Charles Pakana (Victorian Aboriginal News):

On the 26th of January this year, just as in years before, local governmental authorities, community groups and organisations right across our country conducted events ranging from Healing Ceremonies and dawn services right through to celebrations full of patriotic fervor.

And as we’ve seen previously, sentiments occasionally cross boundaries. And this was the case with a speech delivered by Professor Andrew Gunstone, a regular guest to this program, and who is also the Associate Deputy Vice Chancellor of Reconciliation at Federation University here in Melbourne and the founder of the National Centre for Reconciliation, Truth and Justice.

Andrew, welcome back to VAN Talks Podcast and this is at the stage now where I think you must be earning some frequent flyer miles for coming on, but really appreciate it.

Professor Andrew Gunstone:

Thanks so much Uncle Charles. Really glad to be here again

Charles:

Andrew, we noticed on LinkedIn on the weekend that you had experienced a bit of a an eventful time at a Lions Club down at Anglesea. Tell us a little bit about what happened when you spoke there on the 26th of January.

Andrew:

Sure. Thanks Uncle Charles. So I was invited to deliver the keynote address to the event on January the 26th. So I advised them that my talk will be on Truth-Telling and I provided some information about my background, some of my publications I’ve written, and some of the work I’ve done in Reconciliation, Truth and Justice over three decades.

Charles:

So just before you go on, had they invited you or did you reach out?

Andrew:

No, they invited me.

Charles:

Okay. So obviously they knew who you are, your body of work and your role here at Reconciliation Victoria and Federation University.

Andrew:

That’s correct. I think they invited me because I’m Co-chair of Rec Vic and also associate DVC Reconciliation at Fed Uni. So they knew my titles and we’re happy to engage with me.

Charles:

Right. OK. So they reached out. And how long ago was this?

Andrew:

Well, actually they reached out back in 2022. I was unwell in on January 26th last year, but they were so keen to get me. They said let’s come back the year after, so they knew I was coming.

Charles:

It’s not as if you’ve been quiet over the past 12 months with the referedum campaign.

Andrew:

And I think that’s the key point. If they’re interested in seeing what I’ve been doing over the last year, clearly you and I… were doing lots of events on the on The Voice. So that was clearly what I was very strongly advocating for last year was the First Nations Voice to Parliament. So they invited me to come in the morning. So I went along for the keynote address and started my speech, I talked about the referendum but I made it clear I wasn’t prosecuting the case because the case has been lost. Sure, very disappointingly, but it’s been lost.

But what I did was Uncle Charles, use the example of the campaign to illustrate what I think’s important lessons for us to move on as a community, which is the importance of Truth-Telling. And I used some examples that I found in that campaign that illustrated the lack of knowledge in the wider community about key Indigenous issues. So for example, I talked about the fact that the Voice was an advisory body only and it had a remit of Indigenous issues and it certainly didn’t have a remit over submarines or parking fines which is some of the examples given.

Charles:

[laughs] That’s right..

Andrew:

One of the other examples is it had nothing to do with people’s land. It wasn’t going to take people’s land away. And so my intention Uncle Charles, in talking about that as I said not, was not to re prosecute the case, but was to use some examples from the campaign to illustrate to my audience the importance of all of us educating ourselves more about Indigenous issues, about Indigenous history and about Indigenous public policy.

And that’s part of what Truth-Telling is all about. So in my speech about Truth-Telling, I spoke a fair bit about the Voice and then I started to speak about January 26th of the date. And I tried to explain to the audience what is January 26th to us, and I asked..

Charles:

When you say us, what do you mean

Andrew:

As a people, as a country. So I asked rhetorical questions and I asked the audience, is it about when we had a Declaration of Independence like the United States of America? I asked. Is it when we signed a Treaty of Indigenous Peoples like New Zealand? I asked is it when a group of our states became a federation like India?

