National Reconciliation Week returns from 27 May to 3 June, and SBS is marking it with a network-wide offering built around NITV, a live breakfast from Perth and a slate of First Nations stories aimed at viewers across television, streaming and multilingual platforms. Coverage begins on Sunday 25 May, two days before the week officially starts, and runs under the theme All In.
The centrepiece is Journey Home, David Gulpilil, which won Best Documentary and Best Original Score at the 2026 AACTA Awards after taking the 2025 DIFF Audience Award. The film follows a 4,500-kilometre journey to fulfil the final wish of David Gulpilil and returns to Gupulul in remote East Arnhem Land. It premieres on Sunday 31 May at 8:30pm on NITV and SBS On Demand.
National Reconciliation Week itself runs from 27 May to 3 June and marks two milestones in Australian history: the 1967 referendum and the 1992 Mabo decision. For SBS and NITV, the 2026 line-up is meant to meet that moment with a broad, curated slate of Indigenous storytelling rather than a single commemorative broadcast. Audiences will be able to follow the programming across SBS, NITV and SBS On Demand from 25 May, with the broadcaster presenting the week as a call to reflect on shared histories, cultures and achievements and to consider each person’s role in reconciliation.
The week opens with My Name is Gulpilil on Wednesday 27 May at 7:30pm, followed by the National Reconciliation Week Breakfast live from Optus Stadium in Boorloo, Perth, at 11:00am AEST that same day. Presented with Reconciliation WA and drawing on its RISING place-based program, the breakfast will be hosted by Karla Hart and Tremane Baxter-Edwards and feature a keynote from Narelda Jacobs OAM. That day’s schedule is designed to connect ceremony, conversation and screen-based storytelling in one national package.
There is also a local edge to the coverage. Western Australia enters its bicentennial period from 2026 to 2029, and the breakfast’s Perth staging gives that milestone a place inside the broader reconciliation conversation. The broadcaster is also pairing the national focus with regional and archival material: Going Places – Murraylands airs on Thursday 28 May at 7:30pm, and Walkabout to Hollywood follows on Wednesday 3 June at 7:30pm. Living Black, which marks 23 years on air in 2026 and is hosted by Karla Grant, will feature Ursula Yovich during the week.
The tension in the schedule is simple. Reconciliation Week is built around remembering history, but the 2026 coverage is also trying to make that history feel immediate and shared now. That is why the programming stretches from a live breakfast to documentary, current affairs and community stories. It is also why Journey Home, David Gulpilil sits at the centre of the slate: the film is not only a tribute to one of Australia’s best-known Indigenous performers, it is a story about returning to Country, family and final wishes in a year when the broadcaster is asking viewers to go all in.
The answer to this year’s programming question is already in the schedule. SBS and NITV are not treating Reconciliation Week as a single event, but as a week-long editorial push that starts early, spans platforms and places First Nations voices at the front of the national conversation.
