 Hello everyone and welcome to our 2020 Reconciliation Week panel discussion coming to you online this year via Zoom. Please note that this event is being recorded and would kindly request that you keep your cameras and your sounds on mute just for quality purposes. My name is Jodi Taylor and I'm delighted to be your moderator today. I am a former ABC journalist turned corporate affairs specialist. I'm a proud Aboriginal woman, a descendant of the Waramunga people in the Northern Territory, and I recently joined supply nation as the head of marketing and communications. I'm a natural storyteller and I'm very passionate about highlighting the success stories about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and also progressing opportunities for the Indigenous business sector. Of course I'll be introducing our speakers today shortly, but first I'd like to acknowledge that I'm broadcasting from beautiful Gadigal country in Sydney today. I'd like to acknowledge the lands across where ANU operates and where you're coming from today and pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging. I'd now like to introduce Indigenous leader Paul House to give us a welcome to country. Welcome. I'm speaking Yambi Nunu language. Ladies and gentlemen, young men, young women distinguished guests. My respects to Yambi Nunu, elders past and present. My respects to all elders and all people from all parts of the country. Welcome you all to country. I'm speaking Yambi Nunu. I'm hearing the language and the words you said, you Butter boiling via water. Looking to see and to here and listen to understand. I won't know if the civil rights have lived and antics have. I'll be presenting shortly. respect is in the rivers, quite moving through the every notable country, respect is in the grinding stones and carved trees made long ago when the every notable country. This welcome to country is made in the spirit of peace and a desire for harmony for all peoples of the modern ACT and surrounds. And our main aim as local custodians is to establish an atmosphere of mutual respect through the acknowledgement of our ancestors and the recognition of our rights to declare our special place in the pre and post contact of the region. We have cared for Mother Earth since the dawn of time and evidence of our occupation now sovereignty can be seen everywhere throughout the land. Our signature is in the land not just our DNA and taking care of country is important. I just in conclusion I'd like to say the law of the land talks about giving respect and honour to all people in all parts of the country. In the spirit of peace and reconciliation I say Gura Bari, welcome and Wura Gowari, thank you. Thank you Paul for that beautiful and deeply moving welcome to country, thank you. I'm now delighted to introduce you to the new Vice Chancellor, actually the new Chancellor who joined the university on the first of January, the Honourable Julie Bishop. Thank you Jodi and thank you Paul for your warm and generous and gracious welcome to country. I'm joining you from ANU's new office in the CBD of Perth, Western Australia. And so I pay my respects to the Noongar people upon whose traditional lands I am standing. We have a wide audience joining us via Zoom and so we acknowledge and pay our respects to the first people upon whose traditional lands each of us meets today. And I pay my respects to the elders past, present and emerging. I am delighted to welcome you all to the 2020 Reconciliation Week panel discussion. We do meet in unprecedented times, quite weird times in fact as we struggle with a global pandemic and its impact on the world but on Australia. And I think it quite apt that the theme of reconciliation Australia this year is in this together. And so we must ensure that even though we can't meet in person, we still take this opportunity to exchange learnings and ideas and perspectives on our shared histories, cultures, achievements and challenges. We should be proud that the Australian National University is committed to advancing the education and learning and lives and interests of our nation's first people. We have a thriving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community at ANU. And I know that the Debal Centre has become a home away from home. We are continuing to work to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people but there is no room for complacency. I am delighted that we have introduced the Canberra scholarships this year, a $50 million investment by the university with calls for more sponsorship and investment from others to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students have opportunities of access and an opportunity to study at ANU. We must continue to strive to be the University of Choice, a university where Indigenous cultures are respected. We are this year updating our reconciliation action plan. ANU continues to be a place where learning is facilitated, where diversity is valued and celebrated and where reconciliation is embedded in our core operations. So I thank you all for joining us today and I look forward to enlightening and exciting innovations and perspectives. Thank you, Chancellor. We certainly appreciate your presence today. Thank you so much. I would now like to introduce our panel guest, Professor Ian Anderson, AO, the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Student and University Experience, Dr Virginia Marshall, the inaugural Indigenous postdoctoral fellow with the ANU School of Regulation and Global Governance. That's quite a title. And Azura Hamiz, the Indigenous community engagement coordinator with the National Centre for Indigenous Genomics at the John Curtin School of Medical Research. Welcome to you all. Now before we get underway with our panel discussion, I'd like just to spend five minutes with each of our guests. If you read their bios, you would understand why we are so privileged to have them here with us today. I won't go into all of their backgrounds given we are communicating via Zoom and I don't want to go through