And I used a number of what I think are quite interesting cases from around the world that are on other countries national days that I think are what you could call a national unifying moments where the country comes together for a particular reason and is rightfully a date to celebrate.

And I was trying to illustrate the juxtaposition between those countries. And there’s many examples of this around the world and in Australia. And so I asked the rhetorical question, what does January 26th mean to us in this country? And I said to me, it’s the start of the invasion, and at that point bedlam ensued.

Charles:

So invasion was the trigger word

Andrew:

That invasion was the trigger word

Charles:

Up to that point in the presentation, was there any sign of unrest or antagonism?

Andrew:

Well, you’ve done lots of speeches as well, Uncle Charles. And I think like me, you, you develop a bit of a an insight into how your speech is going. And I think it’s fair to say the audience was not engaged. I think the audience was not as engaged in some of the places we’ve spoken to, but they were listening respectfully.

Charles:

How big was the audience just so we’ve got an idea?

Andrew:

I’m never good at this, but maybe 150 people or so 

Charles:

So quite sizable

Andrew:

150 to 200, it’s quite a lot of people. The only other actual interruption before I used that word was when I talked about the racism in the campaign. Now you and I know there was some awful racism directed at Indigenous people in the campaign. Terrible, terrible racism. So I use some actual examples from my own knowledge of my friends and my colleagues that experienced racism in the campaign.

Charles:

How did that go over?

Andrew:

Well, one of the examples is a friend of mine was flying in a plane and he had to be moved by the flight attendant because he had people in business suits like well to do businessmen, absolutely pillaring him about being Aboriginal and about the Voice. 

Charles:

Good Lord

Andrew:

This is a friend of mine who’s in his 70s. He’s an Elder and so really horrifying stories. And this is in real life as well as all the social media racism. So I tried to convey the emotional toil on Indigenous people that that had, that the Voice campaign had one person yelled out at the time. What about Marcia Langton ?

Charles:

What about Marcia Langton? How do you respond to that? 

Andrew:

Well, how I responded was I assumed that he was talking about the fact that Marcia Langton was heavily criticised during the campaign for calling out racism. Marcia Langton’s an absolute hero of mine. Absolutely. She’s amazing. She’s done extraordinary work over decades and decades, and I think the country owes an immeasurable debt of gratitude to her and her work.

And I was appalled and disgusted in the campaign when she rightfully called out the racist attacks that happened to induce people. And some in the media, not all but some in the media, absolutely pilloried her for that. And I thought, how can you go after the messenger but not actually question the racism itself?

Charles:

So did you respond to that call? What about Marcia Langton?

Andrew:

And that’s what I said, right. I also explained that Marcia Langton’s advised Liberal governments and Labour governments, so she’s advised governments for decades. So I strongly advocated for Marcia and really I think addressed the interaction that happened. But apart from that, nothing else apart from that. But when I said the word invasion, the crowd booed me, hissed me, screamed at me, told me to….

Charles:

You can say it

Andrew:

..Piss off and fuck off and get off the stage. Go away now. You and I spoke at a lot of events together last year, and I think we both remember a couple of times where there was some vitriolic comments, and that was annoying, but I never felt unsafe then. I felt very unsafe last Friday.

Charles:

You told me that someone actually came fair into your face and told you to piss off

Andrew:

So when I was leaving the stage, I had people coming up to me quite closely and yelling piss off in my face. And at that point I was just keen to get through the crowd because I really didn’t know what was going to happen and I had no support. I had no no one there, none of my friends were there. I was going to invite my family down, but thank goodness my kids wouldn’t have wanted to see that.

Charles:

You mentioned to me though, in the yarn we had a couple of days ago that you actually were dragged off stage, there was some physical contact where someone actually grabbed you by the arm and urged you somewhat urgently to get off the stage. So what happened there?

Andrew:

Yeah, so what happened is when all this yelling and screaming happened. So when you and I had got some interactions, some comments thrown at us at various events, We were able to keep talking our way through it, but I couldn’t because the yelling was so much. So I stopped talking and then I had a representative of the club come up to the stage and I thought they were going to say to the crowd, hey, quieten down, he’s our invited guest.

