‘Listening but not hearing: process has trumped substance in Indigenous affairs’ is the headline to Megan Davis’s article in The Conversation (22.6.16) which concludes:
‘Daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now called into question. Many leaders I have worked with have said that if they need to they will leave it to another generation. The protracted recognition project has antagonised a politically astute polity fluent in the betrayals of political leaders more interested, as Chaney said, in re-election than they are in reform.
‘Whatever the result of the Aboriginal conventions, I am sensing a renewal of hope in the community because for the first time in a long time we have the opportunity to come together, to talk, to laugh, to fight, to sing. In the meantime you can continue on without us, as you always have.’