The recent Royal Society of Tasmania lecture, “Truth telling and treaty as it relates to Tasmania now”, by Rodney Gibbins, is now available on the RST YouTube channel. Click here to read a full transcript.
For 60,000+ years the palawa people had sovereignty across this land lutruwita. All of this changed with the arrival of the white man. The invasion radically changed us in a very short period of time, our culture was interrupted, our language and freedoms taken from us. This has resulted in continuing contemptuous views and actions by successive governments that have rendered us almost voiceless and powerless in our own country.
We began to fight back in the early 1970s. We developed our own political movements and rallied as a people. Five years ago the Uluru statement was released. It was a forerunner for states to develop their own policies towards treaty and truth telling”.
In this lecture, Rodney Gibbins outlines the responses of successive governments to aboriginal issues and considers the needs and ambitions of the Aboriginal community in the development of a treaty and the truth telling process.
Rodney Gibbins is a palawa man born in Launceston. As a child, he experienced constant physical and racial harassment. This was the experience as well, of most, if not all, of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community and this harassment was a direct consequence of the subjugation by the broader white community towards the Aboriginal community. Rodney has been actively involved in Aboriginal politics since the early 1970s and served in both the state and Commonwealth governments as a Senior Aboriginal Program and Policy Officer for over 30 years. He is currently retired.
