Cade Lucas
Wyndham council formally adopted it’s Reconciliation Action Plan 2023-2025 on Tuesday night, with the motion receiving unanimous support.
To mark the occasion, a smoking ceremony was held and members of the Wyndham Reconciliation Action Committee, Aunty Judy Dalton-Walsh and Kelly Lehman, addressed councillors prior to the vote.
The WRAC helped develop the RAP alongside the Bunurong and Wadawurrung Aboriginal Corporations and members of the border community.
It’s Wyndham council’s second RAP, which is a business plan outlining the specific actions it will take to build relationships, respect and opportunities with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
In moving the motion of support, deputy mayor and co-chair of the WRAC, Jennie Barrera, said the RAP had been developed through an ‘incredibly thorough process’.
She said community feedback during six weeks of public consultation had been overwhelmingly supportive.
“Only a minority opposed and said reconciliation wasn’t in council’s remit,” Cr Barrera said.
‘All local council’s have a responsibility for reconciliation and community feedback supports this.”
0.9 per cent of Wyndham’s population identifies as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, the highest proportion of any council area in metropolitan Melbourne.
In a departure from the previous RAP of 2017-2019, the new version includes truth telling, marking the first time Wyndham council will be partake in the process involving the acknowledgement and liberation from past and ongoing oppression.
Under the plan, development of a safe and respectful truth telling process is due to be underway by June next year.
