Building respect and relationships with First Australians

How do you embed reconciliation into core business practices? As we celebrate NAIDOC week, we ask Cath Brokenborough, Lendlease’s lead for Indigenous engagement and reconciliation, for her insights.

A proud Wiradjuri woman, Brokenborough (pictured) has spent nearly three decades working in risk management, training, and health and safety roles in the property and construction industry and now provides Lendlease with strategic advice on the implementation of its Reconciliation Action Plan.

Brokenborough says NAIDOC Week, and other important cultural events like National Reconciliation Week, are an opportunity for all Australians to learn more about our shared history.

 

Reflect, Innovate, Stretch and Elevate

As a builder, developer and manager of assets on land all over Australia, Lendlease recognises it plays a central role in nurturing respect and valuing the culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

At the heart of Lendlease’s approach is its reconciliation action plan, or RAP.

There are four types of RAPs – Reflect, Innovate, Stretch and Elevate – which guide organisations through the stages of the reconciliation process.

More than 1.5 million Australians work and study in an organisation with a current RAP, but few companies are as advanced in the reconciliation journey as Lendlease.

Brokenborough says Lendlease’s Elevate RAP is “founded on the ideals of respect and relationships”. The RAP outlines three mandated goals that have been incorporated into business planning: cultural awareness training, employment and procurement.

Since Lendlease launched its first RAP in 2011, more than 2,0 employees have undertaken cultural awareness training. Another 1,0 employees will attend face-to-face cultural awareness training in 2018 alone.

Lendlease is determined to expand its workforce of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees until it meets at least three per cent of its directly employed workforce in Australia. Among the host of strategies to do this, Lendlease is working with CareerTrackers to grow young business leaders and hosts a minimum of 25 interns each year.

On the procurement front, Lendlease has formalised a partnership with Supply Nation and its list of Indigenous suppliers continues to grow.

Brokenborough says the RAP shows how people in Lendlease and beyond can “practically acknowledge and celebrate Indigenous culture and our shared history, promote reconciliation by working collaboratively with communities to co-create and co-deliver the best places for people, and incorporate human rights into the way we do business.”

 

Because of her, we can!

Under the theme of ‘Because of her, we can!’ NAIDOC Week celebrates the essential role that women have played – and continue to play – as active role models at the community, local, state and national levels.

Brokenborough says women “play an enormous role in preserving song, dance, ceremonial practice and language”. They are also “responsible for teaching the stories, and traditional knowledge held in the songs to our children and grandchildren”.

“Women keep the ancestral lines, knowledge of family histories and the traditional moiety systems for marriage operating.”

Ms Brokenborough points to Barangaroo, a Cammeraygal woman from the Eora Nation, and the namesake of Sydney’s largest urban redevelopment, as an example.

“Barangaroo was a strong, independent and influential woman in the early days of European colonisation who hunted and provided for her clan with fish caught in and around the harbour.

“She courageously challenged the discriminatory treatment of her people in the earliest days of colonial settlement,” Brokenborough adds.

 

Truth-telling

“Shared history means we understand, acknowledge and respect the fact that Australia was occupied before Europeans arrived on these shores,” Brokenborough says.

“With each passing year, further scientific evidence emerges of the length, depth and complexity of the unbroken cultural, social and scientific knowledge and practices of the First Nation’s peoples – over 60,000 years of occupation and custodianship of Australia.”

Shared history also means acknowledging the brutal colonisation which dispossessed the First Nation’s Peoples of their land and its impacts.

“This doesn’t mean that we are looking to blame anyone for that history, but if we do not accept that this colonisation occurred, it will remain a stumbling block to achieving reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in this country.

“Knowing this, and talking about this truth, helps us to understand the trauma and subjugation that Indigenous people experienced for over 200 years, and how this continues to impact Indigenous people today.

“Truth-telling is an important part of the healing process for Indigenous people, and equally important to the future growth and harmony of our country.”

Brokenborough says she, and many other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, don’t want to dwell on the “deficit” language of disadvantage.

“We want to celebrate Indigenous excellence in all its forms and focus on what can be achieved to counteract past injustices.

“This is why it is equally important to protect, share and accept as our own history, all the wonderful stories, languages, dance, art, knowledge and skills of our Indigenous citizens.”

NAIDOC Week continues until Sunday 15 July.

All images courtesy of Lendlease.