The Bundaberg community is being invited to come together for National Reconciliation Week 2026, with a flag raising ceremony in Buss Park at 9 am on Wednesday 27 May to open the annual observance. Bundaberg Regional Council will join the First Nations Bailai, Gurang, Gooreng Gooreng, Taribelang Bunda People Development Corporation for the event, which will be followed by morning tea.
A free screening of Like My Brother will also be held at the Moncrieff Entertainment Centre, while visitors to Bundaberg Regional Libraries can browse book displays and jigsaw puzzles designed by First Nations artists. The local program gives residents several ways to take part in reconciliation week 2026, beginning on 27 May and running through to 3 June.
Tracey McPhee said this year’s national theme, All In for National Reconciliation Week 2026, is a call for Australians to commit wholeheartedly to reconciliation every day. She said reconciliation does not happen around people, but through them and the choices they make each day, and added that the week encourages people to listen to understand, stay curious and build genuine connections through respectful conversations and shared experiences.
National Reconciliation Week has fixed dates each year, bookended by the 1967 referendum on 27 May and the High Court’s Mabo decision on 3 June. The dates matter because they connect the week to two milestones in Australia’s history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights. The observance began in 1993 as the Week of Prayer for Reconciliation and has since grown into a national movement involving schools, workplaces and community groups across the country.
For Bundaberg, the program sits alongside the regular yarning circles Council holds with local elders, giving the week a broader community footing rather than a one-day ceremony. That makes the message of the 2026 theme hard to miss: reconciliation is not something to watch from the sidelines, but something the town is being asked to join in, starting in Buss Park on Wednesday morning.
