//What are we being admonished to reconcile to?//

I've always thought it meant reconciliation in the sense of 'the restoration of friendly relations'. Which seems reasonable enough to me; I'm hard-pressed to imagine why anybody would be against friendly relations with blackfellas. Well, except for certain class of inferior people that the rest of us have to put up with. Fortunately that mob of cockroaches are a dying breed.

"I've always thought it meant reconciliation in the sense of 'the restoration of friendly relations'."

Oh good....so we've already achieved reconciliation.

Next problem please.

Dear Toni,

You can see from some of the posts - that not
all of they are a dying breed. Some of them
are hanging on for dear life.

We have on many occasions gone through this motion. It is about time we start talking about equal responsibility and contribution to society, rather than treat aboriginals as needing an apology for being aboriginal. While in hospital yesterday I was asked if I identified as aboriginal; or Torres Straight Irelander, I am fair skinned and blonde hair; which means i could have claimed aboriginality and that identity would have been granted. When we are both treated as equal citizens rather than some underclass needing special privilege, we are then both accepting we are truly reconciled.

Josephus,

Aboriginal Australians don't need an apology
for being Aboriginal. They're not asking for an apology.
What they want is to be treated with respect and have
their history recognised. They can't aek responsibility
if they're not allowed to have any. If whitefellas keep
telling them what to do.

'What they want is to be treated with respect and have
their history recognised'

Yeah kind of like the first settlers whose children and grandchildren and then other migrants who did such a marvelous job in building and defending this nation.

Maybe one year we should celebrate the Indigeneous, the next the British migrants, the next the Italian migrants, the next the Chinese etc etc.