Has reconciliation gone down the toilet as a political priority in WA?

An open letter that was sent to political leaders before West Australian election 2008

Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (WA) and the Bringing Them Home Committee WA take this opportunity to write jointly to urge your party to adopt a policy to provide core funding for the establishment of a community based “Reconciliation secretariat” in Western Australia that would be a catalyst for major reconciliation initiatives here and would also act as a Western Australian arm of Reconciliation Australia, which is an independent, not for profit, national peak body.

Why this and why now?

1. Leadership. While there are a number of reconciliation events at a local community level and in various organisations across the state, there is a real vacuum in promoting reconciliation at a state wide level. This sort of catalyst is fundamental to driving the momentum for a broadly based reconciliation movement. It is critical that there is a centralized body that can promote reconciliation events, provide resources and training.

2. Now is the time. A window has opened for Indigenous people and the wider community to move forward together. The National Apology has opened up possibilities for healing action and community mobilisation that we have not seen in this state for a long time.

3. The networks are in place. ANTaR and BTH are both voluntary organisations who struggle to meet the growing requests from a range of people and organisations. Being community based organisations, they are very much in touch with the needs as they emerge. This proposal leverages on those networks.

4. The business community has shown the way. The minerals industry generally is making significant inputs to Indigenous communities through employment practises, which is their sphere. They are sharing their very considerable income from lands which were, since time immemorial, cared for and inhabited by Indigenous peoples. The State Government can match that intent in its own sphere.

5. There has been a major commitment by the Commonwealth and COAG to closing the gap in relation to Aboriginal life expectancy. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people can work shoulder to shoulder to ‘close the gap’. We need this office to build dialogue and action around the questions: What is Aboriginal work in closing the gap? What is non-Aboriginal work in closing the gap? What is shared work in closing the gap? WA needs a community-based organisation with credibility that can operate across a range of community networks. WA needs an organisation with a State-wide focus on reconciliation initiatives and priorities.

6. This would not be a new budget item. In their budget, the Department of Indigenous Affairs has been allocated $100 thousand p.a. to a reconciliation small grants scheme. The Bringing Them Home committee is now commencing a small grants reconciliation scheme that will be funded by Lotterywest. In our view this frees the DIA money for an alternative reconciliation project in the area of greatest emerging need. While this is a relatively small allocation, it has the potential to be a base core funding.

7. This proposal builds upon success. Sorry Days are growing in number around the state and in numbers in attendance. ‘Yarning Circles’ for Stolen Generation members are attracting numbers between eight and sixty. After the success of Reconciliation Action Plans in State and Federal Government Departments, there is scope for expanding the scheme to many church and community organisations. The major churches all crafted reconciliation strategies at the urging of Australians for Reconciliation’s WA office in the late 1990s which can be re-energised. These are concrete indicators of a new desire for Reconciliation in the general community.

8. We understand that most other states have a centralized reconciliation body. We believe that Western Australia’s lack of financial support for such a body is short sighted; it undervalues the social capital of the goodwill that exists in business, community organisations, the Indigenous network and the wider community.

This letter seeks in principle agreement in the form of published written pre-election promise. Reconciliation WA would be a small secretariat which leveraged sound networks to harness considerable recent goodwill in a window of opportunity. It needs reliable funding to be established as a community hub, strong on communications and a significant contact point nationally.