Unfinished Business

In 1991, the Hawke government aimed to reconcile indigenous and non-indigenous people by implementing a ten-year reconciliation process. Its three broad goals concerned the education of the wider community; indigenous socio-economic disadvantage; and a document of reconciliation. The following decade of reconciliation saw some significant achievements. Hundreds of community reconciliation groups were established. Hundreds of thousands of people participated in the reconciliation walks in 2000. The wider Australian community developed a greater awareness of indigenous issues. But neither the aim nor its three goals were successfully achieved. Further, several political goals of indigenous people were not adequately addressed, including sovereignty, self-determination, a treaty and land rights. Unfinished Business is the first book to explore the 1991a??2000 reconciliation process. It analyses the successes and failures of the process and the factors that affected it, making a substantial contribution to our understandings of reconciliation in Australia.