Aboriginal heritage in the process of national reconciliation

The ongoing journey of reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous peoples commenced in January 1788 with the invasion, colonisation, or ‘European settlement’1 on the Australian island continent. A ‘polite’ arrival landed the British in terra nullius (nobody’s land) at Botany Bay, but soon re-established the convict experiment to Sydney Cove. The Aboriginal people first dispossessed by Europeans were the Gadi Gadi, and it was this process of dispossession that underpinned the foundation and growth of Sydney and the Australia as we know it today.