Tears flow in Redfern

Tears flow in Redfern : "EMOTIONS flowed in Sydney's Redfern today as 1,000 people from all over the city crowded into 'The Block' to listen to Kevin Rudd's apology."

It was very moving to see how much that speech meant to our indigenous people. We saw the tears quietly flow and there were quite a few of us who joined in. It was a brilliant speech which did everything it possible could to reconcile us. Kevin Rudd was a statesman who was trying to heal this great divide and he did it so well because the whole speech was so well constructed, so honest, so straight forward and so very moving. It was what we wanted as white people and it was what we needed as a nation and for the second day in a row I was really proud to be an Australian. It has been a long time coming and as the speech quite rightly pointed out there is nothing we can actually say to heal the pain. We can only try to say sorry and openly acknowledge the hurt and wrong. The indigenous people we saw gave us hope we had said the right things and we had a way of walking next to them to try and make things better in the future. What was said needed to be said in a formal way but Kevin Rudd's speech wasn't cold and formal. It honoured the occasion by being as well thought out as it possibly could be and it was open . What we do now is up to all of us and we can have faith the government will guide us in that. We need direction. We need inspiration and we need practical ways of repairing the damage and bringing us all together. It is so important that the aboriginal children have an education because it means then that in this country they can make a choice and they can access our system properly. They need to be bilingual or multilingual so they can be a part of us and we need to make a better effort to learn more about aboriginal languages and culture because what we have done so far has increased our difference and not created the common ground. We need to make an effort with the language stuff. A fantastic day. A good feeling and may we not go back to our old ways. If Brendan Nelson didn't get it quite right it was because he was put in an invidious position by his party some of whom will not acknowledge the indigenous people of this land have suffered too much as a result of white settlement and it is written in black and what all over our land. It is sad they cannot see that saying sorry is how you react to anyone who has been treated badly. I am sorry for Brendan Nelson because his party made it really hard for him to do anything decent this morning and his party did not allow him to speak from his heart. In the end he will look at what he did and said and he will make his own judgements about what is important. He is no fool and he will search his own heart and do his own thinking. It's actually what tribal cultures are about.