but I think to your point too the rep how that representative structure might be formed was was a conversation to come later it was discussed that this could be a redefinition or or a subsuming of those responsibilities by an existing body but there was some thought in the room that that was also necessary for for that to be something new that was established that had somewhat of a clean slate or a clean mandate to do this piece of work largely the idea of healing and education and narrative change was important they fell out as quite important key next steps for for our group I hope I've done our group some justice there and I'm very very sure that you will tell me if I haven't Dan stand thank you we began our discussion from a point of intergenerational trauma and the effects that that still has and from their leapfrogging directly into what are the ways that that can either be addressed or is already being addressed and heard examples from South Australia from Western Australia of land-based bodies that are working already from a foundation point of economic development while also addressing those issues around intergenerational trauma and it was very clear that there was a line within our or a linear thinking about self-governance being at the core and that that being the outcome or at least the next destination and looking so we looked at a number of different ways of getting there through regional bodies that are land-based but as it was pointed out what happens if there hasn't been a successful native title agreement what then so we talked about different models that could be addressed and could be engaged in to do that there was also a big discussion about whether or not the the voice is something that should sit in or outside of the Constitution whether or not that's a body that should be set up or established and funded by the government or in fact if that's something that should be funded and established from grassroots there was a really strong comment from Dame Tariana Turia who said no one will ever give you power you have to decide how you'll take that back and that was the point I think at which when we began the second stage of our discussions and deliberations where we were discussing where to from here what are the points and that was where the self-government point came out it was also noted that recognition in the Constitution has been seen as a bit of a blip while we're still building a relationship between nation-states and the Commonwealth or other nation-states as it was and also that truth-telling has to be at the core and at the center of everything so we had quite a bit of time discussing how that would happen what that would look like and the mechanisms that would need to be input in place for that we also heard then what are the some of the substantive reforms that that are on the table or indeed should be on the table the questions about representation of course we talked about the next federal election and how the last one was decided arguably by a handful of marginal seats in places like Queensland with big indigenous populations so if you can galvanize the support of those voters can you decide an election outcome and if that's the way that it's going to go do you do an agreement with that party ahead of time and then come knocking the day after the election it was noted that if there's to be a referendum the next day is the most important because that's when the real work gets started of deciding and the negotiations the deliberations that would follow through from there there was also a lot of talk about mechanism using the mechanisms within government coag deliberations between state territory governments and the Commonwealth as well there was a call for the reintroduction of a social justice package which we talked about for some time at the core of that really looking at how you engage in different issue-based matters around the country remote area housing being one of those but of which there were many and it has to be noted there were some within the group saying this is a conversation that it seems to be rehashed every couple of years that we're going around the tree I think five times was the number we it was decided upon that there needs to almost be action well definitely that there needs to be action now there was also a discussion about this assembly of First Nations a voice if you will some sort of mechanism and how how you would get the legal the legal or the body politic around that established and what would that look like there was even a discussion that we had around a two percent black tax that you that was said could be anything any work being done on Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander land that would go into this sort of a body that then becomes the body politic that negotiates directly with the government and we talked a lot about how would that be formed what would that look like and what is the best model for that so that's a truncated version of four hours I know this he was that we haven't covered off on and I hope that those that were in the group who I thank very much for your candor and in our conversation will be bringing up when we get chatting shortly great Lorena thanks Dan same as Dan our group had a very broad ranging discussion to start and then broke up into smaller groups and we didn't have a chance to come back together after that before everybody had to raise to the press club so I'm hoping that our leaders Michael Linder and Ken will add to what was discussed in more detail in the second session after this presentation but I think there are some broad things that came out that I can go through here and they are that we agreed that constitutional recognition was necessary but is it the only game in town we're not necessarily trapped in any process and that can be seen as a benefit to where we are now but there was a plurality of processes and therefore a plurality of options we didn't have as Linda said the luxury of a linear progression we have to work on multiple fronts at the same time the options ranged from what we saw as the very long-term or the almost impossible to recognizing what structures we already have and building upon those think the ways that we already organize ourselves around governance and the key thing that came out I think was that regional bottles were vital that people needed time to and resources particularly to be able to organize themselves in the way they wanted to do on their country around issues that they saw as most important and I think the example of Mildren and Namban was raised who are the two organizations that represent Aboriginal water rights on the Murray Darling they represent about 75,000 Aboriginal people who live on that river system and they are now excuse me organizing themselves around calling for water rights in the end to Aquanullius I guess so and that any process or processes is ongoing that a constitutional recognition is not an end it's the beginning of a process and that any process changes over time as goals are reached or we get close to and that we needed to be prepared for the next day the question again about leadership and generational change what are we leaving unfinished for the next generation and how do we support an accountable leadership and that all that sort of those questions needed to be resolved on a local then a regional then a national level and those processes would bring up the voice and people would then be able to represent themselves the way they wanted at that national level and talk to government and another thing Linda said that was really important was to don't yearn for what is absent but to work for what is possible we talked about what a voice actually meant and how it's constructed and that we are a multiplicity of voices kind of like a choir rather than a singular voice and that searching for that singular voice sometimes blinds us defining the you know a unity of purpose and discussing what is actually possible to be focused on solutions because communities are often doing magical things with absolutely nothing and that's the kind of work that we need to support and yes and any solution we came to needed to involve self-determination at its fundamental point and the transfer of power not just the administration of poverty thank you so we can open this up now for