Communio Calling
Communio Calling
Along the Path of Reconciliation
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In this special NAIDOC Week episode, we invite listeners into a reflective conversation about reconciliation with members of the GSE Reconciliation Action Plan Working Party.
Recorded in the lead-up to National Reconciliation Week 2025, this insightful and honest conversation is filled with both hope and frustration, reflecting on the imperfect journey of reconciliation that each of us—and Australia as a whole—is on.
Host Gabrielle Sinclair is joined by fellow RAP Working Party members: Libby Denny, GSE Governing Councillor and Chair of the Working Party; Sharon Cooke, State Manager for Aboriginal Education at Catholic Schools NSW and a proud woman of the Ngemba people; and Dr Joanne Hack, GSE’s Executive Director.
Welcome to Good Samaritan Education's podcast, Communio Calling. My name's Gabrielle Sinclair and I'll be your host. Our Communio Calling conversation this week is a complex and vulnerable conversation as it was recorded in the midst of Reconciliation Week and looking forward to NADOC Week celebrations. Our guests today are members of Good Samaritan Education's Reconciliation Action Working Group. Our conversation is filled with hope and frustrations of memories of hurt and delight. But at the core it's about journey and relationship. In this place we now call Australia, there are woven the song lines of story, culture, and memory. We acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, the traditional owners of land, air, water, upon which we reside, study, work, and travel. We pay our respects to elders, past and present, as they hold, teach, and care for story, country, and culture. We pay heed for their call for recognition and justice. And we pray that we may walk into a future embracing stewardship as kin, connection, and neighbour in all things. So joining us today is the chair of our RAP group, Libby Denny from Good Samaritan Education's Governing Council. Libby brings into our conversation a long journey in education, particularly in Sydney Catholic Schools, where she was principal for many years and now works in collaboration and mentors many educators across Australia. Our second guest is Sharon Cook, currently the State Manager for Aboriginal Education at Catholic Schools New South Wales, a proud woman of Nyanba people of the northwest of New South Wales. She maintains her presence in rural New South Wales as an Aboriginal mother, grandmother, teacher, educator, consultant, and coach. On the day of the recording, Sharon experienced some intermittent connection issues and ducks in and out of our conversation, and sadly for all of us, was unable to contribute as much to the conversation as she would have and we all would have liked. Lastly but not least, Joanne Hack joins us, GSE's Executive Director. New to this role in 2025 but not a stranger to Good Samaritan education. Jo brings a great depth of insight and vast experience to our conversation. So let's jump in. So welcome to Communio Calling. It is wonderful to have you here. We have three wonderful guests with us today.
SPEAKER_04So I'm in downtown Sydney on Ridges, World Square on the corner of Pitt and Liverpool Street. So smackbang in the middle of Gadigal Country.
SPEAKER_03I'm happy to go next. I'm Libby and I've just Googled where I'm sitting at the moment. I hail from Gadigal in Marakfall, is where I live, but I'm coming, I think, from Wannarua Nation.
SPEAKER_01Good afternoon. My name's Joanne Hack. I'm on Bidgewall Country. It's only, I suppose, in the last four or five years that I've made the distinction between how the clans of the Yora Nation have spread across Sydney. And I think only in our local council areas that they've started to be much more nuanced in how they acknowledge country. So I acknowledge the elders from Bidgewall Country.
SPEAKER_05Beautiful. Thank you. So our podcast, as some of you might know, is very much grounded in story. It's about honouring that fabric of connection of who we are and being really intentional about that incarnational reality and the expression of the diversity of who we are. So we always start with story. So I'm going to let you jump in to who might like to go first to share a bit of your own story, the things that have influenced you to where you are now, whether that be family, faith, different encounters, what has shaped you and perhaps where you first encountered the Good Sams.
SPEAKER_03I'm happy to kick off just some of my story. I'm going to start with my earliest encounter with the Good Sams. It was through my mother. She was educated at St. Bridget's at Marypore by the Good Sams. And she tells a story that still lives on in me because it's the type of woman that I want to be. My mother was tone deaf, couldn't sing a note, but she tried out for the school choir at St. Bridget's Marypore. And she used to tell me this story. And she said, You know, Libby, I went and I sang with all my heart. And she said, the nun who was conducting the choir said, Oh dear, we'd love you to be in our choir. We'd so love you to be here. But how about you just mouth the words, but you will be a part of our choir? And so my mother told me that story from the earliest years I can remember. And believe it or not, at a good Sam Governing Council meeting not so long ago when we're digging into the archives, that story of that sister was told, that music teacher at St. Bridget's, and my mother had not long gone to God. And I thought, I know this story. It happened to my mother about the wonderful music teacher. So I suppose that's where I wanted to start today was with my family and my mother as the influence, and that was a good Sam's influence in her. And you know, I'm a teacher by trade, but I had the privilege of running a school, being principal of a school where we had nearly 40 Aboriginal girls at Kensington, they're close to the La Peruse community. And that's where I learnt so much of a relationship of walking with, of making mistakes, of being messy around, trying to help and trying to teach, and quite often wondered who is the dean taught about culture and about learning. And I think they're the two big kind of influences about where I find myself today. And also I at university, I was at university in the early 80s at New South Wales Uni. And I studied geography and land rights was really, really big at the time. And I remember doing a major project, a senior geography project on land rights down in the Bateman's Bay, beautiful Ben Along around that area, and going and doing some field work there and just being so moved by that kind of connection with people down there. That there's probably three or four influences I'd like to just talk about today.
