This week is Reconciliation Week in Australia, but the question for many is will it ever happen? For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, Australia’s history involved the taking of land by colonials leading to things like land dispossession, violence, the stolen generation and racism.

On the other hand, there are people who want to move forward, take a position that the past cannot be changed and the only way forward is to look to the future.

It is important to realise though that history is not there for you to like or dislike. It is there for people to learn from and cannot be changed. If you are offended by any part of it, it is hoped you learn something, so that such actions do not happen again.

How do you see reconciliation moving forward? What ideas do you have to see change or do you consider reconciliation to be something that will simply never happen?

Only if the Indigenous desire it !

Reconciliation simply means "the restoration of friendly relations".

How many of us have any sort of relationships with people identifying as aboriginal to start with? Not many, I would guess. Reconciliation is a notion of high-minded, holier-than-thou whites who haven't had much to do with aboriginal identifiers either; they are into identity politics and division, which is a prime tool of Marxism. For black activists and those with just as much European in them as indigenous, it's all about special privileges not available to any of the other many races of people in Australia. For politicians, it's all about votes; pretty stupid, really, because voting is the only way people can go against this nonsense without being called 'racists'.

Reconciliation with all the claptrap of recently invented rituals and 'welcomes' are just another scam to relieve non-aboriginals of more money, as our stupid politicians fall for the nonsense.

The different treatment of people on the grounds of race, which is an accident of birth, makes a mockery of the Morrison government's stated reassurances to create a society where race is irrelevant.

The High Court has already found that no sovereignty in the sense that it is understood today resides in aboriginal people. Now, activists want something that they did not have in 1788!

The "First Nations" did not exist either. There were 300 odd distinct tribal groups with their own oral traditions and laws, spread across the continent in independent clans. Most did not communicate with their immediate neighbours. Native guides used by explorers could seldom communicate with the tribes through whose territories they passed.

More than enough aboriginal culture is rammed down our throats already. Their flag, a for-profit concoction flies on every public building - for which royalties are paid. Reconciliation Week. NAIDOC. Welcome to country, etc.

Meanwhile, white society is abandoning its culture, history and values. Why should aboriginal culture be immune?

Reconciliation is a 2 way street.

It is going to take a great deal of change to the aboriginal industry, currently costing us billions for absolutely nothing worthwhile, before I'll be reconciled to the waste involved being worth while.

Hi NJ, thanks for the thread.

One person who is benefiting from Reconciliation Week is my wife, she has signed up for the Aboriginal Arts and Crafts classes in our local area. She went to the first class yesterday afternoon, loved it, will be going every Thursday.

Hassy I feel very sorry for you, I believe you are in your 80's with health issues. Its unfortunate you have lived so long and have all this "negativity" within you towards others. Life is not so bad, people are not so bad, what is left of your life spend it wisely on positive pursuits. I'm sure if you took the time and looked about, you would find so much that is positive in this world. Smile!

The Constitution already treats our Indigenous
Australians differently in so far as it allows
laws to be passed for and about Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people, cultures and
heritage. because they are Indigenous. This allows
the federal parliament to make laws that might end
up disadvantaging Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people.

For our Indigenous people this needs to change.
Constitutional change for them is about righting
and recognition of inherent difference rather
than promoting an agenda of sameness.

Changes in the Constitution need to be made -
to remove the laws
that discriminate against people based on their
race.

Only then can any form of Reconciliation have a
chance of succeeding.