Sorry

Today we were proud to be Australian. Ashamed and proud. Moved and proud. Today many of us understood, and were sorry.

I sat in a seminar room with about 50 kids and a number of staff as we watched the Prime Ministers speech live on a big screen. We heard a formal acknowledgment of the dreadful wrong which had been committed 'for the best'. Regardless of the pupils around me, tears rolled down my cheeks.

There was such a sense of occasion, of witnessing history. No more excuses. As much as at any time in history today, Australia entered another age. As the Wars taught us that we were a Nation unto ourselves, that we had quality and identity apart from our 'Mother Country', to day taught us that we were big enough to admit our wrongs; to identify with our beginnings, no matter how unpalatable and acknowledge their part in who we are today.

For those of you who do not know of our history, I give you this link to the report entitled 'Bringing Them Home: A Report into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Children from their Families.'

This Policy is not ancient history. When I was at school there were aboriginal children in our class who were fostered by white families or living in sheltered accommodation with other 'orphaned' kids. We assumed they had been orphaned. It never occurred to us that there could be any other explanation. Apparently all aboriginal children had no parents.

With the long overdue ceremony today, the Govt has taken the first steps towards National healing. It is our job as Australians to embrace the errors of our past and learn from them. How this will look in terms of practical application has yet to be determined but let us pray that bridges are being built.

Whatever the criticisms of the ceremony, of the Leader of the Opposition's speech, of the opportunities for litigation and the resultant financial and legal deluge, today Australia did a good thing.