Connect with Aboriginal Culture

Commical – Episode title: Connect with Aboriginal Culture

Published 24/01/2025 on Chasing Albert website, spotify and apple podcasts.

Marie 00:12
Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of Commical. Thanks for joining. I am really excited about my guest today. I have Rhys Paddick back again. Hi, Rhys.

Guest 00:12
Hello.

Marie 00:12
Rhys is many things, but one of them is that he's an Aboriginal educator and a cultural desensitivity expert, and I'm going to get him to do the bio. One of the reasons I really wanted him back is that the first time he joined me was in 2021, and that episode just went crazy. There was so much interest. It continues to be the number one episode of Commical by a long shot, and he's just super smart, super warm, and super funny. Welcome, Rhys. Thank you for joining. How are you?

Guest 00:42
Oh mate, you made me blush a little bit, you know, because I'm smart and funny and you've got handsome. Now, come on.

Marie 00:42
I know. Look, I didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable.

Guest 00:42
You don't want to give me too much, you know. Leave me something for next time. You charge me for coming on, I believe, or something. Yeah, yeah. Marie, look, I'm really happy to be back on. I'm very excited when you told me that that episode was performing so well. It shows me that there's obviously quite an interest in the topics that I teach, and that's really humbling for me. So again, thank you for having me on. I suppose I'll introduce myself.

Marie 01:36
Please go ahead, in your own words.

Guest 01:40
Yeah, look, my name's Rhys. By the way, that's the Rhys spelling - you know, that's the right way of spelling it. No, no, not like that. And I am a lot of things, as you said. I work in education. My thing is education. I love education. I think education is key to everything. And I work in the cultural space. I like to teach Aboriginal education to people, right? I do this a lot of ways. I do it through my flagship workshop, Acknowledge This, where I teach people how to connect to the concepts that lie behind the words of acknowledgements of country. But I also do this in other ways, like mentoring and artwork as well. I do a lot of digital art and that kind of thing. My purpose is to bring Aboriginal culture out of this state of cultural awareness, which is where Australia is, right? Everybody's culturally aware. You've got the NAIDOC Weeks and the Reconciliation Weeks, and everybody's becoming aware, and that's beautiful. We love that. But what I want to do is move it out of those box-ticky sorts of exercises. I like to provide Aboriginal topics and context so that individuals can adopt things for themselves, such as connecting to country. If acknowledgement of country is about acknowledging people and place, then connecting to country is about how we as individuals can go out and be on country and connect in these really deep and meaningful and spiritual ways of being - not just Aboriginal people, but all people. I use Aboriginal perspectives, of course, because that's my frame of reference. But essentially, I love culture. I love education. That's a little bit about me. I'm Ballardong Noongar on my mum's side - those are clans in the south-west of Western Australia. I'm in Perth. Our word for Perth is Boorloo. Some people say Borloo. That's on my mum's side. And on my dad's side, I always make the joke that his traditional clans are just like most Aussies: a little bit of Scottish, a little bit Irish, a little bit English. And that's all of who I am.

Marie 04:01
You've been doing amazing work with Acknowledge This. But I love the idea of moving beyond. That's why I wanted to do this interview with you as well - moving beyond words, moving beyond just doing an acknowledgement of country from a tokenistic place. One of the things that's become more and more common is when we at Chasing Albert are building a website, one of the things we often get told is, 'Please make sure that you put an acknowledgement of country at the bottom of the website.' My big question, and what brought me here, is that's nice, but are you doing anything else - both from a business perspective and an individual perspective? I am actually speaking to Reconciliation Australia shortly about the RAP effect, so having the Reconciliation Action Plans, et cetera. But I'm really excited to talk to you specifically about what more we can do beyond just awareness and education. So where do we even start with that? I want to start with this idea of fear and cultural desensitivity as you talk about it. When did you first recognise that some people felt some shame or fear or guilt around it?

