Debate about the merits of a treaty between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people was a central feature of NAIDOC Week celebrations by the Gulaga Reconciliation Group.
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At the Central Tilba big hall on Saturday, July 13, the issue was raised during a panel discussion involving five prominent figures in the Yuin community about the themes of NAIDOC Week 2019 - "voice, treaty, truth".
Panel members were: Ros Field, chair of the Gulaga National Park Board of Management, Warren Foster, actor and cultural adviser to the National Museum of Australia, Lynette Goodwin, who holds several leadership positions including a directorship on the Wagonga Local Aboriginal Land Council, Rodney Kelly, a specialist in Aboriginal culture who is leading efforts to repatriate Yuin artefacts from the British Museum and Lynne Thomas, artist and Aboriginal Education Officer at Narooma Primary School.
"There were clear calls from some members of the panel for a treaty but concern was expressed by others about the process by which it might be achieved," a Gulaga Reconciliation Group spokesperson said.
"In particular, it was argued that any treaty should be the result of extensive individual-level consultations with Aboriginal people across Australia.
"The broad consensus was that any treaty would need to be preceded not only by extensive consultation but by a willingness on the part of the wider community to listen to Aboriginal voices and to acknowledge the truth about the European conquest, including the resistance and violence that accompanied it," the spokesperson said.
The panel discussion was followed by the telling of Dreaming stories by Aboriginal artist Cheryl Davison and songs of reconciliation written and performed by a local composer and guitarist Annie Bryant.
The hall, which was filled by an audience of about 160, was decorated with hand paintings by the children of the Little Yuin pre-school at Wallaga Lake.
Shanna Provost, an Indigenous Australian woman from Central Tilba, was the MC and opened the celebrations by giving a brief history of the Gulaga Reconciliation Group.
The group was formed by local Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal volunteers with a desire to create connections between the two communities by promoting friendship and conversation.
Ms Provost also read extracts from the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart.
