Incoming Indigenous Affairs Minister to address Marrickville Town Hall on Uluru Statement

By DANIEL LO SURDO

The incoming Indigenous Affairs Minister will address Marrickville Town Hall next month as part of a public forum on the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Linda Burney, who holds the seat of Barton in Sydney’s inner southern suburbs, will be sworn in as the first female Indigenous Affairs Minister after Labor’s success at the polls earlier this month, and will speak at a public forum in the Inner West on June 16.

Key to the public forum will be the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which was a document written in 2017 by First Nations leaders inviting Australians to help create structural and constitutional reforms to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lives. During Anthony Albanese’s victory speech on Saturday, the incoming prime minister said his government would commit to the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full.

The public forum will also feature talks from Dean Parkin, the Director of the From the Heart campaign targeting a constitutionally-enshrined First Nations voice to parliament, and Cheree Toka, who led a successful push to have the Aboriginal flag fly over the Harbour Bridge.

Albanese reaffirms commitment to Uluru Statement on National Sorry Day

Albanese doubled down on his commitment to the Uluru Statement from the Heart on Thursday’s National Sorry Day, calling the document “an act of grace … which will bring us closer together as a nation”.

National Sorry Day this year marked the 25th anniversary of the ‘Bringing Them Home’ report in Australian parliament, which came after a government inquiry into the forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their communities.

Friday marks the start of National Reconciliation Week in Australia, which will run until June 3. This year’s theme is ‘Be Brave. Make Change’, which organisers say is a challenge to “tackle the unfinished business of reconciliation” to forge change “for all”.