SPEAKER_05Tell us a little bit more about your family.
SPEAKER_03I'm the youngest and I'm the only girl. So I have three older brothers and we live with my grandparents. So I had that beautiful extended family. My dad came from a quite a broken family, and mum and dad stayed with grandma and dad when they first got married. And when they were going to leave and buy a house, they said, stay, we want a big family. We want you to stay and raise your family here. So the importance of family was highlighted through my dad's lack of. So I came to appreciate it. Wonderful.
SPEAKER_05Thanks for sharing, Libby. I'd love to go with.
SPEAKER_01So I suppose my connection to the the Good Sam's was sort of outlined earlier on in the year in The Good Oil. But Libby and my family have grown up in the same area, and our brothers are best of mates. So our stories are very similar. My mother too went to St. Bridget's at Marrickfall and she grew up in Des Point Street where the convent was. And so, you know, I could give you heaps and heaps of stories, but I suppose one I didn't speak of in that Good Oil when she remembers her time at St. Bridget's, she remembers very fondly uh Sister Louis. And it's one of my jobs when I get some time to go down to the archives and find out a little bit more about Sister Louis. My mother was an only child and quite lonely. So I think Sister Louis's kindness kept her going at school. You know, I think we talk about school refusers and all of those things. Now, in their world, there was no space to be anxious or to refuse or whatever. So, you know, many people reflect on the harshness sometimes of the sisters, but maybe we don't talk enough about their kindness. So I suppose our family was different because my father was not Catholic and three of my four grandparents were not Catholic. And so I only had one grandparent that was Catholic, which was my nan. And even for her, it was a very tenuous relationship to the church. So my mother went to church with the lady next door at St. Bridget's at Marrick Fall, and she was the one who very much fostered my mother's faith. And when my mother was 15, she had to decide whether she was going to continue to do that and made that decision to do that. So I suppose you know mum was a powerful influence in that, but you always felt a bit different because your father didn't go with you to all the things, and in terms of family weddings, because my mother was only child, we went to Anglican churches for those things. But other than that, it was school, you know. Libya and I had the great gift of being educated at St. Ursula's Kingsgrove with the Ursuline nuns and you know, this great liberal education around what a post-Vatican II church was, and that we had a voice in that space and that women were valued. We didn't have all the traditional overlays. We had very liberal form of religious education. People caught the beanbag type education, you know. From me and I and you were in groups of 15 where you just talked about stuff. And then only when I went to university, then I started to do theology, when I look back at that, how the heart stuff and the talking stuff made sense with the theory stuff. So I suppose a few different streams in that space. And then teachers are really lucky. We get to live in living church communities our whole life, you know what I mean? And in that, I think we grow by teaching helps you grow because you have to talk about what you think and what you believe, and kids challenge you in that. So going to class every day when you teach religious education is professional learning because you have to conceive, you have to be able to describe, you have to be able to defend, not to defend for any other reason, because it's an interchange, you know what I mean? And where they sit along that is totally up to them. But I think teachers are the luckiest people in the world in terms of spirituality, or Catholic teachers are anyway.
SPEAKER_05You spoke about when your mum had to make that choice. Can you remember at the time when you made that choice that it was more about you following your own spiritual journey?
SPEAKER_01I suppose I changed parishes, and some of it was a byproduct of just when Mass was, but I used to go to our little parish church, which was at Clempton Park, and it was an unusual parish because it didn't have a primary school. And so we were very aware of that parish supporting us to go to school, and our schoolmates went to the church there. But at a certain point, I went back to Marriagfall. My brother was baptized at Marrickfall, but mum hadn't really taken us back there. We drove past the church to go to my grandmother's house, but we never went in it. And so I decided to go to Mass there at 11:15. So it's a very late time for Mass. I used to go to 11:15. I used to visit my grandfather in the nursing home, and I used to be home for one o'clock gross lunch, and that was my Sundays. So that was uh coming home to a place that I didn't know really was home. And then I met Good Samaritan sisters in that space as well, because they were still living in the parish and were still very active in the parish, and I think actually still had a sister at what was Casmere then. And Merrickfall is liturgy on steroids, you know, Easter and Christmas at Merrickfall to do the tritium at Marrickfall, you you need eight or ten hours by the time you go to the parish function after a Saturday.
