Presented by Adjunct Professor Muriel Bamblett Hon DLittSW AM on Thursday 17 August 2017.

Full title: Walking in two worlds: Can Reconciliation lead us together onto a single pathway for a more just and equitable outcomes for all?

The Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (VACCA) celebrates forty years since our founding this year. In 1991 when the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody made its recommendation about a Reconciliation process to address the alienation of Aboriginal people in our own land, we were barely fifteen years old yet much of that report focused on failings in child and family welfare. Our struggle to address the disproportionate removal of our kids from our families led us into fields of service and endeavour we did not expect to go down, nevertheless the path we chose – at times found ourselves on – has brought us to a point where we have shaped child welfare in this country. VACCA’s services reflect the beginnings of an Aboriginal model of child and family welfare that is based on the principle of the right of Aboriginal people to self-determination. Forty years on and we are now working in partnership with a state government and a sector that is determined to apply the principle of self-determination to Aboriginal affairs most notably through its discussions with us about a Treaty. What all this means for Swinburne University will be one of the issues that the Oration will tackle.