An overwhelming majority of Australians support Indigenous people having a say in matters that affect them, according to a new survey about community attitudes towards reconciliation.
The Australian Reconciliation Barometer – conducted by Reconciliation Australia every two years since 2010– shows growing support for some of the key aims the reconciliation movement.
About 500 Indigenous and 2000 non-Indigenous people were included in the latest survey.
For the first time, respondents were asked about truth-telling to “acknowledge the reality of Australia’s shared history”. Eighty per cent of people considered it to be important.
But amid growing support for the aspects of the reconciliation process was widespread exposure to racism.
Almost half of Indigenous respondents said they had been subjected to some form of racial prejudice in the last six months and one in three said they had endured verbal racism in the same period.
Karen Mundine, the CEO of Reconciliation Australia, said there was “plenty of room” for improvement.
“In welcoming these latest results, I must acknowledge the hard work undertaken by so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people to share the incredible beauty and complexity of our cultures across this continent,” she said.
She said the “next steps” towards reconciliation included advancing issues raised by the Uluru Statement from the Heart and supporting the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples.
