Ode to conciliation

THE RSL provided a focus for Reconciliation Week activities in Healesville.
The traditional reading of the Ode on Monday evening recognised the contribution of Aboriginal servicemen and women.
Aboriginal elder Dot Peters and Healesville RSL worked together last year to create what seems destined to become a national Reconciliation Week tradition.
The recording of the Ode, backed by didgeridoo, was played for the first time at Healesville RSL during Reconciliation Week last year. Last week it was played at ceremonies at Shrines of Remembrance in each state and territory.
At the Shrine of Remembrance ceremony in Melbourne, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gavin Jennings said the ceremony would now become an annual event during Reconciliation Week and acknowledged the role Ms Peters had played in achieving that.
Addressing Indigenous and non-Indigenous guests at the Walking Together Lunch hosted by the Shire of Yarra Ranges at the RSL on Tuesday, an emotional Ms Peters thanked Healesville RSL and said it was wonderful to see the special Ode being played around the country to honour the memory of all Aboriginal people who had served their country in war.
RSL representative Sam Halim said it was a privilege for Healesville RSL to have been able to play a pivotal role in helping Ms Peters promote reconciliation locally and throughout Australia.
Yarra Ranges’ mayor Tim Heenan spoke of the shire’s role in raising awareness and promoting its Indigenous community, which he said involved both symbolic and practical measures to address disadvantages in health, employment, education and general opportunity.
Indigenou minister Denis Atkinson spoke plainly of the struggle and injustices Aboriginal people had endured during the past 150 to 200 years.
Stating his belief that some sort of “conciliation” was needed, he said reconciliation implied there had been a period where the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians had been harmonious. “I am not sure that there was ever a time since Captain Cook’s’ arrival that Indigenous people would want to return to. The relationship was not good right from the start … and then it got progressively worse.” He said it was not possible to start afresh or successfully build a future without first acknowledging the past.
“We cannot go back, but what we can do is acknowledge the wrongs of the past and then, working together, seek to find a way that we can move forward with honesty, with respect and with integrity,” Pastor Atkinson said.
He said incorporating key values – acknowledgement, understanding, equality, education and appreciation – into the meaning and practice of “reconciliation” could provide the means to conciliation.