The Voices for Reconciliation 2026 song is the classic land rights anthem Beds Are Burning by Midnight Oil.
Choirs across the country have come together in song to contribute to National Reconciliation Week 2026.
The theme for NRW 2026 is All In, a call for all Australians to commit wholeheartedly to reconciliation every single day.
Beds Are Burning is a timeless call to action to be All In for justice and reconciliation, and for all Australians to know our history.
About Beds Are Burning
Beds Are Burning, written and performed by Midnight Oil, is a powerful anthem that hit a chord nationally and internationally and became a defining soundtrack of the land rights movement.
The song was inspired by the Uluru-Kata Tjuta handback to the Anangu people in 1985 and was written over the course of the 1986 Blackfella/Whitefella tour the Oils embarked on with Warumpi Band through Western Desert and Arnhem Land Aboriginal communities.
Released in 1987 on the Diesel and Dust album, the song became an international hit, reaching #1 in New Zealand, South Africa and Canda, #17 in the USA, and #6 in the UK and at home in Australia.
While its broader themes resonated with land rights struggles around the world, the Oils made sure the song’s central call was crystal clear: justice and land rights for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The song has been covered and reinterpreted multiple times and featured in the Sydney Olympics closing ceremony in 2000, when the band performed the song wearing jumpsuits with SORRY written in large block text, protesting the Howard government’s refusal to apologise to the Stolen Generations.
Decades later, the message still resonates. The song stands as a powerful call to action to know our history and be All In to create a more just, equitable and reconciled future for us all.
For choirs, it offers strong musical energy, meaningful connected storytelling, and a message that resonates with audiences.
Reconciliation Australia thanks Midnight Oil and Sony Music Publishing for their support of Voices for Reconciliation. We sing in honour of the memory of Rob Hirst.
Beds Are Burning written by Hirst/Moginie/Garrett © Sprint Music
Licenses by Sony Music Publishing (Australia) Pty Limited
Choir arrangements by Catherine Mundy & Jay Turner for Reconciliation Australia.
Voices for Reconciliation 2025: Solid Rock
Wondering if you should join the Voices for Reconciliation in 2026? Check out the choirs from last year to see what you could be part of.
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