Kyah Patten (second from left) with her cousin Cecileigh Patten, aunty Olivia Patten, cousin Yilara Widders, grandmother Phyllis Simpson-Patten and cousin Dean Widders at the school's breakfast before the apology broadcast.

A turning point for the nation

By

Kerri Carr

A young voice hopes the lives of Aboriginal people will begin to improve.

There was not one Aboriginal person in the room whose family had not been affected by loss of family connections, traditions, language and land, Alexandria Park Community School year 9 student Kyah Patten told the school community on February 13. The school had just held a community breakfast and watched the broadcast of the apology to Australia's Indigenous peoples by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Kyah is the great grand-daughter of Jack Patten, whose Aboriginal monthly newspaper proclaimed January 26, 1938 as the "Day of Mourning" and listed a 10-point plan that encompassed a call for rights including raising the status of Aborigines to citizens under the Constitution.

"As an Aboriginal person, I know the impact that past injustices towards Aboriginal people have had on our lives," Khyiah said.

"Today's apology for, and acknowledgement of, past injustices may help in the healing process and be a turning point for improvement in outcomes for Aboriginal people in all aspects of our lives," she added.

"It will assist in building bridges between Aboriginal and non Aboriginal Australians so that we can move forward together, with pride, mutual respect and a shared vision for the future."

Kyah was responding to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's apology to the Aboriginal people.

Mr Rudd said (in part): "To the stolen generations?We apologise for the hurt, the pain and suffering that we, the parliament, have caused you by the laws that previous parliaments have enacted. We apologise for the indignity, the degradation and the humiliation these laws embodied. We offer this apology to the mothers, the fathers, the brothers, the sisters, the families and the communities whose lives were ripped apart by the actions of successive governments under successive parliaments."

He warned that "unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong".

Mr Rudd set to halve the widening gap in literacy, numeracy and employment outcomes and opportunities for Indigenous Australians, and halve the gap in infant mortality rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children within a decade. He also wants to see the closing of the 17-year life gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous in overall life expectancy within a generation.

"Let us resolve over the next five years to have every Indigenous four-year-old in a remote Aboriginal community enrolled in and attending a proper early childhood education centre or opportunity and engaged in proper pre-literacy and pre-numeracy programs," Mr Rudd also said.

Mr Rudd also proposed a joint policy commission to develop and implement an effective housing strategy for remote communities over the next five years and then work on the further task of constitutional recognition of the first Australians.

The apology was passed with applause in the House of Representatives and in the school hall.

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