questions if anyone wants to drill down on some of the things that have been raised here and maybe the facilitators can go in a little bit more detail about what was actually discussed or if anyone just feels as if they want to make a comment about what we've heard over the last couple of days some of the issues that were raised in in those meetings the difficulty and we have about an hour left to do this is we want to arrive at the end of this with something that the university can put forward that says here's what was discussed here are potential options these are mechanisms for moving this discussion forward and beyond the walls of this room i think they're just listening to the various sessions and the facilitators pracey four points really emerge for me one is the need for political architecture second is the representative structure that that architecture takes what are the options and the options beyond simply constitutional recognition but and can those options exist concurrently what are the priorities how do you decide on those priorities and the third i think was the strategic aspect of this the alliance building the political strategy the targeting seats building alliances beyond indigenous communities that are necessary to move politics to move politicians to actually act on some of these ideas so let's open it up for um for discussion and any questions i don't have their microphones you have two of the mic for two microphones but two microphones but one person one runner you're going to be busy all right who wants to uh to begin any any first questions or comments everyone's happy we can go we can go home yeah uh pred thank you if we lost the final point that mc dodson made at the lunch which was that one of the things he'd hoped i think he said this would come of this was that the government would reopen the door and start a genuine dialogue i don't want to verbal him they weren't that weren't his exact words but i think that idea i think is really important um what's what's been absent ever since the um the expert panel has been government responsiveness there's no response really to the expert panel uh the committee's very mused response refer it off to another committee then we get a response to Uluru the statement from the heart which is shallow and in my view inaccurate and um reference off to another committee so what's needed is for government to take seriously the need to be in dialogue with the Aboriginal communities and that's i think a really important point that shouldn't be lost at the end of this con is less miles less would you've got to pick up on that this goes to what you raised yesterday particularly in the questions that you put forward and that is this idea of what does government yield uh and how do you negotiate with government when government ultimately is the adjudicator you've been involved in this for a long time what are the strategies that you would see of being able to open those doors increase the capacity for that dialogue and create some leverage um yes thanks Stan for um directing that back to me it was a rhetorical question when I asked it because I had some things you knew the answer in the mind at time yes and um it hasn't received much mention here we've heard a lot about the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a universal standard but the outcome document from the World Conference of Indigenous Peoples I think 2014 it was produced was also a unanimous resolution of the General Assembly and it was an action oriented document for implementing the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Australia was very much involved in the drafting of it and very much pushing on the actions on and our foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop went over to the attend that conference and vote along with the other states to that action document now in there the key ones that are relevant to this question and someone mentioned it earlier today in our group I think is there should be a national plan of action developed that in fact the wording is we as states commit ourselves developing a plan of action in coordination with the national representation of the Indigenous Peoples and that's something that can be implemented and someone has already mentioned that during this conference it also said that we aim to raise the awareness of the parliamentarians and the judiciary and the bureaucracy about the rights of Indigenous Peoples because one of the biggest problems in Australia and personally I think is the biggest problem is we have this conservatism that's inbuilt and I use the word colonialism the other day doesn't go down well in modern times but remember it is a colonial institution developed in 1900 1901 from the British to import the system of government into Australia along with the courts and so on so I'm not throwing them out I'm just really saying remember that we are fighting against something that is institutionally built to defend the status quo of the nation as we all seem to have been involved in and so awareness of the parliamentarians is a very big part of everything that we've been talking about that if we're going to get them to vote to do even just to agree to a referendum but also to legislate to ensure that rights are protected and contained and so on that's going to happen and then there's another one in there which I mentioned yesterday which was that the states say we commit ourselves to establish a mechanism to adjudicate disputes over land between Indigenous peoples in the state and you know generally the process in Australia has been in different states and territories and at different times to take your claim even native title called claim or it actually isn't a claim it's a continuing right to take your claim and the government will decide whether it will give it up or not and then everybody else's interest is taken into account in the process so we don't have the systems that we need to have to be able to exercise and enjoy our rights and then of course the obvious one there is also the issue of actual government governance itself we have a number of Indigenous governments or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander governments in Australia particularly in Queensland but also Pinchangara council or APY lands or whatever it is in other areas they do act as governments and then do carry on and so on so to institutional to deal with that in terms of the way of the political system is not to cry about a third chamber of parliament and as far as I'm concerned cabinet is a third chamber of parliament but to talk about how to integrate the way the Indigenous peoples and the way the Indigenous peoples have their institutions of decision-making and operating and so on recognising knowledge and accepted in the whole political system so there are some very practical things I've only mentioned a few that have already been laid out that Australia has committed itself to along with all the other nations which are seen to be effective ways to implement because talking about implementing the rights has been talked about at the international level for all those years including when the declaration was being drafted up to 2007 so I hope that provides at least some of the ideas one other thing I should now leave it at that because the judiciary does need some focus on it not because I want to get rid of courts or change courts but remember that there can be new courts created and and what the mandate of the court and even what the composition of that court is and so on and I'll finish by saying that Aboriginal representation on the courts of course is just as important as in the parliament thank you Stan. Mick would you mind speaking to this as well because Fred did say it was one of your comments at the press club that this idea of being able to get the government to reopen this discussion we know that there is the parliamentary inquiry underway at the moment that's hearing submissions on moving forward on Uluru but what strategies Mick or what ideas would you have in terms of being able to reopen or re-energise that dialogue? Gee Stan you give me big licence there. Now I don't really think that it's very useful at this stage to be setting agendas because if the door gets reopened I don't think we should walk in with an agenda. We should walk in with