Yesterday, the Flinders University community came together to reaffirm our commitment to Reconciliation. Over 250 staff, students and alumni joined together in the Plaza and via livestream to hear speeches from Vice-Chancellor Professor Colin Stirling, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous) Professor Simone Ulalka Tur, and Professor Jonathan Craig in his role as Co-Chair of the RAP Oversight Committee. Uncle David Tarna Copley, Kaurna / Paramangk Elder and Lecturer in the College of Medicine and Public Health, gave a Welcome to Country and also hosted a yarning circle following the speeches.

For those who were not able to attend, a video of the event is available here.

An extract of Professor Simone Ulalka Tur’s speech

I too acknowledge Kaurna Yarta and all traditional owners and custodians on the lands on which the University’s campuses are located. This will always be unceded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land. I acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today.

Thank you, Colin, for your words, your leadership, and your acknowledgment of the contributions Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples bring to the University and more broadly the nation, but also the emotion in your words to listen which means to step back, to reflect, to reposition, and then to lead. This takes a level of vulnerability and strength to show a heartfelt response, which demonstrates that human quality is what brings people together and that relationality manifests through embodied, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual actions. This reflects honourable leadership and means that we too can freely demonstrate these qualities as we navigate and reimagine a way forward. The status quo cannot remain, for the nation and for the sector.

As we reflect on the weekend, I too ponder the following questions: What does it mean to really be listened to and heard?  And what does it mean to look forward? And how do we re-imagine a nation where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Isander peoples, connection to Country, our ways of being, knowing and doing and rights is always the first consideration, not the default.  These are complex questions for us, however, to enact and to practice consideration of First Peoples first, will mean that rights and justice will manifest with benefits for the whole community. And through this new logic, transformation, change, and reconciliation becomes the way. And we all benefit.

The referendum required us as a to look at ourselves, our systems, identified things that are broken and how they might be fixed – showed the robustness of our democracy and also its challenges. It is important that we all – every one of us – has the right and the opportunity to express our views. However, racism cannot prevail.

It’s important that we collectively make decisions that are in the interests of us all. I also acknowledge there has been a call for a week of Silence. Coming together this morning I felt was important, but I also encourage, if you wish to take the moments of silence and peace you need.

The referendum is done. The nation has spoken. Have our best interests been served? The answer to that rests in what we do now, and how we choose to go forward. For my part, I choose to endure. I choose optimism. I choose better. And I know that I am not alone.

I also want to acknowledge the individual and collective acts of all staff, students, and alumni, through self-learning, shared conversations, spirited discussion, leadership, volunteering, care, and kindness, your allyship is seen and we are all better because of this.

Colin, you asked me if I am okay regarding the referendum, in particular the polarised debates. I answered I don’t really know, and to be quite honest I still don’t know. The weekend’s outcome has left me with many questions. I ask myself as First Peoples, how are we really seen within this country? I am hurting, and I recognise that members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community may be hurting as well.

Today’s great disparities in our collective society are not okay. Together we can – and will – work through this. One might wonder how – given the deep and divisive politicking – we might forge a way forward. And I reflect it will be one step at a time. It won’t be easy. But it is worth it.  With each small gesture, with each act of generosity, we become a better nation.

I choose to believe that people aren’t vindictive or cruel and do not want to consign Indigenous Australians as second-class citizens or eradicate us altogether. That although there may be different views about how equality and inclusion and our collective interests are achieved, there is agreement that we need to do better. Together we can – and will – work through this.

I also reflect on the words of sistas colleague Geonpul and Bundjulung woman Romaine Moreton in her performance, One Billion Beats. Her voice resonates:

I have witnessed the falling of many, heard them cry and hear them still and even with their grief inside me growing,

I command my spirit to rise and surprise you by our will,

and for all people, we are here and we are many

and we shall surprise you by our will,

we shall rise from this place where you expect to keep us down,

and we shall surprise you by our will,

for the bullets we dodged they were difficult, and this ideological warfare is more difficult still and even when we challenge in humanity and we shall rise and surprise you by our will.

And yes, we will surprise you by our will.

So where now?

The only way is looking to the future. There’s work to be done – let’s think deeply about what we want and need, be guided by our hearts, and step forward into action.

The journey that we are on… one that has been gathering momentum for several generations and especially since the national apology, the Uluru statement from the heart, and the reckoning of the referendum… has all led to this moment. Today.

Today we can choose to come together.

We can choose justice.

We can choose reconciliation.

We can choose better.

So let’s. Thank you.