Certainly the Mabo decision has brought a settlement to traditional Aboriginal landowners, yet it cannot hope to deal with the multiplicity of issues, problems, and challenges confronting Australia's Indigenous peoples. It is time that all Australians talk and think about the specific meaning and ongoing form of reconciliation if the good work of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation isn't to disappear in a haze of either good will or ignorance.
Nor can we avoid the fact that the constitution itself needs to be re-cast to admit the prior ownership and culture of Indigenous Australians and to celebrate their ongoing role in the development of Australia.
We have already passed through various phases of the reconciliation process. The far-sighted – Indigenous and non-Indigenous among them – started the process of developing a treaty between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal Australians. We must return now to their ideas.
In 1979 the concept of a "treaty within Australia between Australians", or a makarrata - a Yolgnu word which signifies the end of a dispute between communities and the resumption of normal relations - was first mooted. The National Aboriginal Conference called on the Senate standing committee on constitutional and legal affairs to negotiate a makarrata with Australia's Aboriginal peoples.
This was then followed by a summary of issues to
