The Parliamentary Triangle has a hole in its heart. Here's one way to help mend it

Meticulously planned, it's not a city which shunts - it's a city which glides.

I have spent many years in Canberra, and every time I visit it always makes me feel proud - proud that we have this magnificent, purpose-built capital city.

As a new senator, I am also proud that my party, the Liberal Party, drove the development of Canberra, especially during the Menzies years.

Canberra is one of only three such cities worldwide, alongside Washington, D.C. and Brasilia.

At the heart of Walter Burley Griffin's vision is a magnificent triangle, the Parliamentary Triangle, which links some of Australia's most significant buildings.

Mostly confined to the suburb of Parkes, it's a precinct which honours our liberal democratic traditions.

The triangle reflects our democratic tradition through two Parliament Houses, the High Court of Australia and numerous historic executive buildings.

It also reflects our commitment to arts and culture through its various galleries and the most magnificent of all, the National Library of Australia.

It pays homage to our past and our future, but there's a hole in the heart.

Short of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and Reconciliation Place, there is no significant Indigenous building.

For example, there is no national resting place to care for the remains of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ancestors that are unable to be returned to their communities of origin.

There is no major precinct that schoolchildren can visit for Indigenous cultural purposes, alongside their year 6 visit to Canberra to visit Parliament House and Questacon.

We should not accept this hole. A reconciled nation would have a significant Indigenous institution in a purpose-built capital city.

Without it, how can we truly live out Noel Pearson's formula that Australia is made up of three parts - Indigenous heritage, British foundation and a multicultural gift?

As I wrote in my recently published book, Buraadja: The Liberal Case For Reconciliation, the hole in the Triangle brings the "Great Australian Silence" to life.

Now more than 100 years old, Canberra has matured into the city which Sir Robert Menzies drove to "build up ... as a capital in the eyes and minds of the Australian people".

Visitors to another purpose-built capital, Washington, D.C., will be familiar with the spectacular National Museum of the American Indian and also the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

There is a proposal to rectify the void in Canberra by establishing a large, built monument to Indigenous culture known as the National Resting Place or Ngurra Cultural Precinct. All of which must be subject to the approval and consent of traditional owners around the nation and in the nation's capital.

A recent parliamentary inquiry recommended that this be built inside the Triangle: "The committee recommends that the Australian government relocate the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Studies (AIATSIS) from its current location on the Acton Peninsula to a new location in Canberra's Parliamentary Zone ... this should include public exhibition facilities, and a national resting place for repatriated ancestral remains that cannot immediately return to Country. The institution should be developed under the leadership and in comprehensive consultation with Indigenous Australians."

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As I wrote in Buraadja, this bipartisan recommendation would entrench a national resting place inside the Triangle. In the recent budget, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg included funding for a business case which is now under way.

Like the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier, Ngurra would be a sombre and sincere expression of our desire for reconciliation, humanity and unity.

We should build it during this decade. A substantial building within the Triangle which is genuinely Indigenous would enrich the national capital and Australia.

We are shamefully bereft of recognition of Indigenous Australians in this precinct.

Take a stroll and you will find a statue of Sir John Gorton and his dog. You will see Sir Robert Menzies strolling along the north side of Lake Burley Griffin, and former Labor prime ministers John Curtin and Ben Chifley in conversation as they walk from the Hotel Kurrajong towards Old Parliament House.

There is nothing to honour Liberal senator Neville Bonner, who next month clocks up 50 years since he became the first Indigenous Australian to take a place in Parliament.

Nor is there any recognition of Charles Perkins, the Aboriginal rights leader who became the first Indigenous Australian to become head of a federal government department.

Not to mention Eddie Mabo - the man who single-handedly changed Australia's legal foundation.

We must mark these achievements if we want to tell the nation's full history.

But we should also proudly present this country's full history to the children when they come to Canberra. We are selling them short.