With both National Reconciliation Week, and the anniversary of the 2017 signing of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, having just passed, we thought it timely to write the third in our series of opinion pieces exploring our recent research into attitudes among Victorian peoples towards Indigenous and reconciliation matters.

Our previous two pieces looked at attitudes towards two key public policies in Victoria, Truth-telling and Treaty. This piece analyses the findings of our research into attitudes among Victorian people towards reconciliation, the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and the 2023 First Nations Voice to Parliament Referendum.

Reconciliation has been a significant social and political movement in Australia for over three decades. The movement, led by peak national, state, and territory bodies, encourages people to work towards a 'reconciled' Australia. There are of course debates on how to best achieve this, or if reconciliation is the best approach.

Genuine reconciliation includes addressing fundamental matters

We argue that meaningful and substantive reconciliation is not just about improving the relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, as important as that is, but that it is also about transformational and structural changes between Indigenous peoples, the wider Australian community, and the state.

This genuine reconciliation includes addressing fundamental matters including constitutional change, power relationships, Indigenous rights, self-determination, sovereignty, institutional racism, distributive and reparative justice, education, white privilege, white fragility, and the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart was written in May 2017 at the National Constitutional Convention in the Northern Territory. It is a beautiful and generous invitation to the wider Australian community to walk together for a First Nations Voice to Parliament, and to establish a Makaratta Commission for Treaty and Truth.

The First Nations Voice to Parliament was a modest proposal to amend the Constitution to enshrine an advisory body to the Australian Parliament so that Indigenous peoples could speak to laws and policies that affect them. It would not have had any veto power but would fundamentally be a mechanism for being heard.

We surveyed 1,006 Victorians across genders, age groups, regions, and political affiliations.

What we found reveals a significant disconnect between support for reconciliation in principle and support for specific reform measures

A very strong majority of respondents (73%) supported reconciliation, with just 13% not supporting it, and 14% unsure. This strong support was universal across genders, ages, regions, and political support, although the highest support was among women, young people, metropolitan residents, and supporters of progressive parties.

However, this strong level of support drops considerably for the First Nations Voice to Parliament (50% support, 37% no support, 13% didn't vote or unsure) and the Uluru Statement from the Heart (36% support, 16% no support, 12% unsure), with significant opposition among males, older people, rural residents, and conservative voters.

Further, a significant number of respondents, 37%, stated they did not know anything about the Uluru Statement from the Heart, despite this being widely publicized and discussed less than three years ago during the national conversations regarding the Constitutional Referendum regarding a First Nations Voice to Parliament.

The finding that 37 per cent of respondents knew little or nothing about the Uluru Statement from the Heart is particularly significant. The Statement remains the foundational document underpinning contemporary discussions of Voice, Treaty and Truth. Without a basic understanding of its content and purpose, meaningful public engagement with these reforms becomes considerably more difficult.

Without understanding the Uluru Statement from the Heart, it is subsequently much more difficult to understand what the First Nations Voice to Parliament was designed to do, the critical importance of Treaty, and why Truth-telling is necessary. Instead, these fundamental ideas become disconnected and easier to dismiss.

Reconciliation is widely supported as long as it does not ask 'too much'

Overall, these results illustrate that support among the wider community is significantly higher for broad and symbolic ideas such as "reconciliation" than it is for substantive and genuine political reforms such as the First Nations Voice to Parliament and the Uluru Statement from the Heart, with its calls for Voice, Treaty, and Truth.

The wider community's strong support for reconciliation seems promising on the surface, however the much lower levels of support for reforms illustrate many understand reconciliation primarily in terms of vague terms such as "unity", "respect", and "relationships", rather than on addressing structural change.

In other words, reconciliation is widely supported as long as it does not ask 'too much'.

Research has shown for a long time that settler societies are significantly more comfortable with symbolic recognition than with meaningful and structural change. What this survey data shows is how clearly that pattern still holds. When reconciliation takes a concrete form, support begins to substantially fracture.

These findings should also serve as a warning for Victoria's current national leadership on Voice, Treaty and Truth. If these reforms are to succeed long-term, there needs to be considerably more education and genuine discussions among the wider community about the clear and transformational benefits of these critical structural reforms.

People cannot support what they do not understand. The Uluru Statement from the Heart invited Australians to walk together toward a better future. However, many people do not yet understand where that path leads. If reconciliation is to achieve its stated goals, it cannot remain merely a symbolic aspiration. It must be understood as an ongoing social and political project that requires education, engagement, and meaningful structural change.

Professor Emma-Jaye Gavin is a Garrwa Aboriginal scholar and the first Indigenous Professor of Truth-Telling in Australia.

Professor Andrew Gunstone is a leading international authority on reconciliation and is Co-Chair Reconciliation Victoria.

References: Gavin, EJ. (2023). The voice referendum: moving reconciliation forward. Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues, 26(1-2), 37-40. Gunstone, A. (2024). Reflections on the Voice - During and After the Campaign. Australian Scholarly Publishing.