SPEAKER_05So it was a definitive choice though.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I was going by myself at that point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04How old were you, Jo, when you were started to take yourself off to mass on your own?
SPEAKER_01Um, I was driving. So probably when I was at teachers college around that time. Some of it was like the time of day it was. Like at that time, Marringford had a mass every one and a half hours. Like it had a six o'clock, and it had a 7.15, then it had an 8.30. On Good Friday, there'd be 10 priests that would come up the aisle. It was sort of not high church, but that liturgical space. And I was in RC by the time I was 27. So I I went to leadership in religious education very young. I think going to teachers' college, teaching all of the things that happened around that time. When does it become your own choice? At that time, family life and being part of church life was it's sort of all one thing, I think.
SPEAKER_05What about you, Libby? While we've been listening to Joe, sorry, have you thought about when it was something that you were holding on to?
SPEAKER_03I went to Kingsgrove. We were parishioners at Kingsgrove, and I actually joined a community under Bishop Julian Porteus. He was the curate there at the time and was the early disciples of Jesus community. So for my formative years from 17 to I think I was 20, because I went to Armadar to study to get away. I was in a religious community and it was charismatic. You know, there was the call to be celibate. It was quite a very fundamental gospel-based community. It was an experiment that Julian ran and the who's who of the schools at De Lasso Kingsgrove, Benil, Sunersless, the leaders were all part of that community. So he was able to be very charismatic. It was good for a time. There are still some people that are in that community five, 50 years later. But a lot of us, for a lot of us, it was just part of our formation. The formation I learned how to pray there. I learned how to lexio, to reflect on scriptures, to pray with one another. I kind of let go of the charisms, the charismatic stuff pretty quickly. Felt very uncomfortable in that space. But I learned how to you know live my faith practically, but it was mainly how to pray. So I give that to Bishop Julian for sure. But there was a lot of other stuff that, you know, kind of lost its sacredness as I moved along. But I wanted to include a a little story about Sunusilas. The nuns very much were partnered with Vic Edwards, who ran a tennis school who coached Yvonne Gulagong, and Yvonne lived with the Edwards family, so I'm sure there's a whole nother story there. But I'll never forget the influence of a young girl called Cleone. And she was an Aboriginal girl. Joe, do you remember Cleone?
SPEAKER_01But you know you.
SPEAKER_03She was a year under me. She was a great tennis player. She came from the country somewhere and was staying with relatives, and the Ursulines embraced Cleone. Beautiful, beautiful Aboriginal girl, beautiful. And we we were great tennis players. And we were playing the Saturday afternoon Monsignor Mini Cup at St. Skull's at Glebe in those tennis courts along the side there. And we were playing doubles. And I won't name the school, it wasn't St. Skull's. We won, and they refused to shake Cleone's hand. I'll never forget it. And I thought it was about because we won, but they shook my hand. And we got into the car and my mother was crying. All she could do was apologize to Cleone and I'll never forget it. Because I'm thinking that we're just being mean-hearted because we won. And they wouldn't shake Cleone's hand because she was Aboriginal. And my mother was broken. She said, Don't worry, Mrs. Danny, this happens a lot. I know what to do.
SPEAKER_02And that kind of space was held, you know. I don't know whether that story helps, but I forgot about Cleone, but I want to remember her today.
SPEAKER_05Thank you. So, Sharon, would you like to share us a bit about your own story, your family influences? What's brought you to where you are today?
SPEAKER_04So, my story is very, very different. My relationship with Good Sam's actually began with Loreto Richardson, principal of schools, many, many years ago. Living in rural New South Wales, and when the whole boarding school phenomena started to happen for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, everyone knew about Saint School's as a boarding school opportunity for their daughters. So I working in Catholic School's Office Armadale as their Aboriginal Education Consultant, families would come to me and say, I want my daughter to go to Saint Scholastic's in Glee. So part of what I did was I would travel with families to St. School's, and that's when I first met the beautiful Loretto. You just walked into that school and you just felt at home. I didn't realize then at the time, knew it was a good Sam school, but I didn't know what all that meant. Didn't fully understand the charism. I just knew that when I walked in those gates with the families, we all felt very much at home. Welcome, felt loved. Our daughters would be safe here. And I know that some families that I walked with gave their daughters to Loretto and St. Scholasticas and very, very at home and very comfortable and happy with how their daughters journeyed through their high school years as a boarding school student. And I would go and visit when I was in Sydney and touch base with the families. So that was my initial contact with Good Samaritan education. And then I suppose, you know, when I came into this role with Catholic Schools New South Wales and I met Joe, and the relationships there started to really grow. And that whole the beauty of what Good Samaritan education really did come alive for me, you know, walking and spending time over at Rosebank and with the beautiful staff over there and feeling very much at home and loved and welcomed. And again, down St. Mary's Star of the Sea and Wollongong, then becoming part of the rap group for Good Samaritan Education and very much being a part of this journey. So my relationship with Good Samaritan Education has been happening for many, many years. I seem to have been on this journey with Good Samsung, not even knowing that I was doing it really. Just knowing, you know, that it was the love. No other reason. Just it was, well, you know, we're loved, we're welcome, they want us here, we're coming, you know. Well, that's a great way to be.