an open hand and say look do you want to talk them out on an agenda? They say no we walk out again but there are certain crucial things that I mentioned in my opening remarks at the press club that really are elephants in the room you can't avoid them you know big grey thing with a long nose and being always about a ton and a half little short tail that moves very slowly and takes up a lot of room and you don't have to be around to feel the grass when they're fighting that's another story about an African proverb but you know I still believe that we can't isolate this this and this so certainly we can say we'll deal with this now we'll deal with this we'll put this off we'll do that but we can't say this is on the table and this is off the table. Certainly for some people constitutional recognition is on the table I personally don't think that's that's that important but a lot of people do so I'm not going to understand in a way but it wouldn't be my priority but it'd be on my list. I think the fact of 1788 and what flowed from that is something we need to address urgently and we certainly need to address the racism or the capacity of our constitution to allow racism that's going to be addressed that that's urgent because as long as the parliament has that power and we have no say on what happens in the legislature we're going to get done over at every turn and now you know they're always holding the joker our cards are always going to get trumped for somebody else's joker and it's usually the other 90 percent 97 percent their interests get looked after and what's left over falls off the table to us we need to stop that happening no we need to reduce 67 we need to do something about 9001 but there's this century of frontier wars that we also have to do something about that's part of the recognition I'm doing some work in Victoria around the Trish Lone Settlement Act and the recognition settlement agreements for TAs in Victoria the idea of recognition is huge they want that and in their agreements they say well you councils if you build a new road you've got to give it an Aboriginal name for that you've got to put signs up you've got to tell people that this is our mobs country you're going to tell everybody who lives here or visits here the tourists that come in here that this is our land where the Trish Lone is it's really important to them it's about identity it's about crushing results of colonisation on of their peoples and their lands you know the moment I'm working with about 10 percent of their people still live on their traditional lands there's essentially been driven out there out of there you know they've become non entities non identifiable you know until recent years no one none of the white fellas know who's a traditional country at Wallace you know that's really important to people and I'll just tell that story because recognition is important to people constitutional recognition to me isn't a priority but I know how important it is to people because I think we've got to fix the racism first and we got to get a treaty and we got to do a voice and we got to do a whole range of other things you know and recognition will fly from that I think but I'm I'm open minded in this I'm prepared to accept other points of view and look at those but the thing the important thing is that we can't stand still we've got to bloody do something before I open it up again to the room Tony McAvoy you raised a very specific political strategy didn't you in in the meeting and that is how you actually make the political process the ballot box work for you and the potential leverage that that could bring could you just go through a little bit of those a little bit of that thinking for us I'll try and do my best I've got some muttering in my ear I can't I don't know there's a whole host of ways in which we can exercise influence and power political influence and power and one of it is by organizing ourselves and organizing ourselves in the in the fashion and the manner that we see ourselves ultimately expressing our governance we we we build those foundations now but that doesn't mean we don't engage in the the mainstream political system and one of the observations I made in the group that I was in that was that the last federal election was decided by two seats in Queensland there were five marginal seats five seats that came down to a handful of votes and and they were seats in in Townsville Rockhampton the south side of Brisbane seats which are full of Murray's and we know from the AEC records that our our voter registration our voter turnout doesn't match our population I think that if we were serious we would we would try and identify where those seats are coming into the next election and and make a concerted effort to get as many people as we can on the roll and say to the governments to go to both the major parties well we're going to vote for whoever does the best job for us we're going to make sure our people vote for us and we will if we'd have done that in the last election we would have delivered government to one side or the other so we can be strategic about it that that was the point I made thank you no good point anyone else wants to make a comment or a question that we could begin with one I wanted to just make two comments colonialism is still alive and well in Canada as you look at the way the frame legislation and policy in Canada is still tries to maintain you know government control and what they do even is for example they passed the First Nations Education Governance Act and they put that word First Nations Education Governance Act in there to make it look like it was our legislation was theirs and it still had in there built in total control to the Minister of Indian Affairs you know so they use language you have to really watch language very closely on how they frame things so colonialism is still alive and well in my country the point about elections you know it's a very interesting discussion we have such a diversity of philosophical thought about that amongst our First Nations because we you know a lot of us believe that these are not our governments we vote for our own governments first nation governments and our own institutions but a number of us have advocated that we hold our nose and strategically vote and that's what we've been doing and we we have that did the analysis about where there are writings that can be swung and you know we've done it both for federal and provincial elections and have had an impact not so much recently in the provincial election but in the previous provincial election and definitely in the last federal election and there are also areas of the country where the First Nations populations are quite significant in those writings as well to the point where they can control the outcome of those writings so those types of things have to be analyzed very meticulously the real challenge is to sustain that kind of strategy because the next time election comes around a lot of people don't go out and vote again we've had that that problem we were able to affect some changes in writings we were able to also challenge the parties and their platforms to hear our concerns and you know indicate that we would vote with the party that would support our issues and it had to have some success but the trick is to keep sustaining it because again our people go back and say well I'm just voting for my own chief and council I'm only voting for our own regional chief for our own national chief I'm not interested in this foreign governments but again there's a strategic vote so I know even myself I can say that most of my adult life I never voted in a federal or provincial government vote and I have voted a couple of times where I've held my nose and cast the vote for a strategic reason so that's a discussion I think that needs to be looked at here because if you do have those kinds of opportunities to strategically vote even if you don't you know have the final effect on the outcome of the government at least the potential is there I know in Canada where the fastest growing population and a lot of these cities and towns and the cities are growing because of immigration they're bringing in 600,000 plus immigrants a year into the country and primarily into the urban centers and that's where a large number of seats are but out