It was the culmination of almost a decade of work by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR), but even those behind the scenes couldn’t have imagined how significant it would be more than two decades later.
While the enduring memory of that weekend is of the 250,000 people that walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, many have forgotten that the Council also handed over two national documents to the Federal Government at the Sydney Opera House, to help guide the reconciliation process beyond 2000.
CAR was formed via a unanimous vote in the Australian Parliament in 1991. It was made up of 25 Indigenous and non-Indigenous members, which included representation from all sides of federal politics. Patrick Dodson was the inaugural Chairperson and would serve in the first two terms.
One of the objectives of the Council was to make reconciliation a people’s movement.
“..The Council had a strategy which was to build a people’s movement for reconciliation. In other words, this is not just about parliaments and distinguished people in the nation. This is a grassroots thing. That movement built, and it was like a network throughout the country.”
Brian Aarons spent six years as the Communications Director for CAR. He says one particular idea seemed to work well in building support for the movement.
“In each state and territory, there was a coordinator, usually a team of two people, who were paid by the council to coordinate reconciliation type activities in their state. We would often be producing posters, stickers or whatever, in collaboration with those people about what sorts of things were needed.”
The beginnings of National Reconciliation Week
Karen Mundine was a young university graduate when she joined CAR as a consultant to look at how it would work with different industry groups. She says the Council were acutely aware that there was one group in particular that they weren’t working with.
“They [the Council] were very conscious that they hadn’t worked with faith communities. Particularly Christian faiths which had been very strong supporters and allies to Aboriginal people, through the 50s, 60s and 70s, and [they] were very much a part of supporting the 1967 referendum and its success. So it was realised that there was an untapped group there.”
“I was brought in to work on what was then called ‘The week of prayer for Reconciliation’. That was the predecessor for National Reconciliation Week and in essence, it was talking with faith communities and leaders from faith communities about how would they, in their different faiths, acknowledge or think about these concepts of reconciliation between First Nations peoples and other Australians.
The thing that faith communities do is that they pray. They come together, they reflect, they contemplate. But of course, there is no one single holy day for the different communities so it was decided to put it together, under a [dedicated] week, so it didn’t matter what your faith holy day was”.
Karen says it was an exciting project to be a part of.
“…It was such a success around faith communities, the Council decided it was important to extend it out into a kind of secular community and open it up for everyone”.
A Bridge Walk to Remember
Karen explains how the idea of a bridge walk was first floated: “My boss, Brian Aarons, who actually was one of the Freedom Riders back in the 60s, had this idea about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and non-Indigenous people, starting from either end of the bridge and sort of walking together and meeting in the middle as this kind of metaphor for reconciliation.
I mean, I was a little bit kind of rolling my eyes. A little bit kind of dismissive…and thinking, ‘Yeah, but what happens then Brian? Like everybody’s in the middle and what happens?’ But nevertheless, he persisted with this idea.
“We didn’t know how it would be received. This is all pre-Internet, and all of those things that make life really easy in pulling people together”.
So with Brian’s bridge walk idea on the table, Vicki Scott was asked to come on board to bring it to life. Vicki says there were two main events to be held across the weekend.
“The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR) had decided that they hadn’t been able to get agreement across all governments on a document of reconciliation, so they decided to have a document towards reconciliation, and that that would be delivered in the [Sydney] Opera House [and known as ‘Corroboree 2000’]. The other part of it was a walk over the bridge so that it could reflect the people’s movement and their support for reconciliation that had been built up over the 10 year process of the council”.
Vicki says there were some reservations from the New South Wales Government particularly about closing the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
“One of the people from Transport said ‘we’ve got to be careful, because this really is going to stop the city’. And then somebody else, very wisely said, ‘but isn’t that what we’re trying to do? Let’s have a look at this for our nation'”.
“There was no blueprint for this, so we had to really just go on what had already been a success, which was the New Year’s Eve fireworks. So they already had a coordination committee set up. We tapped into that and I started chairing the logistics committee for how we were going to do both the Saturday in the Opera House and the Sunday; closing that bridge.
Vicki recalls that the stakes were high for the New South Wales Government, with another major event just months away for the city.
“The Olympics were three months after the bridge walk, and that put a lot of pressure on actually, because at one stage, there were rumours that some Aboriginal people who were disgruntled about the process, wanted to walk from the opposite side of the bridge.
Given their focus on the Olympics, that was huge for them, because they certainly didn’t want an international event showing up on the international media a few months out. But they also made no bones about the fact they supported it and they wanted to do it. So they were onside, and then we had all different levels of government not always seeing eye to eye. So we had to find a common theme between them and how we’d straddle that.”
With the big weekend just 24 hours out, Vicki says she got a call from the Road and Traffic Authority about a problem which could have been a little embarrassing.
On the day before the Corroboree event at the Opera House, someone from the Traffic Authority called Vicki to tell her that the Aboriginal flag was upside down on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
“I thought they were trying to be funny at the time, but they were so across everything from different parts of the New South Wales Government, and they had such a great communication channel going between each of the agencies that within 10 minutes it had been rectified. It was amazing to watch. I was very impressed, it was like they’re in sync the whole way.”
If you build it, will they come?
As Karen alluded to, it was not a given that people would turn up to walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. But but as Brian remembers, it didn’t take long him to realise that the people were definitely coming—in droves.
“SBS had wanted [SIr] Gus [Nossal]. They had set up an ongoing, continuous commentary in the gazebo on Observatory Hill; and I had to get Gus there, so they sent a motor boat to pick us up at Darling Harbour. As we came around out of Darling Harbour, into the side of the bridge, suddenly we saw that the bridge was totally packed with 10s of 1000s of people.
I turned to Gus [who had told the media weeks before that the walk would get 250,000 people] and said, ‘Well looks like you’re right, Gus. Looks like your prediction was right’. So that was the first time we knew just that it was massive. And of course, it just went on for hours at the same massive amount”.
But as Brian explains, one leader was missing from the crowd.
“… Of course, John Howard, as Prime Minister, had refused to walk. And not only refused himself to walk, but instructed all his ministers that they were not to walk either. And [Peter] Costello, his treasurer and kind of second in command, was apparently furious, but went along with the Prime Ministerial edict.”
“… But then [Peter] Costello was very prominent in taking part in the walk in Melbourne at the end of December. That was probably just as big as the Sydney walk”.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge Walk not only inspired walks to be held in capital cities across Australia but a number were held in regional towns. It’s believed that nearly a million people took part in those walks which is still the largest display of public support for a single cause in the country. Some of those regional walks still continue to be held even today.
This year’s Reconciliation Week theme calls on Australians to move forward together, while using the lessons from the past to continue building a united and respectful nation.
(image: Reconciliation Australia)
