It is unfortunate, but telling, that the impact of the coronavirus crisis on Reconciliation Week activities has gone largely unremarked.
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This is in contrast to the driveway commemorations of Anzac Day and the live streamed observances of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
It is doubly unfortunate in that today marks the 20th anniversary of the reconciliation bridge walks and that it is now 12 years since the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, delivered the historic "National Apology to the Stolen Generations" in Parliament House.
The scale and influence of the bridge walks cannot be overstated. More than 250,000 people crossed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, many more than once, to show their support for meaningful reconciliation between Australia's Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.
Today marks the 20th anniversary of the reconciliation walks.
They were just some of the more than 350,000 people who took part in walks across the country in what is said to be the largest public demonstration ever mounted in Australia.
The bridge walks, which were cited by Nelson Mandela who visited Australia in 2000 as proof Australia "wanted to heal itself and deal with the hurt of the past", had been organised as part of Corroboree 2000.
"Leaving wounds unattended leads to them festering, and eventually causes even greater injury to the body of society," Mr Mandela said.
While we tend to focus on the Sydney Harbour Bridge walk, as much for the stunning images it generated as as anything else, we should not forget the many Australians who marched elsewhere, including in many regional centres and country towns.
The event also inspired additional mass walks over the course of the year with 60,000 crossing Brisbane's William Jolly Bridge on June 4 and 300,000 turning out for an event in Melbourne that December.
Canberra is, as yet, the only Australian jurisdiction to recognise Reconciliation Day - the anniversary of the historic 1967 referendum - as a public holiday. This year it falls on Monday, June 1.
While there will be no public gatherings as a result of COVID-19 a wide range of online activities have been planned. To find out more visit the Events ACT website.
It is imperative that despite the fact the world has been distracted by the global pandemic people should not forget that when they reach "the other side" the old problems will still be there.
The coronavirus has, in fact, posed even more challenges to Indigenous Australians than they faced before.
Wouldn't it be grand if we were able to draw on our newly re-affirmed sense of national unity and social cohesion to scale other mountains as well?
One of the tallest of these is the issue of Indigenous disadvantage. We have made disappointingly little progress in the more than 200 years that have passed since this problem first arose.
While there has been a significant increase in awareness of Indigenous issues over the past two decades, and we had the apology, many fundamentals remain unchanged.
Let's revisit the question of constitutional recognition for a start. Then there are the problems of mortality, poor health outcomes, unacceptable incarceration rates, suicide, multi-generational disadvantage and the very real sense many indigenous Australians have of being strangers in their own land.
And, last but not least, all of this is still underpinned by almost endemic levels of racial prejudice.
While Canberrans won't be able to gather in support of their Indigenous brothers and sisters this Monday, we all have the opportunity to commit to being a part of the solution.