any long-winded introductions because I think that their experience will come through during the conversation. So Professor Anderson, I'd like to start with you. You've recently joined ANU after an extremely distinguished career, which we'll discuss shortly. But firstly, I'm keen to understand what attracted you to ANU and love to understand what your vision is in terms of Indigenous engagement. So thank you. Just to like to acknowledge Paul's welcome to country and to reciprocate those greetings from my people who are Pahawa, I've had a long association over a number of years with ANU. I actually was supposed to have my first academic job back in the olden days in the 90s. I was at ANU, Centre for Environmental and Economic Policy Research. I also worked a lot with the National Centre for Population Health on some of the work that they did around masses of applied epidemiology and pathways through Indigenous students and then much more recently on some of the ethical work that enabled the creation of the National Centre for Indigenous Genomics. I must say I've been really, it was an unusual time to come to the university. In fact, the day I started the university shutdown. So I haven't yet seen an office. I haven't. I've only been on campus a little bit this week, but I've been profoundly kind of amazed at the kind of generosity and the welcome that the ANU community has shown me and particularly in what is probably the most difficult moment in the history of the institution in recent years. And as we move back, the work that everyone's doing to ensure that the university is indeed a safe institution to return to. So I'm very much looking forward to actually understanding and meeting people face to face rather than just on Zoom, seeing ANU in 3D and working with what is an extraordinary community of intellectuals and people who are really passionate particularly around Indigenous issues and I'm really, really quite excited about coming onto campus in the next few weeks. Wonderful. And I think I'll explore some of those key priorities that you have for the university later on in our panel discussion. But as I mentioned, you've recently come from government and I should respectfully note as our most senior Indigenous public servant. And I'm interested to kind of delve a little bit into your work on the closing the gap report and would love for you to share your reflections on that engagement process. So for three years I worked first off in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and then in the National Indigenous Australians Agency, leading negotiation on the refresh of the closer gap agreement through the Council of Australian Governments. I had a couple of really profound parts of the experience. One is the kind of challenge of leading system reform through a policy processing and since working with all Australian governments across Australian public service and leading a process that was properly engaging with Indigenous Australia on that. And I think one of the many, many difficult moments, really difficult moments, really hard work, long negotiations which are almost complete, but some also some profound, profound moments when real estate change is actually possible. I think one of those came in December in 2018 when Australian governments agreed to follow some negotiations on the close and get within Indigenous Australians. Not as consolidated people, but as decision makers and creation for the first time in federation, a decision making structure that had governments at the table and Indigenous people as represented through the Coalition of Aboriginal Peaks as decision makers leading the change forward. You obviously brought quite a unique perspective to that role. Obviously your background as a doctor and significant experience working throughout your career with Indigenous health. How do you manage the politics of, you know, that sense of urgency, of wanting to drive change across communities with that balance of having to undergo the engagement process and really consider and respect the reform process? I think that's a real key challenge. Many, most Indigenous leaders and communities are anxious for change, for change now. Governments often have time tables that don't work in ways in which they can meaningfully participate. I think that there's a difference between being in government, being in the university, you have views and opinions and you can broadcast them well. In government, you don't have a senior public servant. You can influence, you can have significant influence, but it is through respecting the role of political decision makers and the political process. But indeed, I reckon that is a key challenge in leading change when people are rightly, rightly, rightly want to have change quickly through really complex systems of democracy, which actually are not always amenable to rapid, rapid transformation. And how do you think that you'll bring that perspective and that experience around policy and engagement? And how do you think you'll bring that to drive Indigenous engagement at ANU? I think that this kind of same principles in some ways, you have to respect the experience of everyone you're working with, and there is a real depth of experience at ANU. Play a role where you are the facilitator and the enabler, and not necessarily the sort of, I don't bring all the solutions, but I can bring some of the conversations and the ways of having those conversations. They can bring people together and ensure that those sort of views and perspectives get well-reversed in the senior management processes of the university. Thank you, Professor. I look forward to more of your insights further down in the conversation as we have a panel discussion. Thank you. Dr. Virginia Marshall, I might come to you. You're a legal academic and educator and a practicing lawyer who also boasts a long list of accomplishments, including being the first Aboriginal woman to gain a PhD in law from Macquarie University. Your work is extremely diverse, but after chatting to you, I