SPEAKER_05What about your own story though, Sharon? Give us a picture of growing up and the influences of your life that have taken you into education. What was family like for you?
SPEAKER_04I grew up in Brawarina, tiny little town. And our Catholic school out there, St. Patrick's, Aboriginal people didn't go to the Catholic school. It was very much the white middle class school. It's not like that now. That narrative has flipped. But 50 years ago, that's exactly what it was. So there were no black phases at the Catholic school. Very few Aboriginal Catholics in Barwarrana. The Lutherans arrived out there. They did all of the stuff out there, you know. So a lot of Catholics in Barwarana, but not black Catholics. My family just sort of fell into religion. My mother was very religious, but we were all baptized as Church of England. So my dad never believed. I think he did in his heart, but you know, he didn't come to church. The only time he'd ever come to church was for funerals. But we all had to go to scripture classes and we all had to go through all the sacraments through the Church of England. And we were churchgoers, always, all of us, till we were old enough to make our own decisions. But when I started working with the Catholic school's office in Armadale, going back quite a few years now, about 30 years, I sort of felt I found home.
SPEAKER_05I've got to get all emotional. Home's a special place. We all do.
SPEAKER_04Don't you worry. It was quite lovely. Through work, I'd go to church initially, you know, like I was still very faithful to my Church of England roots. But then the Catholic Church opened up to me. And this is how we so I made my decision as a what was I, about 33, 34, that I wanted to be Catholic. And I was really good mates with the local parish priest, Father Paul McCabe in Moray. And I'd been really good mates with priests before that. So I went to Paul and I said, I want to be Catholic. My husband was Catholic, my children were baptized Catholic. They went to Catholic schools and they'd say, Mom, they get really worried, but you know, when we all die, I want us to be here together. You know, they had this image that I'd be in another part of heaven and I wouldn't be there with them. And they were beautiful little innocent conversations. And I went to Paul and we talked and talked for a long time. And he said, Okay, well, what do you want to do? And I said, Well, I I do, I want to convert. I talked to all my family, my mum, who was the one who really was the churchgoer, and she said, You are old enough to decide where you want to be. As long as you're with God, I don't care what you are. I went, Okay. She just said, I made the decision for you when you were too young to make the decision, but now you go where you feel most at home. And I said, Well, that's where I want to be. So Father Paul McCade walked with me with me weekly. We talked for hours, and I was baptized into the Catholic Church. And that's where I've been ever since. Quite at home.
SPEAKER_05Thank you for sharing. Sharon, as a cradle Catholic, I'm always interested to know adults that come in. What are the things that are attractive about us? Because sometimes, you know, we're very good at highlighting the things that aren't so great. Certainly in society, that's what gets under the microscope. But being part of it, we feeling it very much at home. It's always lovely to hear what becomes home for others. Do you remember the things that were attractive to you?
SPEAKER_04I've tried to articulate that many times. What made it so much more at home than where I'd been before that? I think it was relationships. It was really about relationships. It was about some of the nuns I'd got to know through the schools that I'd been working with. Hearing about About their stories, about what brought them to some of the harshest places in the world, some of the hottest and most unfriendly places for females in the world, and what drove them to do that. And you can't help but admire people like that and just a whole newfound respect for nuns and the priests, brothers that I met along the way, Christian brothers that I worked with a lot out at St. Joseph's Walgut. We would sit and have dinner and a couple of glasses of red wine and the stories they would share with me about their journey and what brought them to some of the harshest places in the world. It just opened my eyes to the commitment. It's all about love, though, isn't it? But the commitment that these people had made to come and walk with Aboriginal Torres Ray Islander people specifically. And I think I just fell in love with all of that. And I just thought, and they were genuine, they were real. There was no fakeness there. You know, these are people that have given their lives to doing all that hard lifting. And they were so loved in the communities where I met them. And I thought, well, they can't be fooling all of us. It's got to be real. So I think it was just walking in someone else's shoes, hearing the stories, building those lovely relationships, you know, sharing the ups and the downs, the good, the bad, and the ugly, but just being there for each other. And I thought that's genuine love. But and it just really, before I knew it, I was part of the family. I didn't even know it was happening to me, you know.
