E/CN.4/2002/24/Add.1 page 43 (iv) (e) Supporting Reconciliation Australia, the foundation that has been established to maintain a national leadership focus for Reconciliation, report on progress, provide information and raise funds to promote and support Reconciliation; Each government and parliament: (i) Recognizes that the land and its water were settled as colonies without treaty or consent and that to advance Reconciliation it would be most desirable if there were agreement or treaties; and (ii) Negotiates a process through which this might be achieved that protects the political, legal, cultural and economic position of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; (f) The Commonwealth Parliament enacts legislation to put in place a process which will unite all Australians by way of agreement, or treaty, through which unresolved issues of Reconciliation can be resolved. 90. The federal Government refused to allow apologies to be presented by “one part” to the other part of the Australian nation as desired by the Indigenous peoples, but agreed that, on the other hand, all Australians should express deep regret for the injustices of the past. The Australian Prime Minister expressed his views as follows, but without receiving the assent of the Indigenous peoples: “As we walk the journey of healing, Australians express their sorrow and profoundly regret the injustices of the past and recognize the continuing trauma and hurt still suffered by many Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.” 91. Similarly, the Government is opposed to the signing of an agreement or treaty that would settle once and for all the question of relations between the Indigenous peoples and the Australian State, thereby completing the process of reconciliation, in conformity with recommendations 5 and 6. It has agreed to build a symbolic monument on the site of the Australian Parliament in Canberra in order to seal the Reconciliation. The Indigenous peoples, for their part, say they support the framing of a treaty and have begun consultations on this question within their communities - despite each clan’s insistence on affirming its identity or specific cultural character. The agreement is almost unanimous on the land question. The Aboriginals intend to recover their right of ownership in order to genuinely exercise their right to development, if only in the context of autonomous territories. They consider that “the reconciliation process has made clear the pressing need for Aboriginal peoples to negotiate freely the terms of their continuing relationship with Australia. There is also a pressing need for non-Indigenous people to re-establish the foundations of a nation which can no longer justify the means by which its sovereignty was first acquired. The recognition of Indigenous peoples’ right to their land and the origins of a nation are inextricably related and that changes to one part of the relationship [imply] and require changes to the other. Developments in native title law reflect upon the ethical foundations of the nation”.