Recognising First Nations researchers at the National Centre for Reconciliation, Truth, and Justice

Each year, NAIDOC Week is held in early July to celebrate First Nations peoples, cultures, histories, and achievements. This week, and every week, I gratefully acknowledge the brilliant and transformational work of the First Nations researchers, with whom I am deeply honoured to work with, and learn from, at the National Centre for Reconciliation, Truth, and Justice. Here are some brief updates from each of the team about their current work.

Professor Bindi Bennett — K/Gamilaroi woman and Professorial Research Fellow

Funded by a large ARC grant, one of Professor Bennett's current projects is the Connecting Culture SIM. This is an immersive, culturally responsive simulation designed to support social work students and professionals in developing deeper cultural humility, awareness, and relational practice when working with Aboriginal Peoples.

Rooted in Indigenous pedagogies such as yarning, deep listening, and relational accountability, the SIM challenges Western-centric models by centring lived experience, Country, kinship, and community.

Rather than a didactic or performative training, Connecting Culture SIM creates a space for two-way learning — where users must navigate real-world tensions, discomfort, and relational complexity. It explores themes such as cultural safety, systemic racism, intergenerational trauma, and the role of the practitioner as both learner and ally.

By walking alongside First Nations voices in the simulation, users engage in reflection that is both personal and professional, as well as political.

The SIM is being co-designed with Elders, cultural advisors, and Aboriginal educators to ensure the content honours cultural protocols, diverse realities, and strength-based narratives. It aims to disrupt assumptions, foster empathy, and expand users' capacity to practice in ways that are respectful, responsive, and reciprocal.

Ultimately, Connecting Culture SIM is not just a tool for learning — it is a call to reimagine practice grounded in truth, respect, and relational justice.

Professor Emma-Jaye Gavin — Garrwa woman and Professor of Indigenous Truth-telling research

In the first half of 2025, Professor Gavin conducted research fieldwork with First Nations communities in Far North Queensland and the Northern Territory and recorded interviews (for future publications) with Indigenous leaders, including Pat Dodson, Stan Grant, Ken Wyatt, and Travis Lovett, presented at several conferences and forums, wrote two peer-reviewed journal articles and two edited book chapters, and acted as co-editor for an upcoming edited book.

Professor Gavin has also served as co-guest editor alongside Monash University Professor Steven Roberts for the Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues. This special issue emerged from the international conference Class, Race, Place: Exploring Intersectionality for Access to Higher Education Globally, which Professors Gavin and Roberts co-convened in December 2024.

The event was jointly hosted by the National Centre for Reconciliation, Truth, and Justice (NCRTJ) and the Alliance of Working-Class Academics Worldwide (AWCA). While the conference centered on equity and access within higher education, the special issue broadens that scope to critically examine the intersections of class and race across diverse contexts.

The collected contributions engage with themes of access, inclusion, social and legal justice, and structural equity, providing both scholarly insight and lived experience on the dynamics of marginalisation and resistance. The Special Issue is available here.

Professor Emma Lee OAM — trawlwulwuy woman and Professorial Research Fellow

In December 2024, the Tasmanian Government formally handed the rights to commercial abalone fisheries to Tasmanian Aboriginal communities in perpetuity. 

The research undertaken by Professor Emma Lee over the last eight years has led to the establishment of a vibrant Aboriginal fisheries program, which is returning abalone to Tasmanian tables. 

Multiple Aboriginal organisations have come together to increase the use of traditional Aboriginal knowledges in commercial fishery settings and expand the meaning of sustainability for healthy sea country. 

The announcement of the return of abalone commercial fisheries to Tasmanian Aboriginal communities fulfilled one of the 24 recommendations stemming from the 2021 report on truth-telling and treaty to the Tasmanian Government. 

The return of fishery rights means that Tasmanian Aboriginal communities can continue to lead research, focusing on the establishment of cultural heritage influences on fisheries over time and how an Aboriginal harvest strategy can serve as a model for collaborative work with governments, hospitality, research, and broader societies in Australia.  New research on old knowledges will increase Tasmanian Aboriginal self-determination in economic futures. 

Jesse J. Fleay — Noongar man and Research Fellow

Jesse J. Fleay's recent work centres Indigenous futures through a lens of truth-telling, justice, and structural transformation internationally, including through the United Nations, where he recently co-authored a Statement of Indigenous Peoples (2025).

Mr Fleay has also recently embarked on a truth-telling process with the British Monarchy through the Crown's Royal Archives, which have assisted him with his research and entrusted him with archives regarding correspondences with the Crown throughout Australia's pre-federation history.

As a researcher and writer, Mr Fleay challenges performative commitments by institutions and calls for genuine Indigenous-led leadership, consultation, and systemic accountability. He is currently developing a national series of essays that expose these issues and platform First Nations academic voices pushing back against settler self-interest in the academy.

This year, he met award-winning author Stan Grant and learned more about his writing craft and vocation from one of Australia's leading intellectuals. Mr Fleay's voice is unflinching and grounded in community, always returning to a core belief — that all systems must serve Lands, Peoples, and Cultures, not simply institutional legacy or metrics.

His work continues to concentrate on reimagining Australia and its place in the world.

Professor Dennis Foley — Gai-mariagal man and Emeritus Professor

Emeritus Professor Foley recently retired from the university following an outstanding career in academia over many decades, including the past two years as a Foundational Professorial Research Fellow at the National Centre.

Professor Foley will be formally awarded the title Emeritus Professor in recognition of his contributions at an upcoming University Graduation Ceremony in October. This award is Federation University's highest honorary award, and Professor Foley is the university's first Indigenous Emeritus Professor.

We are very grateful that Professor Foley has continued his association with the National Centre. He continues to make an enormous contribution across a wide range of academic disciplines, including Indigenous entrepreneurship, a research field he helped establish, Indigenous business management and planning, and Indigenous education, pedagogy, and epistemology.

He is currently engaging in several economic and education areas, including presenting a Keynote Address to an Aboriginal Economic Conference in Sydney and writing on the impact of the 2023 First Nations Voice to Parliament Referendum on the rise of racism in education settings.

Professor Andrew Gunstone is Associate Deputy Vice-Chancellor Reconciliation and Professor Indigenous Studies at Federation University, where he leads all reconciliation matters, including the National Centre for Reconciliation, Truth, and Justice, which he established in 2023.

The National Centre for Reconciliation, Truth, and Justice is Australia’s leading academic think-tank on reconciliation. More information about the National Centre can be found on our webpage or by following our work on LinkedIn.