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and Torres Strait Islander people now deceased.
section regularly for updated materials or if you would like to contribute a link to this
page please get in contact.
Indigenous knowledges have contributed to the development of Australia. Over 250 Australian Indigenous Language groups exist across the country. The languages spoken by Indigenous Australians are diverse and are distinctly different to Standard Australian English. Many Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people speak many different languages and new languages labelled Kriols or Creoles are also spoken.
Reconciliation Queensland advocates for the right of all Indigenous Australians to speak home languages and to pursue the revival and maintenance of these languages. Recognising and advocating for language centres, community languages programs and language in schools projects are an important part of Reconciliation processes in action. To find out more information on Indigenous Language projects across Queensland contact:
The Federation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages
Reconciliation Queensland is a supporter of changing the date for Australia Day. We don’t consider 26th January an appropriate date to celebrate our nationhood. Instead we held a webinar that unpacks the difference between individual prejudice and systemic racism.
Reconciliation Queensland accepts the invitation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and supports a First Nations Voice to Parliament enshrined in the Australian Constitution.
We Support the Uluru Statement from the Heart
The Reconciliation Australia website has a broad range of online resources including:
Cultural awareness information
Factsheets
Australian Reconciliation Barometer
Constitutional recognitionGovernance toolkitSchool resourcesTo explore these resources visit the Reconciliation Australia website.
Developed by Reconciliation Australia as a resource for workplaces, schools and individual Australians the Share Our Pride website is an introduction to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their culture. Visit the website.
The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) is the world’s premier institution for information and research about the cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, past and present. The Institute undertakes and encourages scholarly, ethical community-based research, holds a priceless collection of films, photographs, video and audio recordings and the world’s largest collections of printed and other resource materials for Indigenous Studies. Visit the website.
The website also contains a selection from the Sorry Books which includes the following proclamation for people to sign their names against:
” By signing our name to this book we are recording our regret for the injustice suffered by Indigenous Australians as a result of European settlement; In particular the effect of government policy on the human dignity and spirit of Indigenous Australians. We are recording our desire for reconciliation and for a better future for all our peoples.”
On 13 February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology to Australia’s Indigenous peoples, particularly to the Stolen Generations, whose lives had been blighted by past government policies of forced child removal and Indigenous assimilation.
Visit the Australian Government website to read a transcript or view a video of the apology.
The first National Sorry Day was held on 26 May 1998 – one year after the tabling of the Bringing them Home report May 1997. The report was the result of an inquiry by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission into the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. Visit the Australian Government website to find out more.
The State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is the result of a collaborative effort, organised by the Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. For more information, or to download a copy of the full report, visit the UN’s Division for Social Policy and Development/Indigenous Peoples resources page.
Writer Samuel Wagan Watson reflects upon the historic divide of Boundary Street, West End (in Brisbane, Australia) in his poem ‘Last Exit to Brisbane’. A Griffith University student production (2005) produced and directed by Helen Kassila, with camera and editing by Alyce Holzberger and Natasha Verniquet, audio by Seranica Williamson and Nikki Beaufoy.