This week I will travel to Germany representing the Minister for the Arts, the Hon Tony Burke MP in my role as Special Envoy for the Arts to join a delegation of First Nations Australians who are repatriating ancestral remains back to Country.

I will be attending a ceremony at the Grassi Museum in Leipzig on 17 November at which ancestors will be returned to their First Nations community representatives.

In the 19th and early 20th century, the remains of many First Nations Australians were separated from their country and sent to museum collections overseas. This caused profound and ongoing pain to First Nations people.

Repatriations such as this are an important step in Australia’s journe