Sorry Day - One Year on

Last month marked the first anniversary of Kevin Rudd’s historic national apology to the Stolen Generations. One year on, has “Sorry Day” changed anything?

February 13, 2008 will forever be a momentous occasion in my life.

I was in Canberra when our Prime Minister fulfilled his promise to apologise to the members of the Stolen Generation. It was a significant personal moment for my brothers and I, because our mother and grandmother were both taken and placed in the dormitories of Palm Island. That’s two generations of my family.

All that they experienced and suffered in those dormitories brought back painful and tearful memories for both of them, and left no doubt in my mind of the effect of the operation of the so-called Aborigines Protection Act. 

My mother was two-years-old and my uncle was six-months-old when stolen from my grandmother, who was sent out to work on the cattle stations of North West Queensland.  All of that was acknowledged and validated by the Apology. It brought home to Australians that this did in fact happen in Australia and it happened to people they knew.

One year later, at an AEU breakfast commemorating the first anniversary of the Apology, I still felt the excitement of that day and feel the change that is coming. One thing our elders teach us is to be patient. I wasn’t expecting grandiose and immediate changes but the will is there now that wasn’t before.

This is why I firmly believe that now is the time for all Australians to know about the full history of our great country. This means the good and the bad of the histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and contact with Europeans.  I firmly believe the current and new generations of Australian students should learn this history.

In particular, I believe that curriculum must include a comprehensive and accurate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspective, on Australian history in particular and across the curriculum, that is a mandated part of the school perspective and curriculum. Let us work to achieve this. Please. If this is the least I can do to say thank you to my elders for enduring and surviving an oppressive regime, and to also thank the broader Australian community for having the courage to say sorry to them, then our work will have not been in vain.

Wayne Costelloe
QTU member and AEU Federal Aboriginal Education Officer