Thomas Mayor visits Launceston Preparatory School for Reconciliation Week

Signatory to the Uluru Statement From The Heart Thomas Mayor said truth telling was important for people to understand the changes that needed to be made.

"When children know the truth and they tell the adults, then the adults have an opportunity to vote in a referendum. That's a really powerful thing," Mr Mayor said.

"It's also a very practical change so that we can start to get policy and legislation right in this country and how it affects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and that is why truth telling in homes and in schools is important," he said.

Mr Mayor read pages of his book to the children and spoke to them about the historical impacts of colonisation on Aboriginal people. He also said coming to the school and seeing how the students were responding to the Statement of the Heart and seeing how open their hearts and minds were was enlightening.

While explaining the importance of the Wave Hill Walk Off, he was shocked the students knew of the story and had "goose bumps" when their eyes lit up at the mention of Vincent Lingiari.

"I think children understand the world as it should be, before they're taught prejudice and before those sorts of things start to cloud our vision on the way that the world should be. It gives us great hope to see the way the children have reacted.

"For the first time since the Uluru statement came to be five years ago, we have a government that is as passionate about achieving the proposals in the Uluru Statement as we were in the Heart of the Country.

"It means there is going to be greater resources going into educating people about why a referendum to enshrine a voice is important and why they should vote yes.

"All of the disadvantages are because of failed policy and because of legislation that doesn't take into account the position of Indigenous peoples and the prejudice that we face.

"When we are able to influence the decisions about those laws and policies, they will stop failing, and they'll start to get it right.

"We'll start to see the flow-on effect of all of the social issues that we suffer and those gaps between Indigenous and non Indigenous people will start to close," he said.

Reconciliation Tasmania board member Georgie Crockett said she developed a relationship with Mr Mayor in 2021 and asked him to come to Launceston as part of Reconciliation Week.

Ms Crockett said schools were asked to read his book and think about how it made them feel and what they would like to say.

"We wanted to send this on to the Prime Minister and our leaders to say 'this is what the kids say, this is the next generation and this is what they'd like to see done'.

"We're not gonna get anywhere on this reconciliation journey until the truth is told, and we actually understand that ugly truth," she said.

The students also shared poems, music and letters including a young student named Xavier Golds-Young who said "I think we should come together as one so we can learn from each other".

Millie Adams said she enjoyed the book reading and learned a lot from it.

Jacob Scott said "This story makes me think about the treatment of Aboriginal people and how Captain Cook took over the land and changed it dramatically while treating it badly".