He’s an expert in this matter. He’s driven 2 hours to speak to us, hear him out. But instead he told me to stop talking so he didn’t support me, which is very disappointing. Then I said look, can I just finish my speech? I’ve got some sorry Uncle Charles, I really want to talk about that amazing work of Yoorrook Justice Commission and the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria. That’s how I was going to finish the speech. And he said no. And he grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him and pulled me away from the microphone.

Charles:

Now they’ve accused you of making it a political speech. What I’m wondering is, and let’s be really frank about this and honest, was there anything political? Because it seems that people simply throw the term political at anything that deals with invasion or racism or Treaty or Voice. When it’s not political. It’s more of a social justice issue, surely? So was that the big thing this you’ve made a political issue?

Andrew:

I certainly deny that it was a political issue. I think a few points for that. Firstly, the speech that I made about Truth-Telling. Anyone who could have read about what I have written for the last two decades, two and a half decades, they wouldn’t have been surprised that that’s what I was going to say. Secondly, the word political, like the word woke, is often used to denigrate people and put them down.

And to say this is being political, this is being woke is a way to not actually engage in a subject. Thirdly, the word invasion is political in exactly the same way the word settlement is. So if you say this country was settled or this country was invaded or this country was colonised, they’re all political words, not one’s. I mean, in my view, invasion is the correct word because in my view, invasion is what actually happened in this country, of course, and I think that’s shared by a lot of Australians.

It’s not a radical view. Now, I accept that people have a different view. For me, I have no problem with people coming up to me after and saying why did you use the word invasion? But to me, saying that I’m being political as a justification for shutting me down is an affront to free speech and an affront to the invitation to invite me there in the first place.

Charles:

Andrew, you’ve said this is the first time you felt physically unsafe. You mentioned that we received our own fair share of heckling during the campaign, and a lot of people did, but this seems to be a rather extreme example. Now, I’m also right now as we’re having a yarn. I’m on LinkedIn and looking at Tracy Westerman, who we both know and she’s a incredible Indigenous psychologist and she made a post today about various comments she has received on Twitter.

Now, I’m not going to read a lot of them because they’re quite offensive, but things like maybe take your free degree and do something useful with it rather than race baiting and claiming to be the victim all the time. If you hate us white people so much then how about you stop taking our money, house, clothes, food, just go walk about with a spear and animal skins on your back and they’re the light ones, The really light ones. Do you see that the racists or those intolerant towards Aboriginal rights and Aboriginal self determination are becoming a lot braver and more vocal since October?

Andrew:

There’s a lot in there to unpack Uncle Charles. So first I’d like to say thanks for bringing up the appalling example of what’s happening with Tracy. And I’ve got a huge admiration for Tracy. She’s an amazing woman, exceptional work. And you’re right, that was a very time example of what occurring and some of the racist comments that she’s copying is just appalling.

And it gives me an opportunity to say, you know, what I went through on Friday was really bad. I’m very unhappy with what happened. But it’s really important to note that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are going through this every day. Feelings of being marginalised, of being silenced about not having a voice, of having racism thrown at them, that’s having to Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people every day, all the time. In regards to your broader question about is it getting worse, I really believe it is. I think what’s happened since the referendum, it’s emboldened people and we’ve seen patents of this happening before.

When Pauline Hanson started on the national scene back in 1996, there was a significant rise in attacks against Asian Australians, of course. So we’ve seen this before. I think, and I’m not saying this of all people who voted no, of course, but there were some people who voted no who felt emboldened by the vote and are pushing significantly back. And it’s no coincidence.

This is the first Australia Day, first Invasion Day since the referendum. And it’s, from what you’ve seen, what I’ve seen and from lots of other reports around the country that I’ve seen, it’s been the worst in many years in terms of the racist attacks and the pushback against Indigenous rights, against Truth-Telling.