Guest 05:12
That's a good question. That's good. I know where you're going with this now. Look, I'm going to be honest - I think it actually started with me. I'll tell you this: my first job was at a high school. I was what they call the Aboriginal and Islander education officer - supporting the blackfellas at the school. Great job. I loved it. But of course, I was a person who was told, 'Hey, you've got to do the acknowledgement.' And there was no problem for me. I was hired to do it. I liked doing it. But I noticed something interesting about this phenomenon with acknowledgements. I'm not too sure if we talked about this last time - hopefully I'm not going through the same sort of stuff. But at the core of it, I started realising that there's a thing people are doing which I believe started with good intention. Then over time, what I call the Australian corporate machine has done what it's done - it sort of trademarks everything, and it places these things we do as mandatory, or if not mandatory, highly encouraged things that we feel like we have to do. What I say is, look, your actions are important, but more importantly, your intentions behind those actions are important. I've got to be honest: most people doing an acknowledgement - let alone anything in a cultural space - I reckon a lot of people do it out of fear. I think a lot of people do it because they go, 'Oh, everybody else is doing it, so I should probably do it,' or, 'I don't want to look like I'm doing the wrong thing.' What this does is it devalues the acknowledgement itself, first of all, but it also devalues the speaker. Here's the thing: I don't want anybody to do anything out of fear. I don't think anybody wants to do things out of fear. So when I talk about cultural desensitivity, my frame of reference is that the culture we live in is too sensitive. It's way too sensitive. And it's not a bad thing, because you need cultural sensitivity. But I like to think of myself as someone who balances the equation a little bit - to go out into a very sensitive market and say, 'Hey everyone, it's okay to just not do an acknowledgement. It's actually okay to do that.' The courageous thing to do at this point is to say to somebody, if you're feeling pressured to do it, 'Look, respectfully, I'd like to keep that acknowledgement as something that's meaningful and sacred to me. It's something that I want to say, so I'm not not doing it out of disrespect. I'll only do it on my terms.' That's what I think the acknowledgement should reflect. I think that's the original intention behind it. I think any blackfella could agree with me when I say that.

Marie 08:33
For me, after I spoke with you, you left me feeling so inspired. You helped me with practising my personal acknowledgements so that they mean something to me and they're authentic to me personally. But then I felt a bit stuck, because I did my own head in. I kept thinking, okay, so now you've done that. That's really nice, but so what? What are you doing? What steps are you taking? What can you do beyond the words? So it kind of made me feel worse, if that makes sense - even though it's not about me. But that's what got me thinking with this episode. It got me thinking about what more we can be doing beyond just saying things. What meaningful steps can we take if there's a really good intention there to want to connect with Indigenous culture and understand it better? But before I do that, I want to take a couple of steps back. Why do you think cultural desensitivity matters? Why is it important?

Guest 09:37
Well, like I said, we live in a very sensitive culture. Everybody is attempting to do what they think is, quote unquote, the right thing. Here's the problem with quote unquote the right thing: you can't define it. It's not definable. The right thing for somebody here - I'll give a small example in my world - somebody might say, 'Look, the right thing is refer to me as Aboriginal. Don't refer to me as Indigenous.' Then you go a couple of kilometres down the road and somebody else will say, 'No, the right thing is to call me Indigenous and not Aboriginal.' Then you've got First Nations, and you've got Traditional Custodians, and you've got Traditional Owners, and everybody's scrambling to become this very clean, politically correct culture. What this does is it sacrifices individuality, and it creates a culture of fear, because everybody's pointing guns at each other going, 'Everybody's got to do the right thing. Don't offend people. Don't do this.' So when I talk about cultural desensitivity, it's really just me explaining that most of our fears are in our head. Most of it is in our head. For us to just take a little step back and realise that you can't please everyone - this is the main thing. You cannot please everybody. And I'm a people pleaser. I try my best. I've got like a 99 per cent success rate. But there's always going to be one person who doesn't see your intentions. So what I like to do is say: understand your place in culture. Understand that you are the culture. Everybody thinks they're a subject of culture. I come in as the desensitivity expert and remind people: you are the culture. In other words, you're never stuck in traffic, Marie. You're the traffic. You are the culture. What I want to do is inspire people to remember that. Then they go, 'Oh, I can actually think about saying words that are meaningful to me genuinely.'

