'Practical reconciliation' ignores the problems of Indigenous identity

The complexity of Aboriginal affairs is that we must deal not only with abject daily lives but also with the rights of Indigenous people never being acknowledged and agreed. "Practical reconciliation" denies this complexity. Rather, it pulls the wool over middle Australia's eyes that the government is actually doing something.

Australia needs agreements about standard things like Indigenous education, job opportunities, service delivery, native title rights and how they are exercised and a co-operative notion of cultural heritage. There must be fundamental constitutional change in this country, and there must be a treaty.

This requires matching up Indigenous people's essential cultural and social value systems with those of Australian society broadly. It requires the broader society to consider how it is prepared to adapt and change to give Indigenous ways a distinct place in the shared life of Australia.

This does not threaten middle Australia. It would allow Aboriginal people to fully take up their responsibilities in ways consistent with their social, cultural and spiritual values and their obligations. It would enable us to take our rightful place as Australians in an Australia that prides itself upon its democracy, an identity of which we could all be proud, but which is yet, unfortunately, falsely assumed by most Australians.

What we are talking about here is the survival and sustainability of the world's oldest living continuous culture. It requires more than Indigenous people being assimilated into the middle classes. It takes political will and honest dialogue.