in the outlying areas the First Nations numbers are significant so we we can have an impact on on those on those writings and and and it has been it has been proven to to work. Thank you, Patrick. Another part of the discussion was this idea of representative structures if you're going to have a political architecture of some type how does it speak to the diversity of indigenous communities how diffuse a lot of the communities are the dispersal historically of people who find themselves living off-country if this is going to be land-based how does that represent people who don't live on their traditional lands and who actually has a voice but anyone like to speak to the idea or ask a question about the idea of representative structures and what are the potential options for them I think yeah great thanks Rock. Thanks Dan can I thank everyone for their contributions this week and I've listened very carefully the first thoughts again not picking on Mick but I sometimes think that there's a black elephant in the room and I mean that sincerely because we have very seldom heard this week and in other conversations about the representative body that I speak for those 9 000 individuals and the group of people that worked hard to establish the Congress are we going to dismiss their right or their choice to create a model that they decided that they wanted to represent their views and then go for something else and just dismiss that so this is not about Rod Little this is about representing the views of those organizations those peak organizations that are in this room that are members of Congress Lez Co-Chair Jackie Co-Chair Mick you're a special advisor to the establishment of Congress and many others in the room what I want to ask of people within this room and across this nation are we prepared to be truthful to ourselves and work together to explore what are the possibilities for ourselves and for our peoples collectively to show the love and I know I mentioned this last week Ron you were in the room and I talked about love show the love that we have for our people to give hope to those who are trying to manage poverty in those communities when we're talking at this level about constitutional change that might mean nothing to them that they might think that is this constitution or the referendum going to stop suicides in my community tomorrow those are the kinds of questions and I ask that people reflect on themselves and their decisions and their conversations but as I said are you prepared to work with the national congress to progress to a point of where we are that we can agree on strategies to go forward that Congress is not to do everything but to do something that contributes to the end goal where we want to be in the future it may not be the perfect model we understand that and we are open to the solutions that many black people in our community that said we have got solutions and we do have I believe that strongly but my plea is can we work together a lot better than we have been including a lot better than we have in the last couple of days that's the challenge and I am prepared to work with anyone black white multicultural brothers and that from overseas and sisters to pursue the best possible outcome for us if we get another rejection what then if we go to seek permission from governments to satisfy our needs to comply with the rhetoric then what then what can we do as first peoples so if you have something already that's been established by the people give it a go it's only what eight years old at sick was 14 15 plus years people began to get used to that but we're going to throw the baby out with the ball bathwater here that's a challenge to everyone thank you Rod while you're there could I get Jackie as co-chair Jackie could you just speak to a couple of things I think that Rod raised there that for other people in the audience here who may not be totally familiar with Congress you could fill in how this works how does Congress deal with those questions of the diversity and the diffusion of indigenous communities and individuals who seek to have their voice represented in the multiplicity of interests and differences of opinions and strategies and options that people might be looking for and secondly how do you to go back to Fred's original point how do you go to re-engaging with government well we know the history of Congress is that that relationship particularly the last couple of years has been especially fraught on your first point we've got as Rod said about 9000 members 200 organizations all of our peak organizations members of Congress in this country so it can't be said that we're not representational we have members from Tasmania to the Kimberley to every state and territory is covered okay now myself and Tom Kalma I don't know if Tom's in the room but Tom actually chaired the steering committee to set up the national congress post at sick right it was determined by our people we had a hundred people come to an Adelaide workshop there we were put up because we had you know the void of at sick with us there was no national representative voice now in relation to representational status yes our members are covered all over Australia the only thing is of course we got defunded in 2014 along with the rest of us with a you know half a billion dollar cut to Aboriginal services in our country so it's been very tough very tough indeed in fact it's probably the toughest job I've ever had ever had in my 40 years of you know working in these areas so when we were defunded you know we're living off some savings but also some of our user pays from governments and some fundraising that we do and as you know had to fundraise to get myself to the UN this year which I know that all the other indigenous groups over there found quite disgusting back to your question so we have that opportunity but we can't have funding to go to remotes and regional centres because we just can't get there because of the expense and so forth and what was the second question just in terms of just in terms of opening that dialogue again what strategies are you employing to try to to get back in the door if you like or even renew that funding or or to perhaps marry the aspirations of Congress with the move for constitutional reform and the voice hmm well we've always said it's not about money for Congress but resources help of course so that we get proper staff on and be able to do these travels but you know we've reengaged when we came to Congress Rod and I two and a half years ago there was no engagement with government we weren't even speaking with them we had a word of wars against them of course along came the Redfern statement and the fact that we said we will not be silenced we will not be siloed and we'll get together our peak organizations and other national organizations to do something as a platform towards that last election that we had we did this and we stayed together within that structure but still we haven't had the policy shift or the change or the engagement from government that we would have sought so you know whilst we've all been busting our guts virtually in terms of trying to bring that relationship up to par it just has not happened we're continually trying to bang at the door of governments but you know as people in this forum have said in workshops that I've been in is that like at sick like us you know the voice for our people I really do I really do I'm frightened by the prospect that this next voice whatever shape form or model it takes will not will be treated like us so you know this is the real dilemma that we that we face in terms of setting up something but not using the existing structures to enable us to do that because you know we're even at a loss as to why not but we're there for you as congress you are our members and we will continue to you know strive for justice for our people in this country but if people want to come up and have a private discussion with Rod and I later that that's quite okay I don't want to take up too much that's a good idea no thanks for that Jackie does anyone else want to respond Muramu yeah do you want to respond to this idea I was actually going to come to you as no no no no no I'll come to you now with this idea of representation because what you're doing is quite distinct it's it's an innovation on