A council in South Australia's mid north is looking to enact an Aboriginal reconciliation plan as it prepares to launch a joint bid for UNESCO World Heritage listing to celebrate the state's colonial past.
The Clare and Gilbert Valleys Council sits within the Ngadjuri nation, and chief executive Helen Macdonald said the bid was an opportunity to tell the whole story of colonisation with perspectives from both sides.
"The expectation is once there is a World Heritage listing, it puts you into prominence globally, it's the opportunity to be listed as a tourist attraction, particularly for those who are interested in British colonial history," Dr Macdonald said.
"The other major aspect that has to be dealt with is how our First Nations people are going to be incorporated into the process because the area covers the Kaurna, Ngadjuri and Peramangk nations.
"They have to be engaged and included and recognised in the process as well and they need to give permission to say that they want to participate in the process so that work has to be undertaken as well."
A chance to tell the truth
Quenten Agius is a Ngadjuri traditional owner who teaches local Aboriginal history and sits on the council's reconciliation advisory group, established last year.
He said the bid showed there was still a long way to go towards reconciliation.
"At the end of the day, you have to be truthful about how the state was set up," Mr Agius said.
"It was set up as a free state but it didn't eventuate like that from the beginning.
Mr Agius compared the heritage bid with his efforts to protect centuries-old scar trees from being chopped down for firewood.
"They want the tokenism stuff but they don't make any commitments. None of those councils in any of those areas want to commit anything for the Indigenous people," he said.
"They talk about value-adding to existing infrastructure and existing businesses, and they want to be fair and equitable. Why is there no Indigenous business set up in their main streets?"
Mr Aguis said the character of the towns was judged from first impressions but there was little beyond memorials to European explorers.
"You can acknowledge the white history, but not our history, when you come into this township," he said.
"When are we going to walk side by side and acknowledge each other when we come into the towns?"
Reconciliation to come first
Dr Macdonald said the council was working to improve its level of input from Aboriginal people through its advisory group.
"Quenten is right. Clare Council, indeed probably any council on Ngadjuri country, has not made substantive steps with respect to reconciliation," she said.
"We will have a reconciliation plan put to council in the next few months, so that is the start of taking those steps.
"Once the reconciliation committee is put in place we can move forward with having discussions about what is their perspective with respect to this World Heritage bid."
Long road towards World Heritage
The multi-council World Heritage proposal is a consolidation of two separate attempts to have South Australia's colonial planning model acknowledged on the world stage.
It began in 2013 with the Mount Lofty Ranges proposal, backed by regional councils to demonstrate a successful model of systematic colonisation often known as the Wakefield system, which relied on settlement fees and no convict labour.
In 2018, the Adelaide City Council initiated its own colonial heritage potential bid centred on the city's grid and parkland encircled design.
The two projects are now joined under the working title of Adelaide and its Rural Settlement Landscapes, with its core narrative stating it to be "the most complete realisation of British colonial settlement planning in the world."
