To mark National Reconciliation Week 2025, twenty of our Programmed Facility Management team members from both the mainland and Island were guests of the Rottnest Island Authority at the Reconciliation Breakfast event on Wadjemup Rottnest Island. Wadjemup is a place of deep cultural significance and complex history for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
We were welcomed to Country by Noongar Elder Clive Smith, who delivered a powerful and educational speech, accompanied by traditional songs. He shared with us the profound spiritual and cultural importance of Wadjemup to Noongar people over tens of thousands of years. Participants also heard about the Wadjemup Project: Truth-telling and were reminded of the many families impacted by the Islands history as a place of Aboriginal incarceration of men and boys, and of the hundreds of people still buried on the Island.
This event then joined the WA National Reconciliation Week breakfast event hosted over at Walyalup Fremantle Passenger Terminal to hear guest speakers including ex-Senator Patrick Dodson a Yawuru Elder from Broome, and Tremane Baxter-Edwards a Ngarinyin-Walmajarri man. A historic moment followed, with Premier Roger Cook announcing a redress scheme to compensate members of the Stolen Generations in Western Australia, a meaningful step towards truth-telling, healing, and justice.
As National Reconciliation Week continues, we encourage everyone to consider how they can contribute to a future built on truth, respect, and unity.
