All In: Reconciliation as Partnership

Reconciliation Week 2026 asks us to be “All In.” It is a bold and generous invitation to show up fully, to commit without reservation, to ensure that reconciliation is not left to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples alone to carry. Coming from Aotearoa New Zealand, where the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is shaped by a founding Treaty, I find the theme both familiar and inspiring. For our sector, it raises a direct and important question – not just whether we are all in, but how.

In Aotearoa, the relationship between Māori and non-Māori is structured by Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the founding document. One of the most important concepts to emerge from that framework is Tangata Tiriti, people of the Treaty. This is the name given to non-Indigenous New Zealanders, not as bystanders to Indigenous rights, but as partners with active obligations. In Aotearoa, allyship is structural, expected, and understood as an ongoing practice.

When I think about what “All In” means, and what it means to be working in aged care in Australia, this is the lens I bring. The idea that reconciliation is not something for me to witness or endorse from the outside, but something I am in active partnership with, carrying ongoing obligations to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, organisations, and Elders whose lives intersect with the systems our sector designs and delivers.

This matters profoundly in aged care. In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, understandings of health and ageing are holistic, encompassing physical, social, spiritual, emotional, and cultural dimensions, with community wellbeing and connection to Country at the centre. The role of Elders extends beyond that of care recipients. Elders are holders of unique languages, knowledge systems, and spiritual and cultural wisdom, passed down through generations. They carry invaluable knowledge about what wellbeing and good care look like for their communities. Mainstream aged care was built around a different set of assumptions and reconciliation, in our sector, requires honestly reckoning with that gap. Being “All In” asks every person in our sector to take up their role in closing it.

In practical terms, genuine partnership in health and aged care means building resourced, reciprocal relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisations and positioning their knowledge as expertise. It means workforces that include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff in frontline, leadership, and governance roles. It means models of care designed with community, that honour connection to Country, language, and culture as legitimate and necessary components of quality care. And it means all of us asking honestly: whose knowledge is shaping the systems and the care we provide?

Reconciliation is sometimes spoken of as though it belongs to the past, a historical debt to be acknowledged and eventually settled. But in aged care, it is a past, present, and future concept. There are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders in care right now whose wellbeing depends on how seriously and urgently our sector takes this work. Being “All In” represents a standard for every day of the year.

This Reconciliation Week, I will be reflecting on what reconciliation means, and what role I play here in Australia, through the lens of what it means to be a partner to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. While Australia’s reconciliation framework differs from Aotearoa New Zealand’s Treaty-based partnership, the underlying principle – that non-Indigenous people are not bystanders to reconciliation, but partners with active obligations – holds. Reconciliation Week invites us all to ask: what role do I play? What does being All In look like in the work I do every day? These are not comfortable questions, and the answers will not always be straightforward. But sitting with that discomfort, and continuing to act anyway, is where genuine partnership is built.

Dr Megan Eustace shares her perspective as a woman of Māori ancestry, experienced in working alongside Indigenous communities in Aotearoa New Zealand.