Kevin Rudd sees indigenous light on the hill

SORRY ANNIVERSARY: Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is presented with an artwork by artists Muriel Simmons (left) and Rhonda Collard during a ceremony to mark the fourth Anniversary of the National Apology to Indigenous Australians at Parliament House in Canberra, Monday, Feb. 13, 2012. Mr Rudd was presented with seven historically significant documents showing the ongoing process of healing and reconciliation since making a national apology in 2008 for the past mistreatment of all Aborigines. (AAP Image/Penny Bradfield)

THE man who delivered the apology to Australia’s stolen generations wants the nation to become “a new light on the hill” for the rest of the world on reconciliation between indigenous people and settlers.

Four years ago, then prime minister Kevin Rudd apologised to all Aboriginal people and the stolen generations for their “profound grief, suffering and loss”.

Addressing members of the stolen generation at Parliament House on the anniversary on Monday, Mr Rudd received rousing applause.

“Let us not with some triviality pretend that all this was mysterious, transacted in one single act four years ago. It goes on,” he said.

“The journey to healing, deep, emotional and profound is a long one.”

Since the apology, reconciliation had become etched in the soul of Australian politics, Mr Rudd said.

“The fact that all sides of politics, despite some near wobbles and a few shakes on the way have held to the cause is a very good thing,” he said, adding that politicians should suppress the need to whack each other and instead work together on the issue.

“The challenge for all of us in political life, wherever we come from … is to provide the political foundations for this business of reconciliation.”

Nations around the world were grappling with how to reconcile past oppression and exclusion towards their own indigenous populations.

“There’s a possibility we can on this question, if we get it right, become a new light on the hill around the world on how the first peoples of the world reconcile with settlers who came later,” Mr Rudd said, using a term made legendary by Labor prime minister Ben Chifley.

“We have it within our collective intelligence and compassion to do just that.”

Mr Rudd and Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin accepted a wooden message stick with a set of replicated documents dating back to 1938 and extending to the 2008 apology, concealed inside.

Mr Rudd picked up seven-year-old Victor Ebsworth-Hooper who clutched a boomerang, and later praised Australia’s young people for being “colour blind” and accepting of each other’s backgrounds and cultures.

An online museum called Stolen Generations’ Testimonies went live on Monday with about 50 personal video stories.

Film maker Melanie Hogan said the inspiration behind the project was Steven Spielberg’s compilation of testimonies by Holocaust survivors.

Gamilaroi woman Donna Meehan, from Coonamble in northwestern NSW, was among those who shared her story for the website.

Ms Meehan was one of seven children taken from their mother.

She was adopted by a migrant family and found a loving home in Newcastle but her lost identity brought her to the point of suicide.

“I found my family when I was 28 and that was the start of my healing journey,” she said.

“It’s a long way from the dusty track and a tin shack to the marble floors at the big house.”

She gave Mr Rudd a copy of her autobiography.

Jody Broun and Les Malezer, from the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, said despite the goodwill generated by the apology there were still questions to be settled.

“Recommendations around compensation and adequate resourcing are still outstanding,” they said in a statement.