Bridging now to next: A critical call for Australia’s moral reckoning

From the editor’s desk

As National Reconciliation Week 2025 unfolds across Australia under the powerful theme “Bridging Now to Next”, we are reminded not only of our shared history but also of the work that remains unfinished. This theme isn’t merely a poetic phrase to be printed on posters or splashed across social media feeds—it is a summons to confront the truths that have long been buried beneath the surface of national consciousness. It calls for a deliberate crossing: from performative gestures to meaningful structural change, from symbolic acknowledgments to justice grounded in reality. Reconciliation in Australia has always been complex terrain. This year, the message is louder and more insistent. It’s not enough to pay homage to the milestones of the past—the 1967 Referendum, where Indigenous Australians were finally counted in the census, or the 1992 Mabo decision that legally dismantled the myth of terra nullius. These were crucial steps forward, but they now risk being romanticized unless they are viewed as starting points, not endpoints. The nation cannot continue to commemorate these events while neglecting the deeper reckoning they demand. Truth-telling is central to this year’s focus. But truth, by its nature, is uncomfortable. It challenges national myths and calls into question long-held notions of identity and progress. It demands that Australia revisit its foundation stories—not with nostalgia but with critical eyes. The dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples wasn’t an unfortunate side effect of colonization; it was a deliberate policy. The echoes of this truth are still felt today in every system where Indigenous Australians are overrepresented—in prisons, in hospitals, in poverty statistics, and tragically, in premature death rates.

The call for structural change this year cannot be mistaken for a metaphor. It is a literal demand. One of the starkest examples is the continued incarceration of Indigenous children as young as 10. Amnesty International’s push to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 is not radical—it is humane. It reflects international standards and scientific consensus on childhood development. To imprison a child is to admit moral failure. To disproportionately imprison Indigenous children is to perpetuate a legacy of control and violence. The fact that this is still up for debate in 2025 is an indictment of national priorities. The structural inequalities don’t end there. Justice reinvestment—diverting funds from incarceration to community-led initiatives—offers not just a smarter approach to justice, but a more ethical one. When Indigenous communities design and lead these programs, they reflect lived experience and cultural understanding. These are not abstract policy suggestions; they are tangible steps that could drastically reduce recidivism, improve lives, and offer dignity where the system has long denied it.

Beyond policy, this week is also about cultural engagement. Across the country, Australians are participating in events— watching films, attending performances, engaging in discussions. These are not passive activities; they are invitations to see the world through different eyes. When people gather to watch a story told from an Indigenous perspective, they are challenged to confront their own assumptions. When they listen to elders speak, they encounter histories rarely taught in schools. Education in this context is not academic—it is transformative. It equips Australians with the awareness to question systems they once accepted without thought.

This transformation is vividly symbolized in Bree Buttenshaw’s artwork for the week. The native plants regenerating after fire serve as more than an aesthetic image—they are a metaphor for resilience, yes, but also for responsibility. Fire may destroy, but it also clears the way for renewal. And that is what reconciliation must become—a process that clears away denial, guilt, and silence, and replaces them with commitment, accountability, and action.

Yet there remains a danger that this week, like many others before it, will be consumed in tokenism. Posters will be hung, corporate logos will turn Indigenous for seven days, and land acknowledgments will be spoken with the same mechanical cadence they always are. But without movement—without action—these gestures mean little. Reconciliation is not a theme to be celebrated once a year; it is a direction, a path. And we must walk it daily.

The theme “Bridging Now to Next” hints at a future not yet realized. The “now” is marked by fatigue, by disappointment over the failed Voice to Parliament referendum, by ongoing resistance to real change. But the “next” is still ours to define. It could be a future where Indigenous children are nurtured, not criminalized. Where their languages are revived, not erased. Where Indigenous knowledge shapes environmental and social policy, and where Indigenous people have control over decisions that affect their lives. That future is not inevitable. It will not arrive on its own. It depends on what we do now. If Australians leave this week feeling merely informed rather than inspired to act, then we will have missed the moment. If we continue to speak about reconciliation in polite tones while ignoring the rage, grief, and resistance of Indigenous voices, we are only reinforcing the very divisions we claim to be bridging. One of the most overlooked aspects of this week is its emotional weight. For many non-Indigenous Australians, reconciliation week is educational. For Indigenous Australians, it is often exhausting. The burden to educate, to forgive, to explain one’s pain again and again, is a heavy one. It is not their responsibility alone to carry this load. True solidarity means stepping up—not stepping back and applauding others from a safe distance.

The pathway to reconciliation is not paved in consensus. It will require disagreement, discomfort, and disruption. But it also offers the promise of a different kind of national identity—one built not on denial, but on truth; not on superiority, but on respect. It is not about guilt—it is about growth. And that is a challenge that belongs to all of us. This week should not be remembered as a cultural calendar event. It should be remembered as a turning point— if we are brave enough to treat it as such. Bridging Now to Next is not a slogan; it is a decision. And Australia, collectively, must decide what kind of nation it wants to be.