Reconciliation Australia's Challenge

"The time has now come to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrong of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future" (Rudd 2008). When Australia's former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd addressed these words to the indigenous people of Australia in February 2008 he entered a new phase in Australia's history that should aim at 'closing the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians'. Due to different approaches to life and various scientific and ideological European theories, interracial relationships between indigenous people and the settlers of Australia have always been tensed - which can still be retraced in relationships today. An analysis of the changing approaches to cultural and ethnic differences in the Australian nation throughout more than two centuries, finally leading to the Rudd government's official apology, emphasises the significance of the issue determining Australian political and public life since more than two decades: reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. This work outlines pathways of compromise for a reconciled future.