The CRANAplus offices will be closed from midday Tuesday 24 December and will reopen on Thursday 2 January 2025. The CRANAplus Bush Support Line is available throughout the holidays and can be contacted at any time on 1300 805 391.

Our new Acknowledgment of Country

2 Dec 2021

Acknowledging Australia’s First Peoples is an obligation that CRANAplus embraces with deep commitment. Under the leadership of CRANAplus’ inaugural Executive Director of First Peoples’ Strategies, Dallas McKeown, the leadership team worked together to re-write our organisational Acknowledgement of Country.

The intent was to enhance the sin­cer­i­ty of our mes­sage. In the spir­it of truth telling’ we want­ed to acknowl­edge the injus­tice and sad­ness that has gone before. We also want­ed to recog­nise the resilience of Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander peo­ple and their endur­ing and time­less con­nec­tion to Coun­try. And we want­ed to fin­ish in a place of hope for the future, with a strong com­mit­ment to work­ing in true partnership.

Dal­las’ gen­tle wis­dom and guid­ance was invalu­able through­out the process, pro­vid­ing yet fur­ther demon­stra­tion of the mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tion she is mak­ing right across the organ­i­sa­tion. Chal­leng­ing us and encour­ag­ing us in equal mea­sure is Dal­las’ unique gift.

Pre­sent­ing here our new Acknowl­edge­ment of Country: 

CRANAplus acknowl­edges the Tra­di­tion­al Own­ers and Cus­to­di­ans of the land, waters and sky where we meet today, and respects their endur­ing spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion to Coun­try. We acknowl­edge the sor­row of the past and our hope and belief that we can move to a place of equi­ty, part­ner­ship, and jus­tice togeth­er. We acknowl­edge Elders past, present and emerg­ing, and pay our respects to the cul­tur­al author­i­ty of First Peo­ples in atten­dance today.”

We hope that it encour­ages all who read and hear it to reflect with grat­i­tude and authen­tic­i­ty on the lands they are on, and the gen­eros­i­ty of the tra­di­tion­al own­ers and cus­to­di­ans in shar­ing it.

The process gave us pause to reflect on what we real­ly want­ed to say and what we believe is impor­tant for oth­ers to hear. We are proud of the final state­ment we set­tled on, but equal­ly impor­tant was the jour­ney to get there.

When was the last time your organ­i­sa­tion reviewed its Acknowl­edg­ment of Country?

Amelia Druhan
Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer, CRANAplus

Read the CRANAplus First Peo­ples’ Strat­e­gy to find out more about our future direction.