SPEAKER_05You know, that's exactly why we start with story with this podcast. Each time is sharing story and hearing those things that might help us to understand more concretely how we are internet connected and how we're all just on a journey together. As we move into our conversation, particularly about reconciliation, and we've started a little bit already. I wonder if each of you might have a little story or something that in the early years of talk about a national story and a national journey, but in a personal way, better understanding this journey we're on. Is there anyone that would like to share perhaps a personal, an early story of recognition of the journey that they were personally on?
SPEAKER_04Can I just say that Catholic schools, and I've been in and out of so many Catholic schools across the nation, reconciliation is a word that is so at home in Catholic schools. Yes, I know it has a very religious connotation to it, but it also really is embedded in the love and really what would Jesus do. It really resonates in Catholic schools. It means something. And I was in the department before I came into Catholic education. And when I arrived in Catholic education, seeing the importance that this week all reconciling our nation, it was almost a personal journey of the Catholic Church, but it was the actions you'd see out by the schools. That's where it really came alive in the schools. But the Catholic Church and Catholic schools have really made, I believe, reconciliation week the week that it is now. And has really raised the profile of this week.
SPEAKER_05For me, as I've been reflecting on my own awareness or consciousness, I'm really very aware at the moment because I'm about to leave the place that I've been living in for Radery Country for over 25 years. And there's a becoming more and more aware of part of the reason it's been so difficult to make that decision and the elongation of the process is not helping, is that in that 25 years since I've been here, it has been my cultural awakening of really understanding or coming to understand the beauty of culture and place and coming to understand it with a warajari, the indamara of a way of living and being on country that is all about respect, honoring, going slowly and taking responsibility and being gentle. It's a language that I know through faith, but having come to understand it in a different way has really kind of sparked my or really I hadn't realized how deeply it had become a part of me until I realised I was going to move away from it. Obviously, I'll find that differently somewhere else. But that's kind of something I've been thinking of recently in my personal reflections of reconciliation and journeying. Joe, Libby, did you want to share a personal reflection where your heart has been and is going in this journey?
SPEAKER_01I think there are moments that happen in your life. I agree with you. As I get older, I do think the Irish impact on the Australian church is huge, and they also have a great sense of place and land too. I think there is a merging and a greater understanding of how the land shapes Ewit. I think in the interchange, Aboriginal Torres Strait Islanders' understanding of that and talking about that more allows us to find that pace of commonality. There's a great love of our country, our land, its landscape, its sounds, you know, as the whatever generations we are. And in lots of ways, it gives a conceptual way of expressing that. That's a great gift, I think, to non-Aboriginal people. I think there are moments, like I remember hearing Anita Heist speak when I was at university and the impact that she had. I remember various things, not much at school, more an absence than anything. But then there are moments and I think things happen to you. I remember I went to Alice Springs in about 2003, maybe, and went out to Uluru and whatever on a holiday. And you know, I had taught about apartheid, taught the movie Cry Freedom, I can't tell you how many times. And I went to Alice Springs and I thought, my God, there are aspects of apartheid Sydney in this town. And as a middle class white person who lived in Sydney, I was shocked at so many things that happened there. And even my own ignorance, hearing people speak in language, you know what I mean? I'd never heard an Aboriginal person speak in language, and I thought, well, that's stupid. So they just that suppose was a huge awakening. And then what do you do about it? How do you overcome that? How do you bridge that gap? You're suddenly in a pub and there's one side for Aboriginal people and one side for white people, and the next night you don't go back there. But how does that fix that? All of that. I think I find it in the absence sometimes, mostly. I was teaching at Boronier and we were going to do something, we thought, oh, we'll acknowledge country. And I rang the council and because in those days you couldn't look it up. But I said, what land is the school on? And they said, What do you mean? I said, you know, what Aboriginal land are we on? And then I said, We don't have any Aboriginal people here. Yeah. And then I taught at Loretta or Normanhurst and they had started to look at taking kids up to North Queensland on immersion. And then I went to St. Mary's, where it was much more integrated into the life of the college, but we didn't have a lot of Aboriginal students there. And so, yeah, a commitment to, but those students weren't present in great numbers. And what were the reasons for that? St. Mary's is an inner city school, really, and how many Aboriginal people live in the inner city of Wollongong and why don't they and all of that. And I think the last great learning was, you know, working with Sharon at Catholic Schools, New South Wales, and that great opportunity that I had at our conference last year that was held up in Mile Creek and a conference that started, I think, in a very solemn, reflective way, and the rest of it was totally joyful and great fun. And you know, the Avonad Diets are doing such great work. They have Aboriginal children in their schools and they work with them and they have Aboriginal support officers in their schools and they have connections to community and it's embedded deeply in that culture. And so my questions are still how do you do that in meaningful ways when Aboriginal and Thailand Strait On students are not present? And so those questions sort of roll around in my mind.
