All Australians are invited to be a part in and celebrate National Reconciliation Week by taking the next steps; to learn about our shared histories, cultures and achievements, and explore how each of us can join the national reconciliation journey.

The Lachlan Reconciliation Group will celebrate National Reconciliation Week with a “Sea of hands” display and free community barbecue on Saturday, May 27.

Members of the public are invited to come along, “plant” a hand and celebrate and reflect on Australia’s indigenous history and culture.

The event will be held in the park adjacent to the Parkes Visitor Information Centre at 10am.

National Reconciliation Week started as the Week of Prayer for Reconciliation in 1993 (the International Year of the World's Indigenous People) and was supported by Australia’s major faith communities.

Reconciliation is about relationships and healing of old wounds.

All Australians need to acknowledge our cultural history and the devastating and complex relationship Indigenous Australians have had with colonial Australia.

We need to learn from the past as a way of reshaping the present and making a better future for all Australians.

Reconciliation should happen every day of every year. 

This year two significant anniversaries in our nation’s reconciliation journey will be celebrated.

2017 marks 50 years since the 1967 referendum that saw more than 90 per cent of Australians vote to end discrimination to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Australian constitution and to give the Australian Government power to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and recognise them in the census.

25 years ago on June 3, 1992 a significant step in reconciliation saw Eddie Mabo challenge the Australian legal system in recognising the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of their land.

The result of this case saw the high court pass down the fact that Terra Nullius (Land belonging to no one) should never have been applied to Australia

Eileen Newport,

Secretary,

Lachlan Reconciliation Group