National Reconciliation Week

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (15:47): I rise to inform the house about Reconciliation Week 2016 celebrations in our southern community. As I know you are aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, Reconciliation Week is held from 27 May to 3 June each year. The first date marks the anniversary of the 1967 referendum in Australia and the second date the anniversary of the High Court of Australia's Mabo judgement in 1992. As the Reconciliation Australia website says:

As Australians, we are all here, woven into this country. As part of our reconciliation journey, there are truths to tell, stories to celebrate, and relationships to grow. Reconciliation is at the heart of our nation's future.

In Reynell, we joined our nation's reconciliation journey by bringing together our Aboriginal brothers and sisters and non-Aboriginal people of all ages to tell stories, share experiences, celebrate our steps towards reconciliation and contemplate how we can better engender it in our local community and beyond. Ably led by our local organising committee comprising members of the Joining Hands and Minds Taskforce, my office and others, the event was successful due to the willingness of our community to work together.

Our key event was our southern community gathering in Ramsay Place. It was the best attended southern event to date, with numerous young people from our local schools, many community members and a great number of organisations committing to work together to achieve reconciliation. It was particularly inspiring to see our youngest community members attending with their schools and kindergartens, performing and speaking themselves and also finding out more about reconciliation through discussions with Aboriginal elders and people who work and volunteer for the organisations who support our community generally and who are also committed to furthering reconciliation.

A special thankyou to Christies Beach High School students Jasmin Fraser and Talisa Scrutton for their outstanding emceeing and a thankyou to the many performers, speakers, stallholders, organisers and everyone who attended this very special day. There are many to thank for the incredible work that occurred to ensure reconciliation week in the south provided such a meaningful way for us to commit connect and commit to furthering reconciliation.

I cannot list them all, but I would like to make mention of Allan Sumner, both for his welcome to country and his enduring leadership in our community; Alice Leahy, Housing SA; Belinda Pollard, Anglicare SA; Chris Coomer, community volunteer and Aboriginal elder; Craig Cooper and Chris Martin, City of Onkaparinga; Darjana Nikolic, Taikurrendi Children and Family Centre; Hermione Wong and Kaleen Gurr, Uniting Communities; Jesse Hannam, Neporendi; Isaac Hamman, community volunteer; Lauren Jew, Aldinga Children's Centre; Lorraine Gibson, DECD; Margaret Mitchell, Ninko Kurtangga Patpangga; Mandy Williams, Mission Australia; Pamela Strapp, Lutheran Community Care; Richard Schirmer, Community Health Onkaparinga; Ross Tanimu and Tracy Wagner, Hackham West Community Centre; and all at Southern Domestic Violence Service.

Thank you also to students from Morphett Vale and Calvary Lutheran primary schools who created and displayed beautiful message sticks to express what reconciliation means to them. Our Southern Football League also proudly embraced reconciliation week through our annual reconciliation round at the O'Sullivan Beach Lonsdale football club.

I thank Anthony Bernhardt and David Schultz of this club and Phil Wood of the Port Noarlunga Football Club for their efforts towards this initiative which enabled our league to bring together our local football community, players, coaches, officials and supporters to talk about how together we can achieve reconciliation and recognition for our Aboriginal brothers and sisters and to promote awareness of our national Recognise campaign.

This event made a difference. Football club members together with Aunty Leonie Brodie, other Aboriginal elders and excellent young didgeridoo player Isaac Hamman built understanding about our shared journey towards reconciliation. Thank you to everyone involved in making this event an important part of our Southern Football League calendar.

I also attended the Christies Beach High School Reconciliation Week assembly where students and staff, speakers and our Aboriginal young people who spoke up in their Australian Human Rights Commission Racism. It Stops with Me DVD instilled me with great hope for how we will write the next chapter of our reconciliation story.

It was also a pleasure to be part of Christies Beach Primary School's Reconciliation Week assembly together with Amanda Rishworth MP. We were enthralled with the beautiful acknowledgement of country in Kaurna by two young students singing in language and artistic evidence of much deep and positive exploration of what reconciliation means. Thank you to all at this school for their leadership towards reconciliation.

The week ended for me with a great deal of hope and energy about our future capacity to achieve reconciliation—so many young people, so many community members, so many great organisations all committed to acknowledging and apologising for past injustices and to working together to achieve reconciliation. This week is of course NAIDOC Week, a week to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture and achievements and an opportunity to recognise the contributions that Aboriginal Australians make to both our country and our society.