SPEAKER_05So nationally, each year we have two weeks in the calendar that specifically give us opportunities. So next week we have Reconciliation Week and then in July we have NADOC Week, which provide, you know, really concrete opportunities in the school calendar or our community calendars to connect to story, country in this place that we now call Australia. As a nation, how do you think we're doing? This year very much about looking forward and looking back with the two themes of Reconciliation Week about like how do we connect to next? And NADOC Week is very much about next generation, strength, vision, and legacy. So as we're stepping forward and trying to be on this journey together, how are we doing and what does it look like in our different spaces?
SPEAKER_03I think, Gabrielle, that post-referendum period is an interesting period just to talk about or just to acknowledge, and the kind of the build-up to the, you know, the yes campaign and watching people's participation in that and response to that. I actually felt quite alarmed as the result of that kind of referendum. But I'll never forget listening to Dr. Miriam Rose that could Sam Assembly. She gave such a completely different prism on let's not forget the good news and the progress that we have made and continue to make. It was almost like dust ourselves off and keep on keeping on. And I think for me, it's the journey of the hills and the dales, or the kind of the rough edges, or the cracks and the crevices, and I can't speak on behalf of many other people except myself. That's absolutely shattered. And I felt shame to be Australian following that, and I didn't know how to respond to the discussions because all I could think of was some buggers voted no, and they're probably all around me. So I think since hearing Miriam Rose and meeting Sharon during this process has been quite extraordinary because we get it back to relationships, and and I want to meet mention Auntie Elsie, and I want to mention Christine Campbell, and I want to mention Auntie Emma, and I want to mention um Lisa Buxton. They were the people that that helped transform my kind of understanding and learnings and watching Auntie Emma with those kids, and you know, the naughtyest girl in our school was the girl that was presented to Pope Benedict on World Youth Day. And I had to laugh because I had to apologize to her because I screamed at her the week before, because she just pushed me so far, and it became more about focusing on school attendance, was able to produce these women of substance, all of us, not just aboriginal kids. But then to have that happen a few years back, but then to see Dr. Miriam and then meet Sharon, it's like the journey, it's got its ups and downs. But I'm to be inspired by the people on the journey continues to be the thing. And the the parable of the Good Samaritan.
SPEAKER_05That same roller coaster, Libby, that you were just describing as the one I've been on too with the results, and still can't get my head around it. But my aunt said to me recently at a family gathering, and it's like, I I I don't know an Aboriginal person. I don't know how we got into this conversation.
SPEAKER_00It's like, oh, really?
SPEAKER_05Like how how maybe you do and you just don't know. Like they're not walking around with name tags. And she was just gobsmoke. She's like, oh yes, I guess I probably do. But just how many obviously people are not in relationship some way in their life, and maybe it's not a personal relationship, but being in their reading, in their way that they're engaging with, you know, society, they haven't made a connection somehow. It just continue to be gobsmacked that that's a reality.
SPEAKER_01When you're in school or when you're an educator, you're lucky because you come in contact with people, you know, and when you say that after the referendum, people would say, Oh, you know, so many people don't know an Aboriginal person, you think, how do you not? But we forget how privileged we are to be exposed to ideas, to hear people speak. It's a previl-dependent choice though.
SPEAKER_05We are situated in places that provide privilege, but it's also a choice that we make too.
SPEAKER_03But you don't know what you don't know.
SPEAKER_02It's such a valuable expression. I don't know what I don't know.
SPEAKER_01And I think this challenge in to think back, I taught this girl, she's in the bottom maths class at Hoxton Park. You know, I only had 12 kids in it, and there were two girls and 10 boys. They didn't want to do maths, they didn't bring books, they didn't do anything. And she was an Aboriginal student. There was something challenge in that class, but she just never spoke to me. And so there was no way in. And when I looked at it, I think the whole process of education and her whole experience of life, and it was being done to her, and well, I couldn't find the way in. You know, she'd already decided, and she draw, to draw the whole lesson. Yeah, you can get angry about it and you can say, Well, why don't you engage? Why don't you try? Whatever. But then you step back and you think, well, what's already happened to you that you decide that school is a form of oppression for you? So we have these opportunities that in the human interaction it makes you think it's how do we evolve as a nation and what are the things that move us and what happened with the referendum, it moved us backwards. And I think there was a misjudgment that that we hadn't done enough work before we asked the people. And that's the job of leaders. And we say us as politicians, but we're all leaders in lots of ways. And so it's a failure of leadership. It is a failure, you know, there's a racism and there's a whole lot of stuff that goes behind that. But because we asked at the wrong time and hadn't done enough work, now we've almost brought down this huge roadblock. And now where do we go?