Marie 11:48
This might be another way of looking at one of the things that made me laugh. You posted on LinkedIn this video when you were saying, 'When did we all stop saying Aboriginals?' What was that about? Explain that to me.

Guest 11:59
Actually, what you're referring to was not 'Aborigine' - it was 'Aboriginals', the plural of Aboriginal. Now, 'Aborigine' is different, but 'Aboriginals' - because you notice that in this current landscape, people will say 'Aboriginal people'. It got me curious. You hear 'Australians', plural, right? But then 'Aboriginal people'. I was genuinely curious about this. To me, that sounded odd. My best theory - and somebody put this in the comments, and I thought, yeah, if anything, it's this - is that in this context it's a reminder. The emphasis is on people, to remind people that Aboriginal people are actually people. That's why I personally say 'Aboriginals'. It's kind of weird to the ear at this point when I say it. But I also have the black card, which means nobody can get mad at me about it. Which kind of sucks, because I also want to encourage people to be a little bit more relaxed in the way that they talk to each other. I don't know any Aboriginals personally that have an issue with the pluralisation of Aboriginal. So in my mind, if I start seeing people just changing their language ever so slightly, it indicates to me there's a level of courage with this person - that they're willing to play in culture. That's Aboriginals. That's like Aborigine. Same thing - I don't have a problem with it. I don't know anybody personally who does. Same with the word blackfella. If somebody says blackfella, what it indicates to me is that on some level that person knows a blackfella, and that makes me closer to the person as opposed to further away. But again, I think what we're dealing with is a culture that's fearful. They hear, 'Oh, I heard maybe one or two Aboriginal people on a post three years ago say don't use the word Aborigine,' and so they shut down their level of authenticity and start stepping on these invisible eggshells everywhere. Again, back to my point: you can never please everybody. But courage is important.

Marie 14:36
So how do we get there? How do we overcome that fear? What do you teach?

Guest 14:44
It's a big question to answer, and it's honestly something that I'm currently working on. How do you fix culture? Well, not even how do you fix culture, because I don't truly believe culture is broken. A lot of people think that - in our economy and everything - but culture is always in flux. It's always changing, and there are good elements and bad elements and everything in between. I think the better question is how do we allow people to be a bit more courageous? That's a bit more difficult, because there are a few elements to look at. What's a person's level of understanding? What's their level of cultural knowledge? Are they culturally aware? That's step one. But also, in this space, nobody considers themselves as important - and that's blackfellas too. Blackfellas and whitefellas think of the concept of culture as outside of them. They're disconnected from it, which again isn't true, because you are the culture. So what I try to do is frame it around how you as the individual act - and that's important. It has to take a bit of courage, because everybody's scared. But once you show a bit of courage, you model that courage and allow other people listening to you to go, 'Oh, that person did something unique.' That's why acknowledgements of country are really good, because you always remember the person who did one you connected to. You're never going to remember the ones where people pull out a script and just say, 'Good morning, I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians...' It's over. You won't remember it.

Marie 16:51
Surely it requires a level of education around Aboriginal culture too, doesn't it?

Guest 16:54
I think so. Any topic - the more you understand it, the better it's going to be for you. Absolutely.

Marie 17:03
If I was somebody who wanted to build my confidence - my cultural confidence - what would I be doing? If you were to break it down and say, 'Hey, do these things that might help somebody gain confidence,' what would they be?

