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Hi I'm Lisa Paul. I acknowledge the traditional owners
of country across Australia and in the spirit of reconciliation
pay my respects to their elders past and present.
This video marks the twelve month anniversary of our
department's Reconciliation Action Plan.
We've achieved many of the things that we committed to in our plan.
Our themes have been respect, relationships and
opportunities and that's guided our work and our
commitment in DEEWR through out the year.
Having executive both at a state and a national office
level driving and championing reconciliation makes my
job easy and so I enjoy doing that because I know that
I have the trust and support of the executive.
Essentially the closing the gap targets are the what
and the RAP presents the how.
To me personally the RAP is about a Call to Action for
all of us to work together in closing the gap.
The RAP provides a journey for learning for
understanding for appreciation and for respect for each others culture.
For me reconciliation means not blaming people for the
past injustices and it's also about indigenous and
non-indigenous people working together to ensure that
those injustices never happen again.
The reconciliation action plan is really about raising
general awareness about reconciliation across the department.
I think reconciliation the responsibility of all
Australians to acknowledge the past and move forward.
Look I found that people in DEEWR are truly committed
to reconciliation to those closing the gap targets they
really want to include indigenous Australians when
we're dealing with those sorts of issues.
We aren't going to achieve the closing the gap targets
if we think we're just going to do things to people
particularly to indigenous people we have to do things with indigenous people.
By contributing to the Reconciliation Action plan I can
increase awareness and change people's attitudes.
You need to listen you need to have a yarn with people
and understand what we're trying to achieve as an organisation.
DEEWR provides a range of opportunities for indigenous
people to come and work at the department.
It makes me conscious about what am I doing in my
everyday task that actually helps the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Part of the actions within the Reconciliation Action
Plan is to increase the number of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander staff within the agency.
I think for DEEWR having those four of the six COAG
closing the gap targets that DEEWR really wants to be an employer of choice.
We've put a real focus on making sure that the reforms
are going to help more than fifty per cent of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students who are
in schools that are going to get funding under the National partnerships.
For DEEWR's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff
RAP means opportunity and choice.
As the Indigenous Leader I'd like to personally thank
every one involved in what we've done the last twelve
months and strongly encourage everyone to get on board
and do bigger and better things the next twelve months. Thankyou