Tasmania on track to get Aboriginal reconciliation council, but not all are happy
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A Tasmanian-based reconciliation council is likely to be formed, bringing the island state in line with the rest of the country.
While the idea has been welcomed by parts of the state's Aboriginal community, others do not believe establishing a reconciliation council would be the best way forward.
Despite a recent Reconciliation Australia report showing Australia is becoming a more racist country, Tasmania does not have a designated reconciliation council and is the only state without one.
Reconciliation Australia held its first-ever meeting in Tasmania this week to discuss national and state progress.
The board's only Tasmanian, Bill Lawson, said he was hopeful Reconciliation Tasmania would be established by the middle of 2017.
He said the council would improve relations between the state's Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people and ease tensions within the Indigenous community.
"I think now is a good time, there is an alignment with a lot of things now in Tasmania," he said.
Mr Lawson cited the 2016 change to the Tasmanian constitution to formally recognise Aboriginal Tasmanians and MONA's proposals for Macquarie Point with the Truth and Reconciliation Park as recent examples of progress but said more needed to be done.
"What we need to do as a Tasmanian community is to come together, black and white, and face the truth," he said.
"There is also work to be done in helping the Aboriginal communities of Tasmania to come together and I see that the [reconciliation] body will be able to help with that as well."
Mr Lawson said now that the idea for Reconciliation Tasmania had the endorsement of the national body, the main obstacle was securing funding.
He said discussions were underway but it would be premature to disclose with whom.
No need for local council, TAC says
Last year, Tasmania's eligibility criteria for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders was scrapped and replaced with Commonwealth guidelines, reigniting long-standing tensions within the state's Aboriginal community.
Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) chief executive Heather Sculthorpe said a state-based reconciliation council was not necessary.
"Reconciliation and Recognise, those sort of groups have been funded for a lot of years, I can't see that they've made enough change to warrant yet another group," she said.
"But there does need to be financing of the Aboriginal community to find its own solutions, that's where I think the effort needs to be made."
The TAC used a meeting with Reconciliation Australia in Hobart today to discuss issues, including changing the date of Australia Day and establishing a treaty.
Aboriginal elder Rodney Dillon said a Tasmanian-based reconciliation council would help address the challenges Aboriginal Australians faced.
He said education, health and justice should be top of the agenda for Tasmania's first reconciliation council.
"For Tasmania to be the last state to have a reconciliation group, it's a bit sad," he said.
"It is important for both [Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people] to be able to talk about reconciliation, to be able to reconcile what has happened in the past and to be able to address the issues that have been caused by that."
Topics: aboriginal, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, indigenous-policy, indigenous-protocols, indigenous-culture, government-and-politics, tas
