The following opinion pieces have been published by the President and Commissioners. Reproduction of the opinion pieces must include reference to where the opinion piece was originally published.

Seeing reconciliation through is an ongoing challenge but ultimately rewarding

By Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda

Publication: ABC's The Drum (Wednesday, 02 June 2010)

I have been Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner for four months now and it's through this lens that I have reflected on what Reconciliation Week means to me.

And I have come to the conclusion, from a mixture of my work as Commissioner and my own personal journey, that this reconciliation business would be easier if people came to it with open minds and hearts.

In the last week, I have attended and spoken at several functions in Canberra acknowledging Sorry Day. I've shared with audiences my sorrow at the pain suffered by members of the Stolen Generations.

I've shared my hope and optimism for the future, arising from the shifting policy landscape of Indigenous affairs, heralded firstly by the National Apology and followed up with the establishment of the Healing Foundation, and the commitment by the Federal Government just last week to work with members of the Stolen Generations towards real and lasting closure.

I told these audiences that I am from the Ghangulu people of the Dawson Valley in Central Queensland, my mother's mother's country.

I shared that some of my people walked around the Yass and Braidwood area for many years. In fact, if you travel between Canberra and Yass today, you will pass over Gooda Creek, named around the time my great great great grandfather and his son walked over that area.

That is not, in itself unusual or telling anything much. But then I revealed that these people were the Goodas - the white side of my family.

Let me explain.

My personal reconciliation story began several years ago when I started to receive emails from a Margaret Gooda, whom I subsequently found still lived in England.

Her husband Ken and I are related, but my side of the family left England some six generations ago.

Since those emails, Ken and Margaret, and their family, have visited us Central Queensland Goodas on three occasions.

It has been great fun to join the lines and dots in our family tree and to trace my great great grandfather's trek north to where my grandfather met my grandmother around a little town called Baralaba in Central Queensland.

But I also had to come to terms with the fact that I now had non-Indigenous relatives.

Although both my mother and father were Aboriginal, for the first time in my life I now had white relatives.

We knew there were non-Indigenous people in our heritage back there somewhere, but while we didn't know them, it all seemed just a little bit abstract - even allowing us the occasional joke from time to time.

But Ken and Margaret were real living people. I now had real, live, tangible white heritage and relatives with whom I had to come to terms.

I've stopped and thought about how Ken and his family feel about us Aboriginal Goodas. And how we relate back to them.

Ken and Margaret have fitted right in with my family and I know it's a great source of pride for them that they have Aboriginal relatives.

For me, it has almost been a real live case of reconciliation; of families coming together after six generations apart. Of non-Aboriginal people meeting their Aboriginal relatives for the first time, and vice versa.

And the outcome has been immensely rewarding and fulfilling. I could never have imagined how well we would all get along.

Getting to know us has been a whole new world for Ken and Margaret.

But it has to be said - it's a world they were keen to explore with open minds and hearts, and I believe therein lies the heart and soul of reconciliation.

So, this year, as Reconciliation Week draws to a close, I am thinking of Ken and Margaret.

I think of how they and their family have come into our lives and have now become part of our family.

I am convinced now more than ever that the key to reconciliation is positive relationships - between each other as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and with non-Indigenous Australians.

And, as can be seen in my own personal experience, this sometimes includes families.

Both sides of the family are learning that while we can do many things to keep our relationships on track, there may be things along the way that strain our relationship.

Our ongoing family reunion is an ongoing challenge and on one level, I think it is a microcosm of reconciliation in practice.

This journey for me has been, without a doubt, one of the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences of my life.

I firmly believe there's a good chance that reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians could also be one of the most rewarding experiences for the nation as a whole.

Please see Commissioner Gooda's statement regarding Sorry Day issued last week at
www.humanrights.gov.au/about/media/media_releases/2010/50_10.html