Governor retraces his steps to Pinjarra at Reconciliation WA
News blog by Government House Western Australia
November 13, 2025
Governor Chris Dawson has spoken of how he came to deliver his historic apology over the Pinjarra Massacre – and the lessons learned in getting there.
On October 28 this year, His Excellency was invited to attended the annual memorial which remembers the day that WA’s first Governor James Stirling led a party which killed multiple indigenous members of the Bindjareb tribe on the Murray River.
191 years to the day, Governor Dawson apologised for his predecessor’s actions.
Following that event, Reconciliation WA invited the Governor to share some of his thoughts and lessons from the event.
“My action might be seen as a measure of leadership. But what the Bindjareb leaders and wider family have done – by inviting and welcoming me and then accepting that apology – is true leadership,” Governor Dawson said.
“Because it helps us all move forward. It assists us to find common ground. It allows us to share, strengthen in unison and to speak a mutual truth.
“In his recent Reconciliation Memoirs, Patrick Dodson said that as a Nation and a people we still lack a “common narrative”.
“To address that, Dodson posits we need to acknowledge that our foundations were built on “non-truths or only partial truths – stories only from one side.”
“Which he says – and I agree with – leads to the “need to rebuild on truths we understand more clearly.”
“To fully understand the truth of what happened in Pinjarra, I educated myself through the best source material.
“Going forward, education, premised on primary evidence and truth must be one of the central tenets of reconciliation.”
Original blog post URL:
https://govhouse.wa.gov.au/2025/11/governor-retraces-his-steps-to-pinjarra-at-reconcilation-wa/