We’ve seen many other examples. In the last several months since the referendum loss, we’ve had a number of local governments across Australia have quite racist debates about whether they should keep Welcomes and Acknowledgments of Country, and a number of them have actually now pulled back from doing those Welcomes and Acknowledgments. We’ve had state opposition parties, including here in Victoria, push back against Voice, Treaty and Truth. 

Charles:

And doing it on Aboriginal Sunday as well, Let’s point out. Shameful.

Andrew:

So there’s been, I think, an attempt from particularly the conservative element of our society to really push back against what they perceived to have been advances in Truth-Telling over the years. So I think you’re right. I think there’s a real concern in the community and certainly the reaction just in to Tracy’s post into my post over the last couple of days shows there’s a lot of concern.

Can I just go back a little bit too, to that episode? I do want to note that there’s a lot of people from that community who were very supportive of me. So as I finishing this story, I walked off to a lot of booing and I was quite concerned about my safety.

I then walked away from the crowd and I was about to leave. But I had a number of probably 10 to 12 people who came up over the next 10 or 15 minutes and wanted to talk to me to apologise for the reaction of the crowd, but also the reaction of the organiser to not support me.

They said you should have been allowed to continue to speak and they wanted to hear what I was going to talk about. So I got to talk about Yoorrook, I got to talk about First Peoples’ Assembly, that Treaty and Voice and Truth. And I took a lot of hope from that support.

Charles:

And he was saying that you also received an e-mail from someone who’d gone to the trouble to try and find your e-mail address.

Andrew:

Absolutely, Uncle Charles. I’ve had about four or five in the last day or so. That’s great from community members who were horrified. This happened at Anglesea. So I want to emphasise Anglesea as a community. I’m not criticizing, I’m just criticizing what happened at that event. And I think we need to learn from it to make sure we can all have more reasoned debates. I have heard so much from people who were there who really were strongly supportive of me. That gives me a lot of hope.

Charles:

Andrew, I just want to now talk about what needs to be done within the reconciliation movement. Reconciliation over the years has done some amazing work, the various reconciliation groups, Reconciliation Australia and Reconciliation Victoria, but obviously there needs to be a change in the way reconciliation is carried out. Over to you on that one.

Andrew:

So, Uncle Charles, I think there’s a couple of things here. I think we need to be really careful as a reconciliation movement not to make the same mistake we made 23 years ago. So back in 2000 we had a million people across Australia march, across the bridge for Reconciliation, we had 250,000 in Sydney align and there’s this enormous support for reconciliation and then it just dissipated.

For whatever reason. We had a government at the time who refused to apologise to indigenous peoples. We had other issues coming up. Remember the Tampa Boat issue? We had a lot of other issues coming up. That support then dissipated for several years until we really started to see Reconciliation Australia in 2006, institute the RAP movement, which we’ll talk about later.

But there was that was a wasted opportunity and I think whilst we lost the referendum and that’s devastating for us, we have to remember millions and millions voted for yes and importantly we had tens of thousands of people who campaigned actively, who did door knocking, who were active campaigners, who spoke at shopping centres, who did letterboxing. My dad, 83 year old man, he did that as well. So we had lots of people around the country. We have to make sure they stay with the movement.

Charles:

A lot of them are disappearing them.

Andrew:

Exactly, exactly. So at Reconciliation Victoria, we’ve been inundated with people requesting us to help them set up reconciliation groups in their own communities. I think that’s fantastic and we’re certainly helping facilitate that. So one of the things I think that needs to be done is to try to capture that goodwill as fast as we can and keep that process going.

But certainly reconciliation has to move beyond, and I’ve written about this recently, beyond performative reconciliation to be substantive. And many of us in the movement for decades have talked about substantive reconciliation.

By that I mean not just wearing a shirt or doing and Acknowledgement of Country, as important as an Acknowledgement is, but to also look at ways to address Truth-Telling in organisations, to look what we can engage with our own communities, with our own friends, having those brave conversations with our friends and colleagues and families.

