‘Reset the relationship’: decolonising government to increase Indigenous benefit

Abstract

Aboriginal Tasmanian peoples have been characterised by extinction myths as an outcome of colonialism. The subsequent dispossession and exile from lands and seas for surviving communities have increased trauma. This article analyses the recent efforts of Aboriginal Tasmanian peoples to reframe relationships with the Tasmanian Government and create conditions for our emancipation away from colonial harms. To decolonise political negotiating environments and inject Indigenous-led strategies of ‘love-bombing’ that reflect cultural processes of kinship and reciprocity, we reset the relationship for good governance. Two case studies of Tasmanian land and sea management illustrate how an Indigenous politic has been created for reclaiming identity among shared futures.