By Tom Spurling.
Learning about the ‘Statement from the Heart’
About 35 people from Uniting Churches in the Mount Waverley area were fortunate, on Saturday 11 January, to meet with Timothy Molineux, originally from Port Augusta but now working for the Uniting church in Melbourne. Tim has an Honours degree in Media from a university in Adelaide. The focus of his thesis was ‘on hearing Indigenous voices within policy formation’. Tim worked for the Uniting Church in South Australia before joining the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania as a Social Justice Officer. One of his projects is to prepare study material to assist congregations understand the ‘Statement from the Heart’. He thought that it would be helpful to him if we tried out an early version of his material.
It was very helpful for us! We hope that it was for Tim.
Most of the participants admitted to knowing very little about the content and spirit of the Statement from the Heart before the event. You can read the Statement at the Referendum Council website https://www.referendumcouncil.org.au/ or watch it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zREKuT6GUqU.
On the day the Statement from the Heart was placed in an international setting as we heard a little about how other countries had managed the relationships with their indigenous peoples. Then, in small groups, we considered the implications of the Statement for Australia.
The Statement makes three requests.
‘We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.’
‘We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.’
‘We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.’
Then, finally, two of our ministers considered the Statement and its implications against the background of scripture. The Uniting Church was the first church in Australia to constitutionally acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia. More details can be found at https://www.assembly.uca.org.au/resources/covenanting/item/668-the-revised-preamble/
None of us left the event feeling that the task of reconciliation would be simple. We were reminded that there are many different indigenous nations in Australia. I come from the South West of Australia where the Noongar peoples came possibly more than 50,000 years ago. They managed one of the world’s most bio-diverse areas very effectively. In modern times the Noongar peoples are notable for their contribution to Australian Rules Football. In 2016 there were 73 indigenous AFL players of which 25 were from the Noongar nation. https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2016/the-noongar-warriors/
The discussions that we had on 11 January were just the beginning of a path to our greater appreciation of the 60,000-year history of our country and how that can be reflected in the day to day life of our nation.
The University of Melbourne Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies have a very good information booklet. It can be accessed at https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2791940/Uluru-Statement-from-the-Heart-Information-Booklet.pdf
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