Charles:

Well, what are some of the more the hard ways in which this can be done? We can’t just be saying we’ll go and have the conversations because we’ve been urging people within the reconciliation movement to have conversations for decades. But what really constitutes this substantive reconciliation?

Andrew:

So I’ll give you an example. In Victoria, we’re progressing very strongly towards a treaty. So through the fantastic work of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, an Indigenous led organisation, which is Victoria’s equivalence to the Voice, they’re doing extraordinary work. And so we need allies to help advocate for the importance of a Treaty. And that’s one way people can get engaged, educate yourselves about the importance of a Treaty.

I know it with extreme disappointment, the recent Victorian opposition’s backflip to a treaty and we had the shadow spokesman for Aboriginal Affairs roll out what John Howard used to say about a country can’t make a Treaty with itself. That is a ridiculous statement and we have many examples of treaties across the world that have been made between Indigenous peoples and the national government. This can work.

And in all those examples it conclusively shows socio economic conditions are better, self-determination is better. Indigenous rights are better in countries with treaties than in in countries like Australia.

Andrew:

So come back to substantive ways in which reconciliation can work. So what are some of those real substantive ways that ordinary people and the reconciliation groups around Victoria, what can they actually do? I mean, do you want them marching in the street now? Do you want them chanting cries down the main street of towns?

Andrew:

Yeah, I think what’s really important, and I know this is what we often talk about, but it is really important, is to educate ourselves. I think that’s really important. With the referendum, we saw how important Truth-Telling and education are. And I have to say, even from people who are voting yes, it’s important for people to know that as well.

One of the things we both talked about in the referendum was a lot of Indigenous colleagues of mine at various organisations felt huge cultural load because they were having to constantly tell people about the voice. Non-Indigenous allies like myself need to take responsibility to educate ourselves, then we have to educate others.

So I know that’s probably not as exciting as marching in the street, but that’s something basic we can do. Really good friend of mine. Senior Aboriginal academic often refers to himself as the Black Siri, because everyone’s saying Mark, what about this? And Mark, what about that? We need to be able to figure out better as allies what we can do ourselves in our own devices, to educate ourselves, to educate our colleagues and our friends.

Charles:

So you’d like to see more public presentations done through at libraries and public events and public parks, even just talking about these matters.

Andrew:

And yeah, I’m a very big believer in having those conversations. And Uncle Charles, that’s what I thought I was going to on Friday. I would have been really happy. I was expecting people to come up to me after and say really disagree with what you said there, Why did you say it? And I would have been loved to have that conversation.

Charles:

Not to shout piss off to you [laughs]

Andrew:

Exactly. And it’s disappointing. We’ve had a couple of articles been written about in the newspapers since then from people who were actually there, quite high profile people who were actually at the event.

He criticised me but didn’t come up to me at the event to talk to me. I would love to have had a discussion with you. So that’s very disappointing. So yeah, very big believer in having respectful dialogue and a respectful conversation. That’s what we did during the voice debate. And as you know, when we spoke to people at the voice debates and the dialogue over the last year, lots of people changed their mind when they heard and were educated about the processes. So I think..

Charles:

What else, though, what else? Apart from educating and sharing that education, what else needs to be done to achieve this substantive reconciliation?

Andrew:

I think basically looking at ways to engage in reconciliation groups. So we’re trying to as Reconciliation Victoria, I know the other states are as well trying to find ways to engage more with communities and I know we’ve talked a bit before about it, but Reconciliation Action Plans are really important as well. They’re led by reconciliation in Australia, but each of the states do have a role in helping encourage organizations.

Charles:

There’s also in Victoria, the Victorian Aboriginal Local Government strategy. I just want to point that out. So there’s RAPs, there’s action plans..