Guest 17:30
Okay, fun. Let's play with that for a minute. Easy mode first. One thing I would do is find what you're interested in. This is important. Find what you're interested in and follow that path. That's different from just saying 'learn more', because if I say learn more and you've got no interest in learning more, then you're doing something you don't really want to do. Understand your curiosity. Use the reference of Aboriginal culture. Is it the language? Is it the music? Is it the dance? Is it the history? What is it about this concept of Aboriginal culture that you find a genuine interest in? Don't think about politics. Don't think about what you should or should not be thinking or saying. Follow your curiosity. That's number one. Number two is ask questions. You might be in a business or organisation that's got a RAP. You might even have Aboriginal staff members, Aboriginal mates, things like that. I always encourage people to ask questions. A lot of people are afraid of it. They go, 'I don't want to offend you,' and all that kind of thing. Here's the other thing: some people don't like to be asked questions, because some blackfellas get asked questions all the time and feel like they're the token blackfella in the organisation - every NAIDOC Week, you know? But the point is: don't let that dissuade you. Be curious. Go onto Reddit, go to the Australia forum, chuck your questions in there. It doesn't always have to be in person. But be curious and ask questions. What you're going to find is that even blackfellas don't agree with each other. That's very frustrating because the Western standard mind looks for, quote unquote, the right thing to do. People imagine there's some secret cabal of elders who dictate all the culture, and it doesn't exist. Some people like Aboriginal, some people like Indigenous, some people like First Nations. You'll never get consistency. That's why I go back to point number one: find out what you're interested in. That's very important. Number three would be to act. I don't necessarily mean refer to your Reconciliation Action Plan committee or just do the dot points you have to do. That's not necessarily what I'm saying. Based on your foundations of personal intuition and curiosity, and based on your network and the people you've asked questions of, what's the thing you now want to do? What does that look like? What does that feel like? How do you bring other people along on the journey? How do you make people happy about it? How do you find joy in that? Because if you're going to act and it's not aligned with joy or excitement, personally I wouldn't do it. I don't want to do anything that's not exciting and valuable and interesting. Number four is to meditate and relax. Take a break and reflect. And number five - I'll give you a sneak peek into the new content I'm building - is connect with country.

Guest 22:08
Now, what do I mean by that? Right now all your listeners have this definition in their mind as to what country is: a small-c country, defined as geographical space with political borders. That's not the country I'm talking about. I'm talking about a capital-C Country. This is the Aboriginal concept of Country. Capital-C Country is the same definition as small-c country - geographical space, political borders - plus a spirit. This is where the modern Western mind often reacts and goes, 'Oh, that's spiritual nonsense.' Let me be very clear: I'm not talking about a religious concept of spirit. I'm not saying go and worship the tree. I'm not saying get out your crystals. What I'm saying is one of the things that's universal across Aboriginal cultures is this: Country is our teacher. Country teaches. Country heals. Very rarely do we get all Aboriginal people agreeing, but in this context all Aboriginal people will agree, because there's a deeper level of connecting to your country, to your surroundings. Everybody plays this political game in their head. They go, 'Who am I, as a whatever heritage, to connect to the traditional owners?' I'm not saying you've got to go out to the bush and do a corroboree and chant and speak language. I'm saying the country that we're sharing right now is our country. I don't mean it politically. I don't mean it's mine and yours. That's a very Western way of thinking. Traditional Aboriginal people don't have the concept of ownership - only the concept of sharing. The custodianship is ours as Aboriginal people, but we don't own it. If anything, the land owns us. What this means is it allows individuals now to say, 'Oh my goodness, my connection to Country is personal.' It doesn't have to be political. Country teaches, Country heals. What does that look like for me? There are lots of strategies around this - go for walks, go for bush walks. It's funny because even science backs it up. It says go out into nature, get some sunshine. So there's a way we can meet in the middle here, where we revive our personal connection to Country outside of politics, through an Aboriginal perspective of going, 'Okay, this tree, this animal, this building - it's related to me. It's a part of who I am.' Once you understand that, you start realising your power, and that's where your confidence comes from. You go, 'Oh, actually, I'm a part of this story. I'm a part of this songline. I'm a part of this narrative that we're building.' That's really important, because a lot of people just go, 'It's just for the blackfellas to dictate.' But for a lot of blackfellas it's the hardest thing to play with these politics. That's why I just go, look, Country is something we share. That's what my elders have told me. It's something we share, and for us to connect to it - well, that is spiritual. Not in a dogmatic sense, not in a religious sense, but in a spiritual sense. So when you ask what comes after acknowledgement of country, I go: now it's connecting to the actual concept of Country.

