A National Act of Recognition with the First Peoples of Australia at Kamay Botany Bay

Registration Desk open from 8am. Due to parking challenges, we recommend arriving early.

This is a Truth-Telling Gathering with the First Nations of Australia, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We will bring early factual records into the open and place them under public scrutiny.  This will make known our true history since colonisation. We will recognise together that the impact of this history continues to this day. We believe a deeper understanding of our true history will lead to a deeper understanding of each other, and will help us to take ownership of the stains of our past.  Doing so will set us free to look to the future. 

The program for the day includes a Welcome to Country; an overview of our colonising history as described in the British records; an overview of the impact of colonisation on the wronged parties; three specific examples of wrongdoing; a response from the wider Australian community, and a Declaration of Recognition of our True History.

All attendees at the National Act of Recognition will be invited to proclaim in unison several Truth Telling Statements and the following Declaration of Recognition:

We gather at the place where our shared history began – Kamay Botany Bay.
Though we speak of untold loss and grief,
Yet also we are filled with gratitude – for what we have found in each other.

We see the many fair minded people who live on all these lands.
We see First Nations people who have generously shown love and forgiveness.
We see later Australians who, seeing truth, labour to make wrong things right.

And yet, we know that the heart of our nation is disturbed.
At the heart of our nation there lies a profound injustice – and a deep divide.
It is a divide between descendants of those who were here and those who came.

First Nations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, became oppressed.
On our first day of shared history, an armed attack was launched against them.
Tall ships came from the sea – and other people overran Country.

Belonging to Country, First Peoples were dispossessed of their homelands.
Elders looked and saw – old people displaced, no Place of Belonging.
They looked and saw – language forbidden, culture, identity – all lost.
Young lives broken by inter-generational trauma - lives over before they began.

The time has come to recognize the truth about European arrival in this land.
The voice of First Peoples must be heard,
And the voice of all people of goodwill heard with them.

With this Declaration of Recognition we enter the Truth Telling space together.
We declare that at this place we recognize the truth – the stains on our past.

We publicly reject, and strongly condemn these colonising actions.
They are not acceptable to us – they were not done in our name.

We celebrate a truth that binds us together, the truth of our common humanity.
We commit to walking together – in our resolve to making wrong things right.

You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
 

All proceedings on the day's Program will be recorded on video. 

Park Entry Fees into the National Park $8.00 per car.

BYO picnic lunch and enjoy a leisurely time with friends in the Park grounds after the program is concluded. Bottled water supplied.

Planning to attend? Then Register early. We regret we only have permission for a limit of 1000 persons to attend