think it's quite obvious that you're a human rights advocate at heart, aren't you? Yes, I am. I think that advocacy was well honed by doing a number of degrees, and I think that also the opportunity just to go out and be front and centre and loving court appearances, of course, and also social justice, I think most of my student colleagues who are Indigenous really wanted to do law because they wanted to make a difference. And I think that's really at the forefront of why human rights law is important, to have the tools and the ability and the confidence to actually interface with that court system and to understand the very deep and long traditions of the common law that we all have to learn. And that was also a challenge for myself and for others. And I think that human rights is a natural fit with Indigenous people, whether you're in intellectual property or criminal law is where I started. I have my opportunities from Legal Aid in New South Wales and then started my own firm in 2013. So I think that that's been a wonderful opportunity to really hone and to be the voice of people who are voiceless. I think that's really important. And how have you seen the industry change or the perception around our Indigenous voice change across the legal industry throughout your career? Well, I think, like many of us, when we read the Curie Mail for the first time in the 90s, we realised that new opportunities were going to open to us. And the story was starting to change. The narrative was starting to change. And many people would ask me in the first or second year of law, what should I do? What should I do? And I would say, well, think about seriously starting a law degree because it empowers you, even if you don't want to practice it. It gives you that ability to really navigate difficult territory. It gives you that confidence and the skills and the advocacy and to really be on message. And it gives you a wealth of intellectual freedom to challenge. So, you know, from cultural perspectives, we've seen that in native title, for example, the challenges that people make through various claims. But it gives you that ability to navigate. And there's so much strength in that. And I really encourage a lot of young people through being a judge in the mock trial competition for the Law Society. Every year, and I think I've been doing it since 2005, that it really shines that people get that confidence, they get that self-worth. And usually, they're the quietest people in that competition. But usually, by the end of the year, they have that ability to carry themselves and know who they are. I think that's fantastic. And you mentioned the career mail and you're exactly right, because I started out as a journalist back in the late 90s with the ABC and Canberra. When the career mail was out and when you were featured, it was such an amazing thing. And I think part of, certainly, our theme because of her, she can. We can really resonate it so strongly. Because it is about, if you can see it, you can believe it. And back in the 90s, across various industries, we didn't necessarily have a lot of visible role models for us to look to, did we? That's right. And we also now, because we've got children and we're mothers, I've got four. So that's the strength in the career mail. It gives you the ability to see those photos and see those strengths that people that have struggled through university. I had four years of high school. And certainly, it's the path of the course. Most indigenous peoples had only several years of high school. And many of the people where I work as a volunteer in community development in Western Australia, they have primary school education. Maybe only a couple of years of primary school. So that's really, it's amazing how much the career mail and the message and those relationships that we can even see skimming through the paper or online can really mean to us and encourage us. And that's so important. Absolutely. And I think I'll touch on that more in our panel discussion as well with the other panelists. But I did want to kind of touch on, you mentioned your vast legal expertise in working in native title. Could you tell us about the latest or one of the key native title cases that comes to mind for you? And what are some of the cultural complexities across that case? Well, I think when I first started, I can remember certainly one of the points that I wanted to put across, which is I had hoped for a case, particularly in water and in native title. And one did come to me and I was very happy to actually take that on for Seacountry. So it's an important issue, irrespective of whether you're from the land or from Seacountry. That Seacountry means the identity, your very being, the ways of knowing, the way you connect to who you are. And that's no different when you're looking at native title claim that I'm actually dealing with at the moment. It's really trying to set the opportunities right for people who can then navigate the system with you. Because many people are passionate from our community and they know that they exercise their law every day and they know that they exercise their customs and practices every day. And when you're actually coming to court, it's a far different experience. So I think that the most an incredible differences between the Western Indigenous perspectives is our culture, is the way we think about each other, the way we think about country. And that to translate into what the Western legal system wants us to talk about and is limited by evidence and the misability and the voices of Aboriginal people. And when they were on country or how they know about a certain creation story. So all of that is very difficult for some people to navigate. But it makes me extremely satisfied to know that I'm in an area that I absolutely am passionate about, but also want to be there to assist with council to make this a really strong and positive, not only experienced, but also that the end result is positive for Indigenous peoples. I think that means a lot. Thank you. Well, thank you for being an incredible role model and showing us all what is possible. And, you know, well, just, you know, raising four children along the way as well. So and, you know, believing that when we see it, we can believe that we've spoken about that before. And I think that you've improved that. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Azura, I might come to you now. You work in a fascinating field. And I'm really quite keen to understand what drew you to this particular field. But just wondering, firstly, if you could maybe tell us about the consultation project that you undertook in Galaringu last year and how you navigated the cultural challenges associated with that work. Yeah, sure. So I would like to acknowledge the Ngunnawal people for the land on which you meet today. I'm a Gimwe Walebari Yudinju woman. So I'd also like to acknowledge my family back home in Cairns Far North Queensland. I started off in Galaringu as part of a consultation process that NC has. We currently have 7,000 Aboriginal blood samples collected from 35 different communities across Australia. And of those 7,000 samples, 1,200 come from Galaringu community. So for those who don't know where Galaringu is, it's a small island off the coast of the Northern Territory. It's a population about 3,000 people, very traditional people. They practice their culture still on a daily basis. English is their second, third, maybe sometimes fourth language. I started in Galaringu because we needed to talk to the community about these samples that were in Canberra. It wasn't necessarily a talk about us saying, we want them, give us permission to do that. It was consultation around, we have them, and what would you like to do with them? And maybe if you could give us some context around the issue generally of having the blood samples and just some context around the project. Yeah, so I guess the cultural difficulties around having these samples in Galaringu is blood is still very much a part of a person, regardless of whether they're still alive or if they've passed away. And so going into a community and explaining that you have 1,200 samples collected in 1968 meant that there were a lot of people who had passed away. And that caused a lot of, I suppose, anxiety from people. Because for them it meant they didn't know what that meant. They didn't know whether or not the person spirit had moved on to the next world. They didn't know whether or not this was the reason why they had so much bad luck that they were being punished for these samples being in Canberra. So it was a real eye-opener for myself who comes from a different tribal group to go into Galaringu and to talk to people about these samples and what we should do with them and whether it was okay to have them and whether it wasn't okay for us to have them. And if people didn't want us to have them, then what should we do with them? So the project itself, NCIG, is trying to create a biobank. We want to use these samples for research. But we can't do that obviously without permission from people. These samples were collected in mostly the 1960s and the 70s. So in a time where Aboriginal people didn't have a lot of say when it came to their health and well-being. We were still managed by the police or the missionaries and we were living under the act. And so very difficult time for our people. So to go in and to sort of say, we've got these samples and what do you want to do was a bit of a shock to community members. So we'd like to use these samples, but my job really isn't to go in and convince people to consent to these samples. My job is to provide information to people to make informed decisions about what's right for them, what's right for their families and their communities. And obviously there's multiple layers of complexity in this, isn't there, rather? Because the issue, as you mentioned, the blood samples were taken back in the 60s. So a different environment, different context. We didn't have the rights we obviously enjoy today. So for that context, I guess you're going back, aren't you? And some people were not aware that blood was taken. So you've got the multiple issues, as I mentioned, around that feeling of permission and potentially violation, I would assume as well. So that would have been extraordinarily difficult for you, not just as a professional, but also as an indigenous woman. Yeah, I definitely had to reconcile my feelings around that. One of the communities I have visited in the past is a community called Yarrabah, which is where my family live. So I have aunties and uncles and grandparents on participation lists. Their little blood samples are sitting here in Canberra. So I've had to go back and explain to my family that samples were collected from them when they were children, without their parents' permission, and they're sitting in Canberra, and I'm here to ask whether or not it's OK for us to have them. And so I really had to think about, is this the right thing to do? Can I do this as an Aboriginal woman? And what's going to happen if this doesn't go to plan? So I've had to really reconcile with myself about this whole project. But I think that's also made me better at my job because I know that if I can't go home and look at myself in the mirror after community consultation, then perhaps this isn't really the right thing to do. It is very much about being able to navigate those two worlds, isn't it? And I note that when you went on that project, you also made a very strategic decision in terms of ensuring that you also went back with a contingent of influences so that they could see firsthand the impact what the whole experience was having on the community. Yeah, that's right. So to the ANU's credit, they gave us a bit of funding to be able to do a repatriation project with Gallowinku. So we were able to return all of the remains, all the blood samples of people who had passed away, and we were able to have a public ceremony to welcome them back. It was really important that we took people from both the ANU, University