Archbishop of Sydney

Reconciliation Conference

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
12 June 2005

At the Reconciliation Conference a couple of weeks ago one of the most encouraging signs was the vigorous debate of policy differences among the aboriginal leadership. 

One indigenous leader told me later that he did not believe that these differences could have been aired so constructively twenty years ago without a punch-up. The leadership is changing and not every older leader is moving on with good grace.

The future of aboriginal Australia, our brothers and sisters, lies with the aborigines and their leaders. “White fellers” cannot solve black health problems or even educational disadvantage. Only aborigines can do this. Non-aboriginal Australia can hinder progress through racism or not providing funds, but growth and improvement are always basically internal.

Particular attention has been paid to the contribution of Noel Pearson to the discussions at the Conference. His analysis is grounded in a thoughtful and realistic understanding both of the possibilities for improvement and how to achieve them.

Pearson told the Conference that passive welfare and traditional culture are incompatible. The combination of the two simply unravels traditional culture. There is no going back to untouched traditional life, and leaving things as they is not a possibility.

Instead, aborigines need to make a conscious choice for a bi-cultural and bi-lingual future. Literacy and higher education are a critical part of the solution, both in terms of sustaining aboriginal culture and attaining the same life prospects as non-aboriginal Australia.

In this, Pearson has been inspired by the history of the Jewish people, who have overcome incalculable political and social disadvantage by both preserving their culture and embracing education as the means to take part, and excel in, the modern world.

Pearson’s focus is practical. The starting point for defending the rights of aboriginal children is to ensure that they can sleep in peace at night with a full belly and in good health. Achieving this makes other things possible, not least of all success at school.

Aborigines have to fight victimisation without settling for being victims. They have to recover their identity, reject dependence and encourage the pursuit of excellence.

They also have to rebuild the social, cultural, spiritual and legal intolerance of substance abuse.

Pearson’s vision is of a people who can claim their fair place in Australia’s life and economy, who have learnt to move easily between two worlds. Above all it is a vision of aborigines taking responsibility for themselves.

These solutions are not rocket science and parts of them have been proposed recently by other aboriginal leaders. But as a totality and call to action they are urging the sort of things that have been practised by every group of people who achieved social mobility or transformed under-achieving groups into productive communities.

Significant progress would help lessen the most significant stain on Australian history.