A five-week walk to call for formal truth-telling processes has ended on the steps of Parliament House.
Kerrupmara Gunditjmara and Boandik man Travis Lovett led the 800km walk from Melbourne to the nation’s capital.
Lovett said: “The story of this country is still unfinished and truth is the missing chapter.”
The walk’s end marks the beginning of National Reconciliation Week.
Reconciliation
National Reconciliation Week, which begins on 27 May each year, marks the anniversary of the 1967 referendum that removed Constitutional clauses preventing First Nations people from being counted as part of Australia’s population.
The final day of Reconciliation Week, 3 June, marks the 1992 Mabo decision, which recognised native title in Australia.
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Now in its 31st year, this year’s theme is “All In” – described as “a call for all Australians to commit wholeheartedly to reconciliation every single day.”
The walk
More than 22,000 people took part in a 500km Walk for Truth across Victoria last year, ending at the state’s Parliament House.
This year’s event began in late April in Melbourne and passed through Shepparton, Wagga Wagga, and Yass on the way to Canberra.
Ahead of the walk, Lovett wrote in an open letter that the movement “is about finally listening to those who have carried memory and hurt, culture and resistance, through invasion, frontier war, stolen children, stolen land, prisons and policies.”
Lovett presented the letter to PM Anthony Albanese on kangaroo skin on Wednesday.
“We have a long way to go. The journey of reconciliation, though, does advance. It’s not a straight journey, as progress never is. But I assure you that we’ll continue to walk with you,” the Prime Minister said.