this and this idea of the Adingi nation and how you seek to interact with the government if you could just fill us in on that and maybe respond a little bit as well to what Jackie has had to say the microphone's on its way thank you go by a girl and you do God's peace be upon you all here today thank you very much I thought that just quickly I'll answer your question but one thing that I've noticed that have been lacking is the spirit and I think from our point of view I think it's really important to people to consider who created them and the tribal societies that exist on this continent to have a creator and and laws and dominions, imperium and eminence and things like that and maybe it's something to consider when these questions arise look at yourself and if you're seeking the truth I think those things will come forward from another world I can talk about what we're doing we've set up a legal personality subject to and created with the the Adingi law and we've done that because we can see an issue we can see that the constitution that Australia has has some sort of error or mistaken it's one thing to point it out but it's another thing to provide a remedy and I think that's what everyone in this room is is talking about how can we provide a remedy from the Adingi nation point of view we're trying to assist the Commonwealth externally of the Commonwealth a lot of these discussions I hear here are within inside of Australia and you know all those personalities created by and subject to the Commonwealth of Constitution Act 1901 should uphold the constitution and you know no one should exceed the powers of the constitution the Adingi nation has a number of has offered a blueprint towards a treaty to the Commonwealth of Australia last year we don't want any money and we're happy to help settle the past secure the future to underwrite the Commonwealth all these things that people maybe should consider these things but we're here to help and as I say to our friends at the PM and see that Adingi is Australia's best friend if we're talking about treaty if I was going to get to a wedding there'd be two people in front of me at the moment the Commonwealth is maybe looking to treaty with someone but they just can't see at this moment another party there the Adingi government is that party right now so there are two separate parties and that's why John Howard I think said that a nation can't treaty with itself because it's sort of internal it's talking to itself at the moment what the sovereign Adingi government has done is created this other partner to help the Commonwealth continue and I think that's where we're coming from however if Indigenous Australians want to look at remedies within Australia within a state-based treaties or national Congress and stuff then that's really up to them but that's how we're approaching it it's a little bit different it's a different universe where aliens trust me I've been abducted by aliens and so yeah that's where we're coming from more than happy to talk about it a little bit further face-to-face with other people but just at least consider that it's very it's a long way it's a long it's a long road but we're here to help that's all I can say to the agents of the Commonwealth of Australia today thank you that does raise the question of options doesn't it can I can I go to you Dan and then back out to the general audience here what were options that were on the table in your discussion what were the range of things that people were talking about well one of those was in fact the the Congress and looking at is is that fit for purpose now and does that have the capability and the only reason I didn't go through that is because there was so many that we that we talked about but one of the things that was mentioned was around the law reform that might be required to then make that useful or to be able to fit the purpose of the voice and the and the First Nations forum so that was certainly something that we discussed and sorry I didn't mention I and realized immediately that I should have flagged that but we talked about what legal mechanisms are already in place and that being the one that we kept coming back to so sort of establishing something brand new that was the point that we had landed on and the other one of the other points was around there was an enormous amount of work and goodwill that went into the Uluru statement but after that the Prime Minister saying no one of the suggestions was perhaps coming back to that and having those delegates gathering again to go to decide right where to from here this has been the roadblock put in place by the Prime Minister on this point where where is delegates you decided on this structure do you think we need to go to from here so those were kind of the two distilled areas that we really came down to there were lots of other discussions but if for for brevity I think that those were and Carla you said I think that there was a sense in your group that this should not proceed at a rush you don't push ahead for the sake of it that this is part of a journey what was the the thinking behind that I guess the thinking was that taking it back to again that question of for whose purpose are we moving towards a specific goal and if constitutional reform is on the table for government's purpose and not for ours then we shouldn't rush at that but we should take our time to consider whether or not as a step forward if there is momentum towards that and goodwill and movement amongst the population that we should be able to to move ahead but rather that the the sense is that broadly and we saw this through the recognised campaign we've heard it out of the multiple different consultations that have happened since the general Australian population doesn't have that much information with respect to constitutional change they you know we heard a lot around the recognised campaign that people thought we had a bill of rights they didn't know we had a constitution they don't know what's in there they don't know what the process for changing it is we heard within our group discussions about the ease with which things can be well not ease the relative ease with which things can be taken out but that adding things in which is also one of the options is incredibly difficult so that we should approach that with some caution and also approach this with a view to bringing as many people along with us as possible and that possibly in the moves that we've seen previously specifically around reconciliation as well that what we've had in other countries with truth from reconciliation we haven't had that same process here yet and that the truth telling piece may need to come before constitutional reform in order to address the relationship issues between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians to prepare an environment that is ready for constitutional reform. So does anyone who is involved in those discussions want to raise any questions or or make any comment about this idea of options and pace that clearly is emerged as a as a significant issue with with everyone here Robert do you want to make there was one other option which I think came up in a couple of groups it did now is which was to define a proposal which defines the process through which First Nations leadership would engage with government to define an option so there's a kind of process option if you like that that was talked about at some length. Yes Mick and then then we'll come. Mick? Sorry you're well I didn't have a choice the first one but sorry take four again. I mean this session is called in part you know where do we go from here and that's a question I'm unable to answer but I have some thoughts about it and my focus at least has been to try and get the government to open the door again and I haven't thought about who's going to walk through that until Jackie and Rod raised issue about Congress you know I'm totally comfortable with Congress leading a delegation to through that open door and how that's comprised who goes with Congress is another discussion we black fellas have to have so that I just want to assure people that from a news point of view as the conveners and as the K convener of this forum we don't have any thoughts about how the delegation is comprised that's a matter for the Aboriginal people to make