Do a nation’s defining truths cut through eventually, their moral salience piercing even the most enduring of false narratives? Can we talk meaningfully about pursuing justice and reconciliation with First Nations peoples while endorsing the same Crown that stole their lands, and which has never atoned?

These questions may not be unique to Australia’s past, but they feel critical to its future, as the government embarks on nothing less than a remaking of Australian identity based on genuine respect and an open acknowledgement of past atrocities—an identity that explicitly incorporates 60,000-plus years of prior custodianship and culture and which squares up to the racist realities of British colonisation and those enacted by Australian governments since.