Merv Hair – Marketing Manager
Our first Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) is about to be reviewed and a new action plan formulated going forward. The Action Plan can be found on our website.
As an input we are circulating a copy of the “Uluru Statement from the Heart” for information and an email from Reconciliation Australia recounting the statement by Prime Minister Albanese about support for a vote on a Constitutional amendment that establishes a voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
In the months to come we will be working with staff and associates to prepare a Draft of our new Action Plan and the information shared here is to assist us think about what actions as a company CT Management Group can take to advance reconciliation.
Currently CT Management Group have worked with over 20 indigenous communities across our regions as clients.
ULURU STATEMENT FROM THE HEART
“We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the southern sky, make this statement from the heart:
Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years ago.
This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.
How could it be otherwise? That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia and this sacred link disappears from world history in merely the last two hundred years?
With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.
Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are aliened from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.
These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.
We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.
We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.
Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.
We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.
In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.
Dear supporter,
Garma Festival, East Arnhem, Australia July 30th 2022
Speaking at the Garma Festival, Prime Minister Albanese put forward a possible referendum question: “Do you support an alteration to the Constitution that establishes an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice?”
Reconciliation Australia believes the country is ready to take this positive step forward.
This kind of progress on reconciliation is what will bond our country together and set the foundation for a more just and equitable nation.
Much work has been done to get us to this point.
The Uluru Statement from the Heart was presented to the nation five years ago and calls for, “… the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution and a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making and truth-telling about our history.”
In the five years since the release of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, a Joint Select Committee has considered the proposal.
An Indigenous Voice Co-design process outlined, in detail, options for how a Voice could work.
Further work will continue in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people about what will go forward and ultimately the Australian people will be asked to support an Indigenous Voice to Parliament being enshrined in our Constitution.