sense that Congress ought to lead it and then we have to have a discussion amongst ourselves and the people who are at Uluru about who who's who makes up the delegation that's reignites the conversation and if we if the Prime Minister gives a bit of ground says well I'm interested in talking about all of these things we then put the bite on him so we can get as many of our people involved in supporting it um the we don't I just want to reassure people the university doesn't have an agenda beyond getting that door open that was what we're trying to do let's hope it happens and I'd be totally comfortable that Congress be resourced that's a condition of going through the door be resourced to get the delegation together and to report back to everybody so maybe we can think about that yeah thanks thanks me um yeah that one you'd like to have a comment and then I'm sorry come in I'm just trying to work around the back and down the front thank you um look um those of you don't know me my name is Blimey Williamson I work for the governance institute my boss is here so I've got to be careful um but um it seems to me over the last day and a half or so there's been few people willing to push back on a bit of this stuff so I guess I'll do it I think we really need to meaningfully identify engage with the fact that we are still trapped in a very deficit frame of mind a very deficit consciousness and I think that this a large part this um this event has been testimony to that um I think the scene would have been set very differently if we led with some some of our black fellas sort of getting up and talking about who they are you know where they're from and in fact we're still here um and I think that that's my criticism is all of the Uluru statement it puts us as a very proud strong people but it puts us as a proud strong people in the past and it puts us as a hopeless powerless people in the present and I just that's not my experience growing up you know and it was said by one of our panelists in our session that answering the question of what we want is really difficult I don't think it's very difficult at all you know we just we want our communities and our nations to have the power to choose and then have the power to pursue them choices and in respect to this idea of waiting for a door to open you know and I'm not I'm a young fella and I respect everything that everyone's yeah all their elders have done and the and the fights they've had it doesn't inspire me the idea of standing standing in a hallway up there waiting for for some white wallet to fuck it open the door you know um what inspires me you know my mum and my nan and um neither of them ever asked any white fella for anything I think the only thing my mum ever asked a white fella for was for a divorce but you know I think the idea of a truth-telling commission has a lot of merit and um I seen on that sign over there and we're talking about Macrider and I was in the Uluru statement it's got 2017 I think it needs to be added that it went through in the 70s and in the 80s you know a lot of the old people and senior people in this room were a part of that and it does not do you justice to not have it on there but yeah and in terms of progressing the conversation you know we don't need to wait for them fellas we we sit on that many boards and we're that many chairs we've got that many CEOs what's there are multiple avenues of having the conversation you know we're like it's like there's one single partner that we're waiting for and it's you know it's not it's not what like it said inspires me so I'll leave it there yeah thank you for that yep just down the front first of all I want to say big thank you to everyone who organized this forum um I think what we really need to do as part of this whole situation is again coming back to your conversation in comments before we need to visit every single community in this country to work out what our rural Indigenous people need what our city Indigenous people need what every Indigenous person in this country might feel are the issues holding us back um obviously that's going to take a lot of time but as for your comments you're right it's time we bust down that door we don't wait we need to talk to them when we're ready not when they're ready thank you Liz and then does anyone have their hand up over here no Liz the back and then yeah thanks and just one down thank you um I apologize also for taking the floor again I promise this will be the last time I just uh on your question of time and we shouldn't be too impatient and rush things I agree entirely but also I thought it was inappropriate to just remind people that if we had back those things that we've lost since 1972 we probably will not be aspiring coming together and meeting we would be in fact self-determining I'll give you an example for example when the Whitlam government decided that the common one for sure more responsibility for Aboriginal affairs to ensure that there were not different rights being enjoyed by Aboriginal people in different states and territories um was a significant change after the results of the 67 referendum and then of course he his government brought in the Racial Discrimination Act and along with that there were other anti-discrimination laws like the Queensland Discrimination Act which overrode Queensland laws and also not many of you might remember the Councils and Associations Act which overcome the fact that the Queensland Government would not register Aboriginal organisations in Queensland and provide an alternative way not only for Aboriginal corporations to form but actually for Aboriginal governments to form and since then so we've lost that in that legislation they've removed that bit about Aboriginal councils uh governance being able to form um it was taken out it shouldn't have been taken out it was there that's one thing we'd be enjoying now but we had the Northern Territory Land Rights Act come in 1976 following the Woodward Commission there has been nothing like the quality of the Woodward Commission since including looking at the Marbeau decision um because um it recognised that true land rights comes with control and ownership over what happens to the minerals and other developments in in the territory and the promise was that that legislation or those rights would be conferred to all Aboriginal Torres Strait Island people in Australia um under the Labor Government and it was being negotiated um to come in in 1985 and then it was suddenly pulled because of the West Australian election some of you might know the reasons why that happened so we would have national land rights complying with all the rights in the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 1985 if the government had implemented that legislation they'd taken the steps they formed the um Aboriginal Consultative Group that were negotiating on the legislation of the drafting and everything and as I said they suddenly pulled it then we saw ATSIC being put in place after the government got rid of the National Aboriginal Conference and ATSIC has everything that we aspire to in the voice as a voice to parliament it was made up of representatives it very extensive up to 400 elected delegates around the countryside consisting of local regional councils national commissioners and even state bodies which we're dealing with the state and territory governments it would deal with steering uh senate estimates one of the things that mcdotson has said we've got to get in there and call for accountability through the senate estimate process any legis any bill that hit the table uh and during the life of ATSIC was met with a number of lawyers and bureaucrats along with the papers to talk about that bill and whether or not it benefit Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people it's another thing that we aspire to about the prior informed consent for uh many legislation and laws and matters and that was there um ATSIC was able to remodel itself every time they had election every three years the review would be conducted to say does this structure work for its purposes and if any change had to be made to improve the modelling it did that it had a budget of over a billion dollars delivering programs and services to Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander peoples it could make its own