of Melbourne, people who were in positions of power back to the community to experience what it was we're doing. And the reason being is because a lot of these people that we took back, they're in positions of power. They're in positions where they're able to influence change. And we really wanted to make sure that Gallowinku had a chance to talk to these people and to tell their story instead of having myself as a third party going back and telling them. Absolutely, well, fascinating and just so emotional. And during our brief, I mentioned to you, we could dedicate a whole hour to each of you. So stay tuned, we'd love to find out a bit more of it. Thank you so much for that. I appreciate your sharing your experience. We might move on to the panel discussion now. So I think if we can focus on the issue of reconciliation. Now, obviously, we are entering the next phase of the COVID-19 situation as lockdown relaxes, but of course, still within an environment of uncertainty. I'm interested to know your thoughts around how we don't lose momentum in the reconciliation movement, particularly around push for constitutional change. And Azura, I might start with you, given you're still on camera. It's a really good question. And the answer is I'm not sure how you continue that push. I've been in constant communication with some of the communities I've been working with in the Northern Territory. And at the moment, they're still considered that the biosecurity sort of not allowed to enter, must do, quarantining, all those sorts of things. So for them at the moment, there's a million and one things that are so much more important that they need to work through that constitutional change and recognition seems to be at the bottom of that. I think the best way to do that is if we continue to do proper consultation with the communities. As soon as these things are lifted to be going back out to community and to be putting it to the forefront of people's minds again. Professor Anderson, what about you? I think one thing I'd kind of recognise that there's been some extraordinary work, particularly done by Indigenous health leaders, actually working in good partnership with government around COVID. I'm in touch with other Indigenous health leaders across the world. And I think the work that is being done here in partnership with the National Aboriginal Community Control Health Organisation, the Federal Department of Health, where they actually co-chaired a COVID-19 working group that was reporting right up to the Chief Medical Officer, was extraordinary. And it's one of the reasons why I think we are in a relatively good position at this point in time in terms of managing COVID-19 issues in the Indigenous world. And I think that really points to what is possible if you work well with people in partnership. I think that the challenges of constitutional change are still in front of us, and there are still people who are actively looking for pathways to have that conversation. I think that there are two levels of it. There's a kind of what is possible technically in the constitutional reform space. I think that there's probably a degree of consensus in the legal community about the path forward of that, and Virginia will probably want to reflect on that. I think the challenges are political in some sections of the community who feel that constitutional change is possibly harmful to them. And I think that that requires some really clever messaging. You know, we're not going to get constitutional change by Indigenous people voting. It's going to have to bring in the other 97%. I think there's a broad consensus. The latest polling data probably suggests that about roughly, let's say 85% of the Australian community are really open to these sorts of questions. So I just need to understand what it is that this proposition will lead to. And then there's another section of the community which you probably don't know all the way to go, but I'm actually hopeful around this question in the longer term. And I wouldn't, no, let's continue to have a conversation. We know we're all worried about COVID-19, but this is really a conversation that we need to have. Professor Anderson, I might just stay on you for a moment if that's okay, just to elaborate on that question. And I'm not sure if you could just potentially turn up your volume at all. I think there may have been a slight issue there, but your comments around continuing those conversations, do you think that universities have a role or an opportunity to play a greater role in social change conversations? Yeah, and I can't remember where the volume controlled in is on Zoom. That's okay, that's a lot better now. Just sitting forward. I think universities have a really perfect position on the universities. When I was working in government, we could always have conversations with Indigenous Australians, leadership, but they're always very constrained conversations. I think universities provide a place where you can have much more open conversations, which government can come into participate. You've got a university like Australian National University has a convenient power. It can bring all sorts of people into a conversation that is much more open than sort of conversations. I would have to leave when I was working in government. So I think there is an absolutely critical place for universities. It's a good place to bring legal scholars to the table. It's a perfect place to actually bring some evidence to the table. And I think that that's what a university can contribute to Indigenous development and Indigenous rights and holds a lot of issues that are really important to our people. Thank you, Professor. Dr. Marshall, what about you? What do you think we should do to ensure that we don't lose momentum? Well, I'd agree with both Azir and Ian that ANU and many other universities are so vital. And they're vital because you can share with colleagues various opinions and even also form opinions. And also you can create change in discourse in communities and in the