Reconciliation requires changes of heart and spirit, as well as social and economic change. It requires symbolic as well as practical action.

Health economists have estimated that an injection of $250 million per year in Indigenous clinical care, and $50 million in preventative care, is required to provide services at the same level as for any other group with the health conditions of Indigenous Australians.

Even Australians who take a very, very hard line about asylum seekers - and unfortunately there are more than I would like to think - are probably a bit uncomfortable with the kind of treatment that has been meted out to children in detention by the Australian Government, in their name.

Maoris now own over half the commercial fishing industry in New Zealand.

Life wasn't meant to be easy.

Solutions will not be found while Indigenous people are treated as victims for whom someone else must find solutions.

In the last twelve years, we have come some distance towards reconciliation and the breaking down of disadvantage. Let us take encouragement from what has been achieved and set our minds and hearts to end the remaining roadblocks.