Marie 25:55
You know what it sounds like to me? An acknowledgement of country should be coming from a deeper place. Connecting with Country sounds like something that's deeply personal.

Guest 26:11
I think I'm currently experiencing it in a very personal sense, so yes, it can be. But it can also be shared as well. My connection to Country is deeply personal when I'm on my walks, when I go out and do my night walks and I don't have any headphones in. That's the other thing - reduce your inputs. It's the only time you get to be. But I also think it's very communal as well. We're always on Country. That's the other thing. People think being on Country means being nearer to nature. Being nearer to nature is good and you'll get a lot of blessings from it, but we're all on Country right now. This office, this space - this is being on Country. It is also very social. So yes, it's personal, but it's also social as well. It's a balance.

Marie 27:15
That's so nice. You couldn't think of a four.

Guest 27:18
No. I think we're just going to call it the top four.

Marie 27:20
Okay, we'll say it's the top four.

Guest 27:22
Yeah, it was a slip of the tongue on my part. But they're actually quite easy for anyone to do.

Marie 27:30
I was thinking while you were listing them: find something you're interested in and follow that path. For me, it would be film, poetry, literature.

Guest 27:38
Beautiful. Very beautiful.

Marie 27:43
I did read a book - The Yield. Have you read that? By Tara June Winch. Beautiful book. So for me, I guess learning about culture and educating myself could start through reading fiction, Indigenous authors telling stories.

Guest 28:04
Sure, why not? If that makes you feel good, if that makes you feel happy, please do that. Do that more.

Marie 28:10
Side note: I actually watch a lot of Korean dramas.

Guest 28:13
Oh yeah? Like what - Squid Game?

Marie 28:16
Squid Game is one, yes, but I've watched maybe ninety 16-part series, over an hour each, over two years. It's quite an addiction. But it's interesting, because when you say find something you're interested in and follow that path, you'd be amazed how much I've learned about Korean culture just by watching film and series.

Guest 28:46
Yep, yep, yep. It's media. It makes sense. Poetry, media, storytelling - we're all storytellers, right? Just tell a good story.

Marie 28:54
Are there any films you can recommend? Is there anything you've ever watched and thought, that does a great job of showing or educating people on Aboriginal culture?

Guest 29:06
Oh yeah. Okay, I've got one: Ten Canoes. I'll tell you why I like Ten Canoes. Most Aboriginal movies, shows, media - a lot of the time they cover the same themes: colonisation, the Stolen Generations, tragedy. It's always a tragedy. And of course that's important. If that's your thing and that's what you enjoy watching, go ahead. But why I like Ten Canoes is because it's a story that's not about the black man's interaction with the white man. It's just an Aboriginal story. It could have been thousands of years ago, and it shows a traditional Aboriginal clan and how they interact with each other, how they make jokes with each other. There's the scary tribe, the unknown tribe that comes, and they don't know each other and they go to war. It shows punishment. So it puts the traditional Aboriginal story into light. I've watched it a few times and it's just beautiful storytelling.

Marie 30:30
And where can we watch it, do you know?

Guest 30:34
You know, every time it's on one platform and then another platform buys it. I think it was on Netflix years ago, but now maybe Amazon or Apple TV has it. I don't know.