SPEAKER_05That's the next thing for us to talk about, really, is that Reconciliation Australia has created this tool, this pathway for us for engagement in using reconciliation action plans to facilitate our pathway for it for a community. So let's talk for a minute about the journey that Good Samaritan Education has been on as part of the RAP working group and the journey that we've been on and our hopes and taking that forward in our community and inspiring our schools along the way as we do the work as a broader Good Samaritan Education network to take our schools along the journey too. In some ways, some of them are a lot further ahead than we are, but we're taking this journey together.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think it's the best committee I've ever been on, is this committee. You know, I think we've done, maybe even kind of completed stage one of our work, but it's just full of hope to gather with people to talk about a reconciliation action plan, whether it be GSC's one or whether it be the school's plan or whether it be individual initiatives. I know we've been focused on keeping it as our GSE plan, but the delight for me is to be able to hear other people's experience as they are on the journey. And it's the same principle of walking with well, it's the road to a mace or the Good Samaritan Road, whatever the metaphor you use, but it's about feeling encouraged by people along the way. One of the meetings we had, we were talking about not wanting to get it wrong and not wanting to put our foot in it. And there was a discussion at one of our meetings about how someone was saying, very proud that they grew up in a school that learnt the anthem in language. And then there was another voice at that meeting that said, Well, that's actually highly offensive to Aboriginal people. We have trouble with the national anthem full stop, let alone singing in language. Then there was a challenge about are we funding anyone to learn language? So it's been a real stretch in terms of the people gathered round and their position on the journey.
SPEAKER_05And it's a real challenge to be open to share that. And some of us, we're just bumbling along, really. We're trying to find our way to be respectful, um, but use our initiative as trying to be in dialogue, and we will make mistakes and we will continue to make mistakes along the way, but being open to hearing that too.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and it's not an excuse not to move forward. And you know, we all know that she who never made a mistake never learnt anything, but also, you know, there's lots of different ways of engaging with the agenda. That's a big learning for me. And the absence of authentic voice at all levels of our organization, I think, continues to be a challenge in terms of the participation in our committees and on governing council and in our schools.
SPEAKER_02I just name that as our big challenge.
SPEAKER_01There is a big weight of responsibility for Aboriginal people to always, you know, how many committees Sharon's on, and so how that load of being that voice is spread too. You're very lucky that Sharon's with us. But the next phase of having people who feel comfortable to be part of governing council or to be part of school leadership, you get taken aback by the numbers, how few Aboriginal teachers there are in New South Wales.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Always celebrated one of our students that also became a teacher, and it was like celebrations all around Tamara. And then she went up and to New and New and worked with the Aboriginal women there, the Ti Wee women. I don't know where she is now, but everyone knows the story of our graduates because there's so few. And I want to also, and I don't know whether we can slip it in, Brother Kelvin Canavan's decision to provide scholarships for Aboriginal students at our schools and to give principals the autonomy to buy uniforms, to pay for breakfasts, to make sure kids didn't look less then, was a game changer when it came to the system of schools in Sydney. All of a sudden, we were able to be more welcoming space, and our Aboriginal students blossomed in terms of numbers in our schools. And there was still a voice who was going, it's not fair that they get all that stuff. That was what I was dealing with as a principal where there were 40 kids. The second, the bursa saying, no, she can't have the shoes because we're not giving them to everyone else. Those were the conversations that were quite formative and saying it's none of your business who I say can have a pair of shoes or not. But it's the strategic thinking of leaders that really is also very helpful.
SPEAKER_01And I know that I slipped that in and it's not necessarily what we're talking about, but and I think sometimes the hard thing in the educational context is where Reconciliation Week sits, where an adult week sits. We talk about storytelling here, but in terms of educating school communities when the next generation is how do you tell that story in ways that grow and we don't get this response. It's a fine line about how you do that. I don't think we've ever come to a, I suppose, a coherence in telling the story well in school communities. If anything, what does it very well is actually studies of religion in stage six, New South Wales. I think the whole thing around land rights and the building blocks of Aboriginal spirituality, I think some of the classroom work has done a lot of good work. And maybe it's just my own feelings about. I don't know if I ever got to a place in school of doing the two elements of Reconciliation Week and NADOC week well.
SPEAKER_05So, Sharon, would you want to share a bit about what you're seeing through reconciliation action plans and how they're helping shape a conversation?
