By Casey Neill
Dandenong’s Harmony Square hosted a National Reconciliation Week event.
Let’s Take The Next Steps was the theme for the week, which ran from 27 May to 3 June, so the staircase to the public space played a key part in the ceremony on Friday 2 June.
Wurundjeri elders provided a traditional welcome and smoking ceremony at the flag-raising event.
Reconciliation Week commemorates the 1967 referendum and the Mabo decision, and this year these events reached significant milestones.
It is 50 years since the 1967 referendum and 25 years since the Mabo decision.
The referendum approved an amendment to the Australian Constitution to include Aboriginal people in the census and allow the Commonwealth to create laws for them.
The landmark High Court of Australia decision in the case of Eddie Mabo versus Queensland recognised native title in Australia for the first time.
