National Reconciliation Week 2024
/By Sam Hudson
Diversity & Wellbeing Subcommittee Member
What is National Reconciliation Week (NRW)?
It begins each year on 27 May, with a commemoration of the 1967 referendum which resulted in a successful change to the Constitution, allowing the Australian Government to make laws affecting Indigenous Australians. This meant that the government could assist Indigenous Australians to overcome adversity by beginning to address the social inequality which occurred as a consequence of colonisation.
The week ends on 3 June, with a celebration of the High Court decision in Mabo, a case which recognised that Indigenous Australians had occupied Australia before 1788 and for time immemorial. This decision overturned the legal fiction that, at the time of colonisation, Australia was ‘terra nullius’ i.e. an empty land, that belonged to nobody. The court held that ‘terra nullius’ should not have been applied to Australia, and it recognised that Indigenous Australians had rights and laws which existed before the British arrived and still exist today.
If you have read this far, you may wonder how you can get involved?
The following events will be held on campus throughout the week –
• UQLS NRW Stall, 27 May to 31 May, 10am-3pm, Walter Harrison Law Library entrance;
• Exhibition: 'How We Remember Tomorrow', 28 May to 31 May, 10am-4pm, UQ Art Museum;
• Screening: 'We Don't Need a Map', 30 May, 2pm-4pm, 03-309 and GCI Atrium;
• "Voices of Our Elders" Aboriginal Story Tellers exhibition lunch time guided tour, various times, UQ Anthropology Museum;
• NRW installation – Hand in Hand: Messages of Hope, 27 May to 31 May, 10am-4pm, BEL Student Base (level 1, Colin Clark);
• Allyship: Action and Analysis, 29 May, 4pm-5pm, Psychology Building & Online via Zoom;
• Indigenous Voices in Media, 29 May, 12pm & 11 June, 1pm, Online.
Sources
https://www.reconciliation.org.au/our-work/national-reconciliation-week/
https://www.reconciliation.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Mabo-Day-Factsheet-.pdf
https://www.reconciliation.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/1967-Referendum-Factsheet.pdf