Marie 30:47
I will track it down and I will link to it so everybody can check it out. Rhys, what does January 26 look like for you?

Guest 30:58
Oh man. Okay, all right. If I'm completely honest, I hold a pretty neutral perspective on the politics of January 26. Honestly, I don't really... Here's what I do. I celebrate it, but not in the way that you think. If I say I celebrate it without saying the rest, most people will cancel me. Even if I show the black card. But I celebrate it not in a way that you think. I'm not out having beers and watching fireworks. I celebrate it because oftentimes - I've done this twice now - I join a couple of my good mates and they do traditional dance, Aboriginal dance, and they perform at what's called the Birak Festival here in Perth. On January 26 they dance, and I join them in dance. This is a way where I'm able to walk both worlds, I think, quite effectively, and it's still aligned with me. Because personally, if it's just Rhys Paddick without politics and histories and things, I don't really get too hung up on days and dates. I think every day is a new day. I think every day should be celebrated. But in this context, what I like to do is honour both the Australian spirit of celebrating and the Aboriginal spirit of celebrating, reflecting, or mourning. So by me dancing, it goes beyond politics and it brings me back to who I am on this Country as Rhys. I choose to go and dance in traditional ways as well. I'm all painted up. I'm like the whitest looking blackfella there, usually. It means I don't have to think about the protests and all the bullshit you see on social media. That's my reference point. Other than that, it's a shame, because I want to celebrate it. I want to celebrate with everyone. There are a few camps, right? There's the abolish-the-date people, the change-the-date people, and the keep-the-date people. I'm sort of in the change camp. I don't think abolishing it really does anything. A lot of people might disagree with me on that, and that's fine. And I think keeping it sounds to me a little bit like some people want to keep it just in spite of the protesters, which should be examined. It was last changed in 1994, so it's not like it hasn't been changed before. I understand the relevance of it being a specific date, and I feel it when my people are hurting. I can't stop myself from feeling that. So I think a good negotiation is to change it to another day. But again, it's not really on my priority list. I'm not an activist in that sense. I'm not telling people what they should and shouldn't be doing. But I am someone who's quite present, and those are days I generally choose to be quite present on Country, dancing with other blackfellas in a way that's celebrating, honouring, reflecting, and mourning.

Marie 34:48
It's actually a really nice tradition. Have you been doing it for long?

Guest 34:53
My mate Ash Penfold, through his Corroboree for Life, invited me I think two or three years ago, and then I did it the year after that as well. I think I missed last year. I'm hoping to see if I can come and do it again this year, if they're still doing it. If not, it's one of those things where I just feel it like any other day, really. I let all of the politics around me just be, and I might go to my mate's place and play some video games, or go to the gym. Nothing really changes for me, to be honest.

Marie 35:25
Love video games. Out of curiosity...?

Guest 35:29
Oh, how much time have you got? Listen, I'm a gamer. I'm a hardcore gamer. I say I'm hardcore - I'm playing Space Marine 2 right now, which is a third-person shooter. It's just masculine, go in and shoot aliens, alpha-male stuff. It's super fun.

Marie 35:56
Yeah, no, I'm still in the Super Mario phase. We've got a Nintendo Switch. I play it with my kids and my husband.

Guest 36:08
You see, we're very different people with different mobs then, because I was a Sega boy growing up.

Marie 36:15
There was Sega Mega Drive. Of course. Who didn't? I'm much older than you, Rhys.

Guest 36:24
It's a throwback.

Marie 36:26
But I used to be a games reviewer on Channel 10.

Guest 36:29
Get out! You're too young to know it. But I was on a show called Cheese TV.

Guest 36:34
No, excuse me - hang on now. Cheese TV raised me. Thank you very much. Every morning before school, 7 am, Sailor Moon would come on. 7:30 was Pokemon, and then 8 o'clock was Dragon Ball Z. I'm very familiar.

Marie 36:51
Correct. Oh my God, look at you. I didn't know.