wider civil society. So I think that opportunity to discuss those issues openly and with evidence, that's the most important part. And I think we should not dismiss the value for universities. I came to a university after being a taper a year. And I could see that so many people were there because they wanted to have those tools to understand all of the intellectual expression and to really open their minds. And that's what I believe ANU does. It really opens your opportunities and your mind to so many things. And I think the advocacy I know that's taken place since I've been here is in water. So water reform, water emergency, water justice, that's been critical to a lot of the work that I've done at ANU. And also on the other hand, I'm called for a variety of lectures in climate change or in other legal issues. And I think that's really important. So I don't think we should underestimate the power of what university can do and can share. But I think that the critical issue here with COVID and we're in a really difficult situation like many places such as the South Coast that have had the fires. We've had a shocking year at the end of the year last year and it came into an even more dangerous time where I'm at. So I think that those sort of preparations really didn't give us the experience to know how to deal with COVID. And I've had a lot of communication with remote communities and they've said, at that height in February, they didn't have the masks. They didn't have the sanitizers. They felt extraordinarily isolated when a lot of the communities were bussed out of remote community towns. So, you know, that feeling of angst is really there. And I think as you was right, you know, there is a time and place to talk about constitutional issues and treaties and forming new relationships and change in the native title legislation for Aboriginal people where the burden of proof is not on Aboriginal people. And Chief Justice French said that very clearly. So there are a lot of things that we can't get distracted because of COVID-19. But we have to juggle a lot of things right now. And one of them really is civil society and the need for support. But also we can see a light at the end of the tunnel because for the first time that I can remember, traditional fire management knowledge is being celebrated by non-Indigenous people. And that is truly amazing. And that's come out of the fires. And probably more is going to be discussed in the Royal Commission on Fires right now. So I think that, you know, it is a time where Australian society is going to say, you have something and it is very valuable and your knowledge is appreciated. And we want to work with you. So I think that that's what we have to take hold of. We have to work together. That's a great point, though, that you raised about the bushfires and I guess just leading people to have a deeper appreciation or insights into the benefits of our culture and maybe looking at our culture with fresh lens, if you like. Now, absolutely. And that fresh lens is also in the water area as well because now the Productivity Commission is going to have an inquiry into water. And please, you know, that's so important, you know, drinking water. We take that for granted. I grew up on tap water and really enjoyed that. But, you know, we sort of just reach for that bottle of water and knowing that that plastic is so undervalued sometimes and the water is undervalued. So the whole process, we're not really conscious of. So I think that that is a really important area that we can work on this year and in the future years together. Thank you. You've all spoken about the fact that we shouldn't be distracted and we really need to focus on the core elements. What do you think are the fundamental, fundamental rather elements of reconciliation that we just can't lose sight of at the moment? I'll stay with you, given I have you on camera. Absolutely. Look, I think the real core issues are that we have to have truth telling. And more people than just us today will say that and have said that. But I think truth telling in this country is really important. If you take your finger and you just really drop it over any town within Australia, you can see that there is going to be a dark history. And we need to shed light on that dark history. And we need to understand that not everything is great, you know, that we've really experienced together. But we have to have that openness and that truth. It's really going to the next level of the relationship. And I think that we're ready for that next level. So the core element of that is really truth. And also being prepared to hear those things that we really know we'd rather kept buried. You know, it's like a lot of people, they didn't want to really announce that they had convict history. And many people over the years, because of exemptions and certificates that Aboriginal people needed to acquire to be white or to be treated as a white person in Australian society. That really challenged identity and place. So I think that we're ready for that. And really COVID has got us prepared for those unpleasant conversations. And that unease, that uncomfortableness is the right timing, I believe, for that sharing. Thank you. Professor Anderson, I might lead into you now. Just on the back of some of those identity comments. You've previously said that the diversity of cultural identities in Australia is one essential component of reconciliation. Can you share your thoughts around that? And what do you mean by those comments? Quite aware of where I made those comments, but might reflect on what they mean right just now. I said, we have a diversity of Indigenous culture, Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander culture, which is profoundly important. And it's profoundly important to recognise. And if I can pick up just on some of those stuff about truth-telling that Virginia was talking about, for some of us, that goes into our history. So I'm born in the North Coast of Tasmania. That's where my traditional country