SPEAKER_04It's an interesting one. That's an interesting one because the voice did do a lot of damage because people are now, some question the value of a reconciliation action plan. But I'm happy to say that the voices are louder, saying that the purpose behind a reconciliation action plan is even now more important because the hurt that people felt that I heard people talk about with the results of the voice was well, what have we been doing all these years with all the work we've been doing in reconciliation, with putting our heart and souls into reconciliation action plans and really working so hard to change the narrative. And the voice did hurt that. People went, well, what's the point? But I think the voices were stronger in saying we need to be resilient, we need to do more and probably step up a little bit more, like Arnie Miriam Rose. Let's just brush the dust off. You know, we had a cry and we did. We went through all those levels of emotion. I know I did, but let's now get on with it. Let's now put that aside. Let's learn from that. Let's take whatever lessons we need to learn from what happened, but let's just come back bigger and stronger. So now I'm finding that the conversations around reconciliation action plans are stronger, are more determined to get better and bigger at what they're doing. So, you know, from something really horrible, from something really yucky with what happened to the voice, it has really enabled the people who were the allies of the yes vote to go, well, okay, right, let's just be bigger and bolder and stronger now. And I've got to tell you, I've had two gatherings the last two days with majority Aboriginal people. And they're also seeing that the election with the uh swing against the Liberal and National Party has soothed our soul to saying that the people who voted no really did that, not because they're racist, but because they truly didn't understand, we didn't do the work, we didn't educate people on what it was, we rushed into it and we didn't educate people on what yes meant. A lot of Aboriginal people are now feeling vindicated that Australia is not that country that threw us away and didn't love us. It's really, it was a lack of understanding. Understanding and education on what the voice meant. So there is a renewed feeling of, well, we are loved in our own country. We are. So let's get on with it.
SPEAKER_03That's a fabulous insight that you shared, Shann. Thank you for sharing that. Because I did wonder that, because we also heard about that leader of the opposition's objection when he left parliament around reconciliation time and all of that.
SPEAKER_04Walked out on the apology, yes.
SPEAKER_03That's it. You walked out on the apology, exactly. And I, you know, that was a vote.
SPEAKER_04And that's what we're feeling, that it was a vote against the hate and division. And an overwhelming, not just a snidge and overwhelming. So we're feeling very loved up right now.
SPEAKER_05Excellent. Oh, that's great to hear. Well, let's kind of finish with some hope. If you had a magic wand, imagine this wand could directly impact the hearts and minds of the Australian community. What would you ask of them to affect change?
SPEAKER_04You know, I heard an interesting story this morning. I left that meeting to come here, but it was a group of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people from across the Catholic sector, and there were people there from the AECG and community. So we're talking cross-sectoral here. And one of the things that they shared that I hadn't ever thought about before is when we talk about funding, when we talk about self-determination, let us decide what's best for us. And then you, as the government, help resource us to do that, but don't penny pinch. So what you would pay a non-Aboriginal consultant to do that, pay us the same. Whereas the nut he cracked was, you know, they've been paying non-Aboriginal consultancy teams from all different consultancy agencies huge amounts of money to come and fix the Aboriginal problem. And then when they agree that self-determination is probably the best way to go, the bucket is all of a sudden a few million dollars smaller. And I hadn't thought about that. I thought, well, yeah, you know, that they're probably right. If you resource us fairly, then we can do the job. But resource us fairly.
SPEAKER_05What about Joan Libby? What magic one would you like to wave?
SPEAKER_01We do a lot of work around schooling that just doesn't work for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people. And they self-select out quite early. We cannot work out the way in. And so how do we create schools that meet the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students? How do we go about doing that? Yeah, it's this balance about obviously numeracy and literacy is important, you know, that they're the keys to, you know, employment and all of those sorts of things. But the way we do it, the evidence shows is not working. If we could find a way that consults with young people, listens to young people, and how do we do that so we don't have two schooling systems? Because then we end up with a problem as well. So if I had a magic wand, it would be the answer to that question. How do we do schooling different and better so we just don't do it to those kids? Because they are curious, they are talented, but the process takes that out of them. Yeah. Levy, what about you?
SPEAKER_03Um, very simply, and it's probably where we started. I would give everyone a listening heart. And I can't help but think of the legacy of Pope Francis.
SPEAKER_02I laughed about being synodal, but I think that's where the culture change happens, and that's where the deep roots of generative ideas and ways forward happens through a listening heart.
SPEAKER_05I think my magic wand would be quite similar to that in having each Australian truly understand what country is. That country is not just place, it's people, it's everything that is encompassed in all of creation in that place, in that who you are. So it's relational with all things. And I think that would be a beautiful thing if we all kind of understood that. Well, thank you very much for being part of this conversation as we all bumble through, you know, a vulnerable humanity and as we make mistakes and move forward, but we continue on the journey together. So thank you for being part of the conversation today. Thanks, Gabrielle.
SPEAKER_04Thank you. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
SPEAKER_05There is a humble vulnerability to this conversation in sharing the very imperfect journey that each of us and indeed our nation is on. Each of our school communities holds space for this important work really well. This NADOC week celebrates the 50th anniversary of NADOC, looking forward with the theme The Next Generation: Strength, Vision, and Legacy. I hope our conversation has given you pause for thought about your own and perhaps just as messy journey and how we might commit afresh to the path of reconciliation, the learning and unlearning and relearning we must all do together as a nation. Now, as you continue along your path for the day, may the table of hospitality and reconciliation be wide, inspiring you with mercy and compassion to go be and do likewise.
