Reconciliation Australia’s Australian Reconciliation Barometer research shows that about a third of Australians do not know or accept some fundamental aspects of our shared history, including the occurrence of mass killings, incarceration, forced removal from land and restriction of movement.

Ongoing work by The Healing Foundation has outlined the need for truth telling to address the trauma and racism faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This trauma had its genesis in the violent early history of Australia’s Frontier Wars and continued through the genocidal policies that followed, including the forced removal of children.

This lack of a shared understanding of our history is a source of ongoing trauma for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and a roadblock to reconciliation.

United by a shared mission to progress truth telling and promote historical acceptance, and heartened by the growing momentum for truth telling at a local, state and national level, Reconciliation Australia and The Healing Foundation brought together experts from around the country for a Truth Telling Symposium in October 2018 to discuss the ways that truth telling could support healing and reconciliation in Australia.

The Symposium aimed to ignite a specific conversation about the:

• importance of truth telling
• truths that need to be told
• different truth telling practices that might be applicable to Australia
• guiding principles for future truth telling processes.

Interest and participation in the Truth Telling Symposium demonstrated that the goodwill and expertise required to progress reconciliation and healing through truth telling exists and can be mobilised. Discussion on the day highlighted the power of truth telling – in improving relationships, but also, more practically, shaping better policies, programs and ways of working. As citizens, organisations, communities, institutions, and governments, we all have a part to play in truth telling.