is. Tasmania has a brutal history of genocide. It was actually sanctioned by government over a period of 60 years. The greater irony for me is that some of the worst perpetrators, or that was my white ancestors, who brutalised the Aboriginal women across the North Coast and the Western Islands. So what that means is that the reconciliation journey does require healing. It does require ways in which we can heal together within our communities and within Aboriginal communities as well as between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples. So truth-telling is a really important part of that, but an equally important part of that is, how do we commemorate that history? How do we tell that story? And how do we heal collectively, both through our personal history, but also through our shared history? And I think that that's a really not insignificant challenge for us. Thank you, Professor. Azura, can I ask you, what do you believe should be, rather, I'll rephrase that, what do you believe should be the key priorities in our reconciliation journey given the current environment? So I think in terms of how far we've come is interesting. I think in terms of education, we've done some really great things with our reconciliation. We've got more students now coming into universities. We've got more students finishing grade 12. We've got people going on to higher areas, such as PhDs and those sorts of things, masters. I think the priority now really lists with the things we're not doing so well in. We still have a lot of Indigenous people living in terrible housing situations in our communities. We still have such a high rate of incarceration when it comes to Indigenous people. We still have a number of people dying from deaths in custody. So what I would really like to see is now a shift on the areas where we're not doing so well. I think the other thing I'd like to see is, and I don't want this to come across as being disrespectful to our non-Indigenous people out there because I know that we have a number of allies. Sometimes I feel like we have a number of allies when it comes to Reconciliation Week and all the good things that we want to celebrate about Indigenous people. And what I'd really like to see is those aligning up when the not-so-good things come about when we have people dying in custody, when we're outraged about all the people that we have in our prisons, with the outrage over the amount of people that are still suffering from illnesses like renal failure and diabetes in our communities. So I'd really like to see a focus on that in the next 20 years coming. Absolutely, absolutely. We are running out of time, unfortunately, so I'm going to throw to my last question to the panel. You're all three, obviously, accomplished Indigenous leaders, but what you share, you appear to share, is a genuine passion for fostering talent. And so I'm interested to know your thoughts around why it's so crucial to have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and lecturers across the university environments in order to attract and foster talent. Azar, I'll stay with you. I think in terms of... I think in terms of NCIG, we would love to see more Indigenous students coming through and studying science and studying in that genome space. The reason being is that we do have students, but we have such a small pool of people. And that means that in this genetic space, we have a lot of non-Indigenous people who are becoming the subject matter experts who comes to our genome. Oh, I think we may have lost you. Science and taking over as those subject matter experts. Oh. That's okay. It's not too late. That's okay. We've been pretty good so far in terms of our technology. I think you're all right now. Yeah, so I think it's really important that we start having our Indigenous leadership in place in the university to start encouraging these students to come through in science because we want them to be the leaders. We want them to be the subject matter expert when it comes to the Aboriginal genome. They're doing the research rather than having non-Indigenous people do research on us. Absolutely. Professor Anderson? So I'm going to just maybe illustrate why this is so important. So if you look at healthcare, there's an important part of change that happens within professional groups, within doctors, nurses, and so on, who really drive the education of the next generation of doctors and the next generation of nurses who undertake the leadership in hospitals and general practice and so on. So it kind of occurred to me fairly early in my career that you had to have Aboriginal people in those jobs because you couldn't get inside the system in order to change how future doctors are educated or how to change how hospitals work, emergencies, department work. So it's a really fundamental part of the change and transformation journey. When I started as a medical student, there was one other Aboriginal doctor in the country. We now have about 400. That has really accelerated change. Still very, very important that you've got community leaders in the health sector, and they all play an absolutely vital role, but a key part of change is actually having people who've been educated within, had the opportunity to be educated within those professional systems in order to drive home some of those gains that our community leaders have been looking to achieve. Dr. Marshall? Well, I think I agree with both Ian and Azir-e, because if you can actually see yourself and you walk into court, for example, or in a hospital or in a department of genetics, you want to see yourself. You want to be inspired by people there that are Indigenous or Indigenous people, but that also means that people amongst you that are non-Indigenous get to understand who Indigenous people are, how we think, why we think differently, why our values are so distinct. So I think all of that really feeds into our relationships broadly, and I think that's what happens when you're here at a university, for example, but I do really feel that even