Andrew:

Absolutely. There’s lots of ways for organisations to get involved, but the key data is this Uncle Charles. When you look at the various measurement surveys over the last 20 years done by Reconciliation in Australia, those organizations with RAPs have a demonstrably better outcomes, an organisation without RAPs.

And that’s clearly in the evidence in terms of attitudes from non engineered staff, feelings of safety of indigenous staff, engagements of self determination within the organization. So all that data clearly shows the value of wraps. However, like any other device, RAPs need to be genuine and need to start talking about the importance of Indigenous rights and self determination and not just focusing on performative reconciliation.

That’s a really critical element to look at. So I think raps are important, engaging with communities are important as well. But those I come back to, those hard conversations people need to have. So for example, and having that bravery. So I would have loved, when I was at that event on Friday, for someone from the committee to have had the bravery to stand up to that group and say, hey, you need to let him speak because it’s not good enough to come up to me afterwards and apologize that some of the committee members did.

They needed to be brave and actually stand up at the front. And I can’t help but compare how you were as a moderator compared to the moderation I had on Friday.

You very clearly at the start of the events you moderated last year, carefully talked to the crowd about the importance of respect. And I think having those brave conversations is really critical whenever you’re talking about Truth-Telling or reconciliation. The other thing people can do, particularly in Victoria, Uncle Charles, is engage with the Yoorrook Justice Commission.

So the Yoorrook Justice Commission, which is a wonderful Indigenous led organization set up by the First Peoples’ Assembly Victoria, is conducting Australia’s first ever Truth-Telling inquiry. And they’re doing some extraordinary work, working with everyday Victorians to uncover what’s actually happened in the history of this.

Charles:

And we’re talking about Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, Aboriginal and we’re going to stress that.

Andrew:

That’s correct. So right now they’ve actually got calls for any Victorian, Aboriginal and non Aboriginal Victorian to contribute and that could be in the story in a written form, it could be in a video production, it could be in a poem.

They ask for a variety of ways to produce, but that’s a great way to help talk about the truth of this state. And I think knowing the truth is really important before we can move forwards. And So what the Yoorrook Justice Commission uncovers and what they find in the Truth Telling report will go into what we discussed for Treaty negotiations. There’s a real direct link between Treaty and Truth in this space.

Charles:

What about to the reconciliation groups across Victoria? We’ve got quite a number and you mentioned that your organisation or the organisation of which you’re Co-chair, Reconciliation Victoria, is working with local groups to start up. What needs to change within some of the reconciliation groups. Not all of them, but some of the local reconciliation groups, what can they do better? What would be your one or two bits of advice out to them right now?

Andrew:

I think they need to engage more with local communities. I know a lot of them do, which is great, but not all of them. So I think it’s important for local reconciliation groups to develop those strong relationships with Traditional Owners and to work with local community groups and then to work together to see how non-Indigenous allies in the reconciliation space can help support local engagement.

So for example, we’ve had some terrific outcomes in local areas where you might have some local Truth-Telling being told. So you might have a monument or you might have some stories being told, which is a great way to educate that broader local community. And as we saw with the referendum, Uncle Charles is the further out you went from the CBD, the lower the voice vote was. Of course, the exception to that is Indigenous peoples, because Indigenous peoples in remote communities overwhelmingly support the voice.

But for the broader community, those regional areas are a struggle. And I think the importance that local reconciliation groups can do, particularly in the regions, is work with Traditional Owners to look at how to advance Truth Telling in that local space. So I think that’s a really important way to engage because we saw, as we talked about the extraordinary racism within the voice campaign and the expansion of that racism. Since I think we need to, as reconciliation allies, is to look at ways to address that racism and stand up and doing local truth telling is a great way to do that.

Charles:

Andrew, we’re nearly at the half hour mark. We’re going to have to wind it up now. But I’m sure given the frequency you appear on the VAN Talks podcast, we’ll be yarning with you again. Andrew, thanks so much indeed.

Andrew:

Thanks so much, Uncle Charles