National Reconciliation Week Breakfast: Aboriginal community looks to post-referendum future

Aboriginal Tasmanians will gather at a sold-out event on Friday to discuss ways of improving outcomes for their community six months on from the defeat of the Voice to Parliament referendum.

Aria Ritz Palawa woman who will be the MC for the National Reconciliation Week breakfast in Hobart. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Aboriginal Tasmanians and community leaders will gather at a sold-out event this week to discuss ways of improving outcomes for Indigenous Australians in the wake of the Voice to Parliament referendum defeat.

Aria Ritz, a first-year law student at the University of Tasmania, will serve as the MC at the National Reconciliation Week Breakfast in Hobart this Friday.

The 19-year-old delivers talks and cultural training in Tasmanian schools and workplaces and says she is excited to help oversee the event at MyState Bank Arena.

“I really appreciate the work that organisations like Reconciliation Tasmania do in regards to widespread educational [work],” she said.

“And this year’s theme of ‘Now More Than Ever’ resonates with me quite a bit because it’s true after the referendum and all of that. I don’t think silence is what’s needed.

“I think we need to keep standing up and keep fighting for our rights.”

Aria Ritz Palawa woman who will be the MC for the National Reconciliation Week breakfast in Hobart. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Ms Ritz said education and truth-telling would be “really fundamental elements moving forward”.

“Some sort of constitutional enshrinement [for Indigenous people] would be great but obviously that didn’t work out well,” she said.

According to Ms Ritz, land handbacks, treaty, and the promotion of traditional place names would be important means of improving the lives of Aboriginal Tasmanians in the future.

She said she had voted yes in the referendum but had harboured some reservations about the proposed Voice to Parliament.

“I voted yes out of fear of what … [a no vote] would bring,” Ms Ritz said.

Meaningful education, she said, would be key to righting historical wrongs inflicted on Indigenous Australians.

Headlining this year’s National Reconciliation Week Breakfast will be Goanna frontman and social justice advocate Shane Howard and emerging young palawa musician Ged Watts, who will perform and speak individually on this year’s theme.

National Reconciliation Week runs from May 27 to June 3.

Originally published as National Reconciliation Week Breakfast: Aboriginal community looks to post-referendum future