though we've got a lot of people studying law, we don't have enough people really at the bench. We don't have anybody at a time, well, most clearly not many people at the bar. So we're not seeing ourselves in those senior positions. So I think that that's really important across these broad issues that we have to see ourselves, but we need to be invested in science. Health's really led the way on research and researching Indigenous peoples and how we want to be researched. So I think science is also really significant and that's why I chose my appointment in Regulation Governments Law and also science because it's critical that we are right there with the science, understanding the Western science and also sharing our Indigenous science. That's really going to be a plus for anybody that comes into contact with people who just exude confidence and knowledge of both sides, you know, Indigenous and non-Indigenous. That's precious. Thank you. Thank you. Well, unfortunately, we are nearly out of time, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to wrap up the questions, but thank you so much for your valuable insights and time today. The ANU is certainly very lucky to have you as an Indigenous woman. I also want to thank you from a personal perspective for being such inspirational leaders for our communities but also being so generous with your time and demonstrating a passion to really foster and nurture talent and that's very much appreciated. So thank you very much. Thank you. I'm now honoured to introduce the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Brian Schmidt, for his closing remarks. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for everyone who joined us. As I reflect on this reconciliation, not so much a lecture, but as a panel, I want to first thank Paul House for his welcome. Paul, it's great to see you back on your feet again and I hope he gets back on his bicycle soon. He had a fairly nasty accident not too long ago and it's great to see him back so soon. Jody, it's wonderful to have you lead our conversation today, and I hope you feel part of the ANU community. I think you've spent a lot of time in Canberra and it's great to have you in our mix today. Thank you. For Azura and Virginia, as always, I'm so proud to have you on our staff here at ANU. The work you're doing is absolutely core to our mission and helping us lead the way in something that's just critical in multi-strands for what the university is trying to do as the National University and I'll talk more about that in just a second. Ian Anderson, it is great to have you back at ANU. As our first Indigenous Executive, you're an inspired leader and a new portfolio dedicated to our staff and our students. This is the place where I want ANU to be a university like no other in Australia and indeed one of the best places to work and study of anywhere in the world and indeed we should even strive to be better. Reconciliation Week, this is a week to reflect on how we move forward together as Australians on the unfinished business related to our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this nation that go back 65,000 years and beyond. Doing that well is a core mission of the National University. It is our mission to be a place where Indigenous students come from around Australia to become leaders themselves. We are very fortunate to produce a number of student leaders including Indigenous leaders. And I just think it's important to reflect that our Indigenous students graduated a higher rate than our non-Indigenous students and that is remarkable to what Auntie Anne and her team at Chival have been able to achieve. We have a lot to learn from how they approach pastoral care and indeed those learnings need to transfer on to how we do the entire university. We need to create an Indigenous academy. That is the whole gambit of experts across all subject matters, have people from all ages and really coming from across Australia, all of the 250 language groups. That has to be at the core of what we do. And we need to understand everything from Indigenous culture, knowledge and history and embed that within all of our subjects. So a complete Indigenous academy and if it doesn't happen here, it ain't gonna happen and I am absolutely determined to start building that and working with some great partners to make sure that that happens during my tenure here. And finally, as a National University, we have a unique role to do the policy work for Indigenous advancement, whether it be economic, health and wellbeing but also recognition and self-determination. These things are at the core also of our mission as National University. So over this week, I've had the opportunity to be part of this event but I've also had a chance to talk to a couple of our students. Isaiah Davis, Rebecca Butel, two amazing young students and I encourage you to listen to how they see the world and what experience they're having at A&E. I certainly found it having had a pretty rough week this week, I'll be honest. Probably the most uplifting thing I did this week and I think everyone will feel the same way. I had a chat to Auntie Ann about how she sees the world and what she wants to accomplish. And finally, Peter Yu, who is going to be joining us moving from council to become the header of our Vice President, Indigenous First Nations and he is a remarkable person with a remarkable history and can I say, he deeply thinks through what reconciliation means and why it's important. But 2020 has been, I think, perhaps a year. Most of us would like to forget but we still have almost 200 days left to make sure that it can be a year to remember for advancing reconciliation. And I encourage everyone then today to, yes, take reconciliation week as a week to reflect but take the rest of the year as a time to act. And so please join me in thanking our esteemed panel for everything today, thank you Chancellor. It has been a great event and I think a suitable way for us to mark this very important week in our calendar. Thank you one and all.