policy it could make its own decision about the where those um services were delivered in Moira and that under the legislation that was intended to be made by each of the regional councils operating autonomously in terms of what they could they could do and so on now probably uh left out a few things as well but I really wanted to say if those things were given back to us the ones that were taken off then um there wouldn't be any reason I think for us to mediate other than to say how well we're doing um so the thing about what's urgent what's not urgent comes into question and those things that we've lost should be urgent they should never have been taken away we should never be sitting in the situation now where there's a number of discriminatory things been done including discriminatory laws being made since ATSIC was abolished they would never be ATSIC would never have allowed it during their days and so on so there is a certain urgency that when it comes to equality non-discrimination tomorrow is not good enough must be today in terms of other aspirational things that we might under achieve we would be able to do that as Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander peoples through our own representative organisation that was sitting right next to and involved with not only the national government but all the state and territory government so I'm saying this because I haven't got many years left I've been fighting for 45 years now and um I would like to see some results in my lifetime as you know people like Kauike Marbow and others didn't but I really do want to say that yes let's not rush into silly things silly decisions or things that might work against us in the long term but also let's not be patient about what is really just discrimination and oppression of our peoples thank you yes hi everybody um I won't be offended if you park this question because it's a bit like the next step it would be awful if we walked away from having this great meeting and there was no behind-the-scenes diplomatic work with other people that are having this very conversation that aren't in this room and we all know that there are some very very heavy hitters politically that aren't necessarily politicians that are having this very same conversation about a model and where to go from here and I'm just wondering who is going to take the leadership on bringing the different angles of where Aboriginal people are coming from to a point where we can work towards that unity that Brooke was talking about yesterday Sean could I just get you to speak to that just in terms of the ANU and what as we get to the to the end of the session here to what you're hoping the ANU can take away from this what strategies arise from that and how do we take the information and the discussion that we've had here out to a to a broader audience and we raised this question earlier the ANU is looking at concrete measures they're putting things in place that it can actually deliver on a lot of the discussion here today thanks Dan now I'm really like you I'm really nervous because my boss is sitting over there and he and he gets up and speaks in a minute for those who I haven't had the pleasure of meeting I'm Sean Innes and I'm along with as me would I've been responsible for helping the content of these last few days pull that together the power of the university is its ability to convene and the power of that convening role is that we don't run an agenda that we compose questions we can bring together people with deep understanding of those questions we can allow discussion and debate emerge as I think has occurred in the last two days we as a university are committed to continuing this conversation the public policy hub that I lead has a mission of helping create and have the deep conversations that will define the world we want by 2060 and this is definitely part of one of those important conversations exactly what happens next I think depends on a few things we will be capturing the discussion across the last two days and providing that to the parliamentary committee which some of you appeared before yesterday we will also be thinking as me and myself about what other conversations we should create what I think we'll do is probably wait until that parliamentary inquiry has reported so that we've got at least the next response from government in front of us so that we can make a decision I think the point you've made about the conversations that are occurring elsewhere is very important and we're very keen to understand what they are because they are part of an important dialogue that's occurring not just here but nationwide I don't know if that's fully answered your question stand but hopefully that gives people a sense thank you sure and with that I'd like to introduce now Professor Brian Schmidt we have come to the end of our session and for Brian Schmidt to deliver the final closing remarks thank you all right well I'm going to keep it relatively short because I think the summing up that we have from Stan and all of you is probably the most important outcome I'd also like to thank Sean for taking at least part of my final remarks but I guess from me this really has been a wonderful and inspiring conference even if it is a little confronting but that doesn't mean things cannot be inspiring and wonderful I really want to thank everyone too many to be mentioned who brought this event together and have participated many of you have traveled a long ways to get here and used your valuable time to help us and I also would like to thank our generous sponsors we have heard over the past couple days how cabinet's response to the URU statement from the heart has unnecessarily stymied the progress that one would have hoped would have happened after what was really a transformative consultative process we have heard that this journey is not just the people of First Nations issues an issue for all of Australia and all of its people and as the National University it is our role as Sean has said to facilitate the conversations that a nation needs to have but often decides not to that is certainly one of the my big goals of being vice chancellors to have conversations that need to be had and this is our first one because I think it is the most important and our goal has been is to encourage discussion so that the conversation for the nation can restart and move forward and so I am of the view that this conversation needs to be asserted by the population and not by the politicians to help us find the pathway the mirror that mirror I need to have on him until to help me in language talk about that is really what we've been trying to do to find that pathway and we've held it here an old parliament house for symbolic reasons beginning the process with the smoking ceremony to symbolize the renewal necessary to continue the conversation and it is the intent of this foreign forum to deepen the national conversation and demonstrate what might be possible because as said Australians are remarkably conservative they're scared and they need not be and I hope that we have shown through this that the way forward is not actually scary it is something quite the opposite something we should be embracing and to do this we've invited people from around the world with similar experiences to talk about their journey so far and I hope that has shown us what's possible and from that conversation has come really important reminders that this is an ongoing discussion in all nations with first nation communities both within those communities themselves and within the nation states they reside in we have seen from the Scandinavian experience showed that democracies were not adversely affected by having a Sami parliament we have seen the pure autonomy granted to the first nations in North America and the fundamental way that first nation sovereignty is embedded in of the Maori is embedded within New Zealand's governance and those are of course great nations that I think we all respect and feel are equals I see the opportunity to create from these conversations from this and network of indigenous researchers institutions from around the world all these countries have ongoing issues and we have so much to learn and share so that maybe isn't so much about Australia but that is something I think globally we can learn from