Share in National Sorry Day and reconciliation
Published on 22 May 2026
This Tuesday 26 May is National Sorry Day, followed by Reconciliation Week from 27 May to 3 June 2026.
Nambucca Valley General Manager Bede Spannagle said Council will be holding a Sorry Day morning tea on Tuesday 27 May and a staff barbecue on 3 June to commemorate these important days.
“Advancing reconciliation and inclusion is everyone’s responsibility and we are supporting this by meeting next Tuesday with local Aboriginal Elders and having a conversation about our nation’s past,” he said.
“I encourage invited community members, Councillors, and Council staff to come along and hear from local Gumbaynggirr Elders about the impact of the Stolen Generations and together talk about how we can make our community more inclusive.”
Nambucca Valley Council Aboriginal Community Development Officer Michelle Jarrett, who started working at Council in May, said National Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week is about coming together to make a more cohesive community.
“I’m really looking forward to Sorry Day morning tea as it will share some of our native food, like Davidsons plum jam and wattle seed cream, and it gives us the chance to come together and talk,” she said.
“The trauma caused by the Stolen Generations, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children forcibly removed from their families in the past, is still present and the way we start the healing process is to come together and talk.”
The theme for National Reconciliation Week 2026 is All In, a call for all Australians to commit wholeheartedly to reconciliation every single day. This theme and events like morning teas create reconciliation opportunities.
Interestingly, the artwork for the National Reconciliation Week 2026 campaign this year was created by renowned Gumbaynggirr/Bundjalung artist Otis Hope Carey, who applied his colourful and optimistic visuals to represent people from all walks of life being ‘all in’ to make change.
Holding a Sorry Day morning tea helps to meet one of the key community priorities in the Nambucca Valley Community Strategic Plan 2035, to listen to and learn from the Gumbaynggirr people.
ALL MEDIA ENQUIRIES TO:
Mr Bede Spannagle
GENERAL MANAGER
02 6568 2555
DATE: 22 May 2026