Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows a group of adults participating in a Reconciliation Learning Circle in Sydney, New South Wales. The first scene shows members of the Learning Circle discussing the issue of Native Title. Following this, four group members – Sandy, Hugh, Lee and Darren – not only reveal what they feel they have learned during their participation in the Reconciliation Learning Circle but also provide personal opinions about some fellow group members.

Educational value points

• The clip demonstrates how discussion and debate in a Learning Circle initiated by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation increased the participants’ knowledge and understanding of issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The Learning Circle also provided participants with a sense of community, valuable personal connections and support in speaking out about issues affecting Indigenous Australians.

• The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation initiated the Reconciliation Learning Circles, demonstrated in the clip, across Australia in 1991. The aim of these adult study groups was to improve relations between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous Australians. The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation was disbanded in December 2000 and Reconciliation Australia, an independent foundation for Reconciliation, was established.

• According to Reconciliation Australia, ‘Reconciliation involves symbolic recognition of the honoured place of the first Australians, as well as practical measures to address the disadvantage experienced by Indigenous people in health, employment, education and general opportunity’ (http://www.reconciliation.org.au).

• In the clip, land rights and Native Title are referred to as part of the same discussion but in fact they are distinct from each other. The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 provides for Indigenous peoples in NT to claim rights to land based on traditional occupation. Under the federal Native Title Act 1993, Native Title ‘means the communal, group or individual rights and interests of Aboriginal peoples or Torres Strait Islanders in relation to land or waters’ (www.nntt.gov.au).

• Learning Circles, one of which is shown here, originated in Scandinavia in the early 1900s with the aim of creating an environment in which constructive democratic dialogue on a particular issue could take place. Rather than using trained teachers or experts they use a neutral facilitator, who may be a member of the group or someone provided by the organisation that has arranged the Learning Circle. Groups are generally limited to 15 participants.

• The observational style of filmmaking, an example of which is shown here, records people’s lives with minimal intervention from the producers of the film. Without explaining or providing an opinion about what is seen the filmmaker, Rachel Landers, invites the viewer to interpret for themselves the activity of the people they are watching on screen.

• The clip is taken from Whiteys Like Us (1999), a documentary filmed in Sydney that follows 15 non-Indigenous Australians participating in an eight-week Aboriginal Reconciliation Learning Circle. Written and directed by Rachel Landers the film was awarded the United Nations Media Award at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 1999 and was aired nationally on Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) in the same year.

Intertitle: Session 7 – Learning from International Experiences
A group of non-Indigenous adults are sitting at desks participating in a Reconciliation Learning Circle in Sydney.
Facilitator I would like to draw all our attention now at this point to the documentation in front of us, to the 7.12, and let’s look at what the Aboriginals are saying they want. And then I think we start to get some clarity of what the issue of land rights is about.
Female participant 1 Is it not like, you know, just the fact that they’re going to have equal rights equated them as, say, I have?
Female participant 2 I guess when we start talking about Aboriginal people’s right to negotiate, that’s a concept that I think is being ignored over and over again, and has been.
Female participant 3 That’s what the Wik Amendment Act…
Female participant 2 The Wik Amendment Act, OK…
Female participant 3 … is taking away the right to negotiate.
Female participant 2 Which is literally saying, land, sure, this is land title and we’ll grant, you know, Aboriginal title to this land, but when it comes down to the crunch, you can’t negotiate. So that actually is extinguishing rights, really, isn’t it?

Several participants are interviewed separately away from the room where the Learning Circle is taking place.
Sandy We really can’t justify taking the land, taking Australia from them, because terra nullius is just a joke. No-one could give that any credibility at all. And I think once you acknowledge that, there has to be some kind of payback, and I think it’s the payback that worries people. They wonder how big the deal is, you know, what exactly do the Aboriginal people want, and I think they’re a bit scared to ask in case it’s too huge. It’s that thing like Leslie was saying. They have this idea they’re going to come in and take your backyard or your property.
Facilitator We are threatened all the time, and I suppose that’s how I felt when I looked into that far sea of land, that I didn’t belong there. The good thing for me is that I went out there and I have a strong sense of feeling that I belong to it today. And that’s why I went to this discussion group, because I feel I want to belong. It’s perhaps an access to belonging.
Sandy I don’t know where you take it from here. Like, it would be nice to get together sometimes to do things together, to see where we all are further down the track, what we’ve done with what we’ve learnt.
Lee I think we’ve explored the issues and become more aware of things. We’ll know how to stand up and, you know, defend certain situations and put the Aboriginal people’s case forward more.
Darren I think everyone, when they’re young, wants to save the world. As you get older, that dream gets tarnished. You know, but we’ve also got the maturity and – I don’t know, Hugh just is like – he’s kind of got this wise old aura about him, you know, and I’m glad he was sitting next to me last week. Rubs off on me, I hope.
Lee I love Hugh. He’s beautiful.