"It is time for truth-telling in this country," declares a sombre but hopeful Malarndirri McCarthy.

Truths about the darker episodes of Australian history – particularly the massacres of Indigenous people at the hands of European settlers – must be properly aired if the nation is to be united and move forward, the NT Labor senator and Yanyuwa woman says.

Australia must have this discussion in a mature way, Senator McCarthy says, otherwise: "We continue to enable wilful blindness and deafness to our history. And that does nothing to encourage hope among younger Australians for a better country."

And the upshot, should the nation collectively wrap its head around the legacy of colonisation?

"A better Australia, a more mature Australia, allowing all Australians to feel enormously proud of our country," Senator McCarthy argues, fresh from attending the 20th annual Garma Festival in the Northern Territory, the gathering that brings together senior figures from Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia.