Selina Walker’s vision for reconciliation: ‘There has to be shared accountability’  

Non-Indigenous Australians need to take accountability for unconscious racism and biases before our nation can achieve reconciliation, Ngunnawal woman and Co-Chair of the ACT Reconciliation Council, Selina Walker has said.

Speaking at the 2024 Reconciliation Lecture at The Australian National University (ANU), Walker allowed the spirit of her ancestors to flow through her powerful address.

“As a beautiful black woman in Australia, I have only been counted as a human being for 57 years,” Walker said, referring to the 1967 referendum, in which Australians voted yes to counting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as part of the population. It’s a painful history Walker doesn’t want repeated.

“It does hurt me that my grandmother was a mother in this country before she was a human being. I ask you to think about how old you are, how old your children are, how old your elders are and what you’re doing to contribute to the reconciliation human rights movement.”

Walker’s grandmother, Aunty Agnes Shea, was the most senior Ngunnawal elder living on Ngunnawal land, before her passing earlier this year.

Her leadership has shaped Walker’s determination to create change, particularly in the education space.

Reflecting closely on her own experiences, Walker shared the cultural disconnect that can come from learning about First Nations history in school through a non-Indigenous lens.

“My first experience of my own culture was in Year Seven by a white person, and all we did was clapsticks. I didn’t want any other kid to go through that experience,” Walker said.  

“My grandma has always instilled in me that education is a pathway. As an Aboriginal person, you have to work twice as hard because we have to prove ourselves to white people. I do a lot of work in the education space, trying to shift that mindset of our teachers.”

Fighting for First Nation youth runs in Walker’s bloodline.

She herself has the kinship of eight boys, “hence the grey hair”.

Her commitment to caring was officially honoured when she received Barnardo’s ACT Mother of the Year award in 2017. She was also named the 2024 ACT Local Hero at the Australian of the Year Awards.

Walker hopes the next generation will be able to experience the outcome of her hard work beyond these accolades.  

“I don’t want my boys and my little cousins to be standing up here in 2030, fighting and advocating for the same things that I am today, that my grandmother has done for the last 60 years, and my ancestors for the last 200 years. That change happens with us,” Walker said.

“We’ve got to stop this. It is a shared history, so there has to be shared accountability.”

Walker compared the pain of colonisation to an amputated leg—a missing piece that will take a collective effort to make whole.  

“I know things about my culture that nobody has ever told me – it came from my ancestors.

“This is why we still feel the pain of colonisation, why we feel the torture of the massacres. It’s through that amputated limb. We still endure the hurt from the Stolen Generation.”

While the journey toward reaching reconciliation is, at times, painfully slow, Walker has hope that we can continue to move in the right direction. “There’s a lot of healing to be done. But it’s through that amputated limb that this work is happening,” Walker said.

For non-Indigenous Australians, that means re-thinking biases.

“It’s not your fault that you are racist, but it’s that unconscious biases and racism you need to question,” Walker said.

“Give yourself permission to let go of any guilt, because anything driven by guilt is not actually going to be productive or have better outcomes. It’s that genuine understanding, learning and listening that’s going to influence change.”