Are we there yet? Ten years on from the decade of reconciliation

December 2010 marks the tenth anniversary of the Final Report of the Council of Aboriginal Reconciliation and the culmination of the formal reconciliation process.  It is timely therefore to reflect on how far we have come on the reconciliation journey.  The report, Are We There Yet?, calls on governments to advance their commitment to ‘resetting’ the relationship with Indigenous Australians by developing a clear reconciliation agenda. It makes a number of recommendations aimed at resetting relationships, respecting rights and resourcing reconciliation activities and groups. These include a proposed process for negotiated agreement-making, a broad and consultative constitutional reform process and a plan to close the Indigenous health gap. The Are we there yet? report notes a number of reconciliation high-points in the last decade – most notably the National Apology and bipartisan political support for the Close the Gap campaign to improve Indigenous life expectancy. However, it also highlights the lack of progress on human rights issues and the failure to build respectful partnerships with Indigenous Australians