Guest 36:55
Oh yes, that was our morning ritual. Cheese TV.

Marie 37:00
You said I was way too young. I feel good. You made me feel really good.

Marie 37:12
Rhys, I love speaking to you. Thank you so much for joining. I love your four action steps. We will list them, we will share them, and I hope everybody does find a way to work through them on an individual level. Because I think it's really important as Australians that we all connect with Country, and all pay our respects to our Elders - past, present, and future - just in those little small ways. I think anyone can do that with confidence, don't you think?

Guest 38:14
Yeah, that's right. That's the new content I'm working on - how we can just go out and be with Country. Just go out and be there. We're so overwhelmed with bullshit today. Everything's AI. People are stressed and upset. I'll finish off by saying this quote that one of the Elders here said. It was a passing quote in a workshop one day, but it just hit the nail on the head. He was talking about Country, and he said, 'Whitefellas, they're so silly. It took them 200 years to figure out that if you go out in Country, you feel good.' And I was like, man, that just cuts through all the bullshit. So if you're listening: don't overcomplicate this idea of connecting to Country. Do your research. Be inquisitive. Find out what's interesting to you. But your connection to Country is sacred. That's what our Elders teach. Your connection to Country is sacred, meaning spend time with her. That's your mother. Go out and go for a walk. I did my walk this morning, so go for your walk. Don't put your headphones in. You'll find it's the only time your brain actually has space to think and not be distracted or have your attention pulled here or demanded there. I've been doing it for a year now - two hours a day, every day - and it really changes something. I hope you go on your journey to figure out what that looks like for you, because that's important for you. It's good for your health, it's good for your spirit. That's what our old people teach. I wish you all the best on your journey.

Marie 40:35
Thank you so much, Rhys. You're the best.

Guest 40:38
Oh, thanks Marie. That 40 minutes went by very quickly. Thank you for inviting me on. I'm happy to do it again.

Marie 40:45
You know what? Maybe what I'll do is get you back in six months' time and talk you through what I've been doing personally and the difference it's made.

Guest 40:54
Okay, that sounds good actually. That would be good data for me to hear.

Marie 40:56
Yeah, I would love to tell you that, because this interview with you is part of a series - a two-part series. I'll be speaking to somebody from Reconciliation Australia about the RAPs and building a Reconciliation Action Plan for my business, and looking at why it's important, the impact it has on your community, on business, and beyond. So I'm excited about that. I wanted to look at it from a personal and a business perspective.

Guest 41:28
Very good. And it's good that you mentioned what we can be doing from a reconciliation perspective on a personal and a business level. You've got to understand reconciliation is a very important concept, because I truly believe the purpose of reconciliation is simply to get to the point where we don't have to talk about reconciliation. The last thing I want people to do is build a culture of reconciliation, because if we build a culture of reconciliation then we will forever be divided. We'll forever be in an us-versus-them relationship, and it will forever be an in-service-to approach. That's what Australia is right now. The relationship that whitefellas have with blackfellas is an us-versus-them relationship, and it's an in-service-to approach. We do the acknowledgements of country for you, Rhys, as the Aboriginal person. We do the NAIDOC Week morning teas and Reconciliation Week because it's for you. That's beautiful, we love that, it's amazing. But the purpose of these RAPs is so they don't have to exist later on - so we get to the point where we just don't have to talk about it anymore. That's why I say RAPs are good as a sort of first step, an option to get you started. But remember that it's not a reflection of you. That's why I love that you said personal. What's my personal connection to reconciliation? That's very important. In fact, I think it's more important than the things that reconciliation can give you. They just provide the door - you've got to walk through it.

Marie 42:58
Absolutely. Thank you so much.

Guest 43:00
Oh, thank you so much. This is me, Rhys. Solid yarn. Bossed this morning time, Marie. Lovely to see you again.

Marie 43:08
Lovely to see you too.