There is enormous symbolism in the proposal by the Federal Government to put a reconciliation square in the Parliamentary Triangle. Squares do not fit into triangles – at least not in this instance. The timing is difficult. The failure of the Federal Government to say sorry and the enormous tension and anger that has created among indigenous people and among people who want the Australian Government to say sorry on their behalf makes this gesture look like an excuse for a patch up. Worse than that, it looks like an excuse to get rid of the Aboriginal Embassy outside Old Parliament House. The embassy – shabby and makeshift as it is — is a symbolic reminder of the inequality of living conditions between many indigenous people and their non-indigenous fellow citizens.
The Minister for Reconciliation, Philip Ruddock, says that there would be no attempt to subsume the embassy if indigenous people did not want it. But several government ministers, in particular the Minister for Territories, Senator Ian Macdonald, have expressed their desire to see it go.
One can only hope that the deputy chair of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, Sir Gustav Nossal, is right when he calls it a magnificent gesture, and that this is not a cynical first step towards removing the embassy before conditions in Australia would warrant the embassy’s replacement by a reconciliation square that marked actual reconciliation, not mere hope for it unmatched by deeds.
When that happens placement of the square in the Parliamentary Triangle – the heart of the nation – will evoke the right symbolism.