this so I will be working with the National Center for Indigenous Studies to help seed this network and of course the participants from around the globe and around the country will be as a starting point of that so I thank you for that moving forward as Sean has said the parliamentary inquiry provides an opportunity for us to express the richness of the conversation we have had and make sure it has heard there is of course an opportunity to think about a referendum process but I think we have heard that there are many many other paths that might make more sense and that again is something that I think will emerge when a conversation is had what we will be doing is collating all the ideas and feeding them to the general public indigenous groups and through parliamentary processes we are open to how we might best do that feel free to provide advice but we will follow up this conversation with activities for at least the rest of the year to make sure that the conversation doesn't just die that it continues and we will do our best to involve as much of the Australian population in this conversation but as Sean said universities are not advocacy organizations and so I do hope this conversation that has been had will gain its own sustaining energy and I encourage the groups here to think about how we've heard several ideas of taking control asserting your sovereignty and having that conversation I also want to say that I was very pleased to hear the voice of the young generation here this is fresh it's enthusiastic and it's optimistic but it's firm and I think it's a voice that we would be well served not just listening to but empowering and yes they will certainly benefit from the wisdom of the elders but I think they are likely to be the generation that is able to make the huge progress that each of us wants so I am personally confident that we have achieved what we wanted to set out with this conference but I recognize it is a step a step of a marathon that needs to happen but we need to keep taking steps and eventually you will get your 26 miles and so I encourage each of you who have been part of this and I do thank you all to keep talking with each other take the opportunity of the new people or the old people you have reacquainted yourself with keep talking each other and keep the conversation alive it is your voice not ours thank you all for joining us at Australia's National University please come back whether or not you're Australian or from anywhere in the world we look forward to visiting with you and of course you will see us at your institutions as well now I'm waiting for a four minute video to see if it has finished rendering is it done if not I'm going to have Lauren finish proceedings on the dour note of buses and things but once again thank you all and I do I really from the bottom of my heart thank everyone's pure engagement on this thank you okay so rather than some elevator music while we're just waiting for the film it's a couple seconds away I'll just run through what's happening from now for the people who need to make their way to airports and things but before I do I just wanted to draw your attention to the illustration again so if you haven't had an opportunity to engage with the illustration and share your ideas on the post-its we'll be collating all of all of those and producing some digital artworks out of the wonderful illustration that Devin's been working so hard on over the course of the last two days so I really invite you to come up and engage with Devin and also with the illustrations and take some pictures to go and show your networks what you've been up to this week another reminder is just that if you can please take your name badges out of your plastic sleeves and leave your plastic sleeves with the con log staff or on your tables these little name tags are made out of seeded paper from recycled paper so you can plant those when you go home there are some native flowers in there there's a few different types we also have the buses that are due to depart very shortly from the airport to from here to the airport and then at 345 we have another one taking people back to the hotels and then lastly I'd just like to thank all of our international speakers and domestic speakers have been wonderful to work with in organizing to get them here and if they could please stay behind once we've seen the film we have a little gift of thanks to give them and as a last note we'd also like to thank Stan Grant for coming and sharing his time with us he's been very generous with his time and we hope that he's contributed to the experience of everybody okay so the film has arrived yeah okay so we're ready to screen the film if everyone like to turn their attention to the screens not to walk away I would love to walk away from it all and just live on country but you can't do that because we haven't been given that right you know this is where the enslavement of our rights have been taken over by the clonilistic attitudes but a united front is what we all want so let's stick with that a united front the australian national university is by its name the national university and our job is to convene the conversation our nation needs to have and so we are trying to use our power to convene to bring people from around the country around the world to have this conversation in a way that we can move forward together can the claims of indigenous peoples can peoples who've been colonised who've had the state imposed on them find a voice in the state can liberal democracy be enlarged to incorporate the rights of the first peoples that's the fundamental question and it's not just a question for australia it's a question asked the world over what we need to know about this moment in time and in history is that it is incredibly important that we need to grasp this moment with all of our hands and make the most of the opportunity that we have in front of us to really build the kind of future that we want to see in this country for our young people sometimes we get caught up in a fiction that the law is just set and that we haven't made the law and so the law can be changed and the law can be reformed and remade and that's something that is definitely within the capacity of our leaders and it's a discussion that we need to be having one criticism perhaps of thinking big is oh you need to be concrete we've got to think of just steps that will be acceptable today and i'd like to make a plea for the power of imagination we've got to think big to achieve any change what's wrong with the australian government and the state governments sharing sovereignty with aboriginal people the original people of this country because aboriginal sovereignty is talking about what we once had and what was illegitimately taken away in new zealand we think that we've nearly got it right but the reality is that institutional racism pervades every aspect of our lives so you're up against it but you can fight back and you don't have well you mustn't put out with that respect is a starting point and we have to have a good understanding of both history and the now we have to be truthful in how we talk to each other we all have to be sensitive to the goodwill in each other and be prepared to work across the barriers that do exist the rights of first nations the rights of indigenous peoples are human rights and we must not believe but any movement in this direction is a charitable act us giving them something we're talking about fundamental human rights the difference in australia is that we are an outlier in a real legal and political sense what we're trying to do now is to take that history where indigenous sovereignty was ignored or extinguished and bring it alive again today in us is the spirit of all of the people who have come before us and there are people who survived incredible scenarios and incredible challenges so we shouldn't be surprised then to see an Aboriginal person reading the news or to see an Aboriginal parliamentarian on the floor of the house in parliament i think reconciliation is cheap when we would say well so what we've got a black fellow who's prime minister that's what we do here that's how we do it in australia we're not making any great deal about that because that's the top of society we are anybody's got a chance here that's what's going to happen