ABSTRACT
Now, in the twenty-first century, it is clearer than ever that an Australian multiculture which does not include Aboriginal Australia in its foundations would be so flawed as not to deserve to survive. Australian identity is profoundly dependent on the inextricably interwoven strands of Aboriginality. For too long, Aboriginal people were the objects of others’ voices, some well-meaning, others not, but never in dialogue. Today we need more truth about Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal culture, and more dialogue in which even partial truths can play a role. As well as the myth of Aboriginal privilege, there is a myth of Aboriginal irresponsibility—the idea that now Indigenous people are on an equal footing, they are responsible for their present difficulties. In some ways, the task charged to Wilson in the 1990s involved an impossible brief: acknowledging the strength of feelings of Aboriginal children and parents while being a report for an international agency.
