Random thoughts and images - Saying sorry

I went to Parliament House, to be there at the moment. Can't believe for a moment I considered not going. I'm guessing there would have been around 6,000 people there (but I'm notoriously bad at that sort of head counting). Anyway, I got there about quarter to 9 - the sky was overcast and it was a little cool. I wandered around for a while, noting there was a good mix of young and old, indigenous and non (although I was a little miffed that the Childrenless Dads group tried to hijack the day with their agenda - yep, you probably have a point, the family court isn't always that considerate of fathers, but not today chaps).  I had hoped to show you pictures, but despite the tens of thousands of cords in this house, I can't find the one that links the camera to the computer. Hopefully I'll eventually find a way.

I found myself a possie just near the ABC telecast position, with a pretty good view of one of the screens. It suddenly turned on, and we watched people start to move into the chamber, and there was occassional applause to be heard from inside the chamber. Then it became tumultuous and I realised that Kev had entered - the crowd outside clapped too.

The beginning was very simple. The Speaker of the House called for the Clerk, and the Clerk announced the first motion of the day regarding the apology to the stolen generations. And I teared up. I hadn't expected it, but I did. The tears continued on and off through the morning. It was so amazing, to be there, to hear the words, to realise that the thing so many of us had wanted for so long was finally happening. Near me, an old Aboriginal woman sat on a chair under the shelter of the ABC tent and cried. My heart broke for her, and for everyone who suffered.

Throughout the motion, and Kevin's speech, the crowd around me was silent and still - except for the times they clapped, or cheered, or cried. There was one laugh - when Kevin announced his bipartisan committee, to be lead by himself and the opposition leader, and the camera cut to Brendan Nelson and he looked less than happy. But overall, Kevin's speech hit the mark and he got resounding applause when he was finished. What I liked best was the recognition that one solution doesn't fit all (finally) and the promise to have every four-year-old in preschool education.

Then Nelson started his speech. There was one guy in the crowd heckling, and a few laughed - it was a very different atmosphere to Kevin's, but I don't think initially the crowd in general was anti-him. That soon changed. As the speech wore on and on, it became clear he just didn't get it. He talked about how the indigenous people had suffered as both indigenous and non-indigenous sought to prevail over the land - no Brendan, the Aboriginal people never sought to prevail over the land, to hold it, to conquer it, that's not their relationship with the land at all. Then he said some people who were involved in the government policy had been hurt by the constant assertion that what they did was wrong. That may be true - we often do things that we think are right at the time, only to find out with hindsight that we were wrong, and it does hurt, but the thing is you accept it was wrong and if needed, make reparations. But that was beside the point really, because this wasn't about them - it was about the pain and hurt suffered for decades by the indigenous people of Australia.

People started to turn their backs at this point. For me, the point I joined the call and turned my back was when he tried to make it sound like a sacrifice these people had made for the good of the country, and compared it to the sacrifice of the Anzacs. I'm very proud of my own Anzac history, but there's a difference between men who choose to leave their country to fight for it's survival and children forcibly taken from their families and in many cases turned into slave labour. And when he tried to defend the Northern Territory Intervention, that was the last straw for many. "Yeah, and my grandmother was raped by you colonialists," one woman cried when Nelson spoke of child rape in the communities. 

But at the end of the day it was done, without a single abstention of voting that we could see anyway - all the politicians stood in support of the motion. The apology was made and a new chapter in Australia's history is begun. The question now is, will action result? There is to be a bipartisan committee (Nelson did agree to be part of it), I suppose the proof will be in the pudding. Kevin must be aware that he needs to act - the apology will coast him along for a while, but if there isn't discernable action by the next election, people will wonder.

I'm left wondering what John Winston Howard thought of all this. The optimist in me hopes that now he's not under the pressure to live to it, he himself supports the apology. But I wonder...