Mark Yettica-Paulson
Mark is an Indigenous man from southeast Queensland and northeast NSW regions. He is a founding member of the National Indigenous Youth Movement of Australia (NIYMA) and a member of the Community Advisory Council of the National Australia Bank.
Mark has had several years experience in leadership management consulting, community education, leadership training, church and community organising and youth work.
Mark is a gifted facilitator and presenter with wide-ranging experience including business, government agencies, universities and training institutions, non-government organizations and not-for-profit organizations.
Mark's employment history across a range of sectors has crafted an inimitable skill set and wealth of experience. These roles include:
- Director of Regulation and Incorporation Support Services (Training) at the Registrar of Aboriginal Corporations,
- Chief Executive Officer for the Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre,
- Leadership Strategist: working specifically with emerging leaders,
- Lecturer and Curriculum developer,
- Project Coordinator for youth work.
Other relevant experiences include:
- 2000-2004 International Youth Parliament: Involvement included facilitation and coaching for other facilitators
- 2000-ongoing National Indigenous Youth Movement of Australia: Involvement continues to support younger leaders to organise and develop strong national and local links for support and action
- 1998-ongoing Foundation for Young Australians: Involvement began as a participant in their leadership program in 1998 and since has included directing a number of Indigenous leadership programs and facilitation of FYA leadership events.
- 2003-ongoing The Benevolent Society's Sydney Leadership Program: Involvement began as a participant in their leadership program in 2003 and has continued through presentations to every cohort since and assistance in leadership development programs.
What a reconciled Australia looks like to me.
In a reconciled Australia we will have a national ceremony that commemorates the time that our indigenous peoples did not share the same hope for life opportunities as others in our nation.
All of us have varying degrees of opportunity, talent and nurture to inform and develop our contributions to the society in which we live. Indigenous children will have similar variance based on birth and growth circumstance. A reconciled Australia does not seek to raise indigenous opportunity beyond any reasonable measure that we would wish on all children. A reconciled Australia would not seek to create any such thing as an "over-correction" or equally imbalanced swing of the pendulum. A reconciled Australia would have achieved a balance that is fair, understood and beyond contestation. A tangible outcome from this would be that our national consciousness would be shifted from despair and frustration at the plight of indigenous peoples to accomplishment and momentum.
Achieving this reality will require dealing with our collective "unfinished business". This is the kind of business that required substantive change to systems that continue to marginalise indigenous peoples. It will require a shift in worldview of our national identity and cultures. It will require political will to create policy and legislative frameworks to discover our new ways of being the people of the nation. It will require new language spoken by the people in the places where the people congregate. It will necessarily involve raising people's political consciousness.
Dealing with unfinished business is helpful when using relevant concepts to illuminate connections and elicit actions. One of the concepts I wish to explore in brief here is the concept that Unfinished Business is like slavery.
There was a time when slavery was justified through religious, cultural, social and economic argument. The arguments were so compelling that life without slavery could not be imagined. Only some dared to imagine, agitate, argue and pursue life without slavery. They stubbornly held to religious, cultural, social and economic convictions that ultimately led to the abolition of slavery on a global scale. However, it can be argued that this kind of victory only served to force other forms of slavery into existence. While that may be the reality, it is also the reality that slavery unlawful.
While there may have been a time where the plight of indigenous peoples in Australia was considered as the way things are and no positive change was insight, we may be in a period like those thinking slavery would be here to stay. Like those who campaigned for the end to slavery and a new era of human enterprise, we too must campaign for the end of carrying the burden of unfinished business. Our nation must address these matters and enter the era when they are behind us. Unfinished business will take on different forms, but it will no longer be acceptable that indigenous peoples suffer at the expense of our nation's prosperity. We as a people will no longer be held back by a limited imagination of what could be.
A reconciled Australia is one where we solemnly remember that there was once a time when our indigenous peoples did not share the same life expectancy. We remember because we never wish our society to return to such times. We remember because we recall the shift in worldview that brought about the changes. We remember because the awakening and journey our peoples took rekindle what is important to us as a nation. We remember the time we committed to creating the changes as a defining moment in our history.
Mark Yettica-Paulson
