First Nations’ culture demands greater respect.
Aboriginal sovereignty has never been ceded and it’s time to rethink policy and ideas.
Former MP author calls for greater imagination to attain national healing.
26 May 2021
Today we acknowledge National Sorry Day and Australia’s Stolen Generations. Today is an opportunity for all Australians to reflect on history and how it plays out in today’s debates on Indigenous issues.
‘The national narrative is sadly focused grief and guilt. I believe we truly need to readjust this narrative so that we view our First Nations with pride rather than regret,’ said author and former federal member of Parliament, Richard Evans.
‘Australia holds a respected position as a leading international nation, but we have not achieved peace and healing with our First Nations as other nations have.’
‘It’s time for Australia’s dominate culture to stop, rethink priorities and reset approaches, and commence a new direction in addressing sovereignty by recognising what most other nations have been prepared to do, and that is, make peace with the First Nations,’ Evans said.
‘We need leadership on both sides of the debate with open hearts, not closed minds. This should not be an either/or debate; rather, we must consider options different to the current polarising narrative. Closed minds only lead to polarisation and history shows us this attitude never ends well.’
‘In my lifetime I have heard promises from all governments toward our First Nations, and yet, the unresolved problem of justice remains,’ Evans said.
‘In my view, new thinking is required. We don’t need to keep trying to fix something that cannot be fixed. Closing the Gap policies don’t seem to be working. Injustice still exists. Loud voices are getting louder,’ Evans said. ‘We don’t need increasing community polarisation and its historic inevitable outcomes. We need a new direction; new leadership voices and new ideas, and we need outcomes.’
‘The Australian community wants it, what’s holding us back?’ Evans asked. ‘I suspect polarised politics and historical education.’
Recently Richard Evans released his third political thriller suggesting Australian governments have been lacklustre in resolving the community’s collective goodwill for justice toward First Nation peoples.
Forgotten People canvases the idea of a government being forced to negotiate a sovereignty treaty with Australian First Nations, ending years of discrimination and disrespect. When constitutional recognition fails to deliver social reform ignoring the First Nation peoples’ entreaties for cultural recognition, freedom and justice, dialogue stops and revolution begins.
Forgotten People challenges government thinking toward First Nations and, in a fictional world, suggests a resolution providing the reader much to think about.
‘It’s simple really,’ Evans said. ‘Leaders with open hearts can and should resolve this by bringing our nation together and not allow partisan politics and guilt narratives to dominate the future.’
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About the author
Richard Evans is an author with an eclectic career. As a political insider, he served as a federal member of parliament for the federal electorate of Cowan in Western Australia during the turbulent 1990s. He now specialises in writing political thrillers and occasionally appears as a commentator and columnist on politics, the economy and business. He lives in the bayside village of Williamstown in Melbourne, Australia