The world watches horrified as bombs and rockets kill thousands and reduce Ukraine and Gaza to smoking rubble. Australians agonise over the crushing defeat of the Voice referendum and fret about Chinese interference in their internal and regional security. The first casualty of these events abroad and at home is the truth about what’s really happening. Lies, deception, falsehoods and misinformation are the weapons of choice for thugs who seek to justify and gain support for bloody and outrageous behaviour. This is hardly news.

Douglas Adams, of The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame, reminds us that a person’s reality is unique to the person. “Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you.” All we perceive via our senses – sight, sound, smell, and touch – creates the universe we know.  Some will have constructed a reasonable view of themselves, others and life whilst others may not. In our schools, children are constructing their version of reality according to their interpretation and understanding of their own experience.

As a medical student at the time that I voted ‘Yes’ in the 1967 referendum, it was a ‘no-brainer’ to accept the Aboriginal people into full Australian citizenship, and provide them with rights and obligations. The ability of the Commonwealth to take oversight of Aboriginal affairs and make laws, such as to establish a Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs, was initially, I thought, to protect Aboriginal people from the rampages of the states, such as Queensland. That was based on my experience of coming to Queensland and working in Aboriginal health from 1979 to 1991. It was the Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA) who protected us at the Aboriginal Health Program (AHP), and our very effective community programs, from our own employer, Queensland’s health department.