The last of the white blindfolds

Australians cannot rewrite their history altogether. What they can do is reshape their future. There were signs yesterday that they would do it.

The words spoken in Canberra that went around the nation and will be noted around the world were the words of people shamed by parts of Australia's past but not afraid of tomorrow.

A nation tired of cringing from its history looked ready to rip away the last of the white blindfolds, in Kevin Rudd's words, "to remove a great stain from the nation's soul". The last of the dinosaurs were falling over.

Tears moistened some cheeks of the stolen generations gathered in the House of Representatives chamber to accept the apology offered by the Prime Minister. Some Aborigines walked from the Great Hall during the speech by the Leader of the Opposition, Brendan Nelson. Yet joy and relief were much more common emotions.

Joy and sorrow are rarely complete, of course. Lowitja O'Donoghue's joy was tempered by sorrowful thoughts of her mother and sisters. She had been taken from her mother and the family broken for so long. Now she accepted the apology and forgave her oppressors: "We forgive but can't forget." The words are important, for saying "sorry" loses meaning unless the apology is met with forgiveness.

It's not that hard to say the word. It's what we teach our children to say when they behave poorly towards someone.

But when Mr Rudd said it three times in his formal apology, and several more times afterwards, it seemed that a seismic shift had shaken the land, liberating the people. "This is a day of open hearts," said Paul Keating, the former prime minister.

Hearts have been open often enough before, then broken. Black and white leaders know too well the false dawns.

The 1967 referendum enabled the Australian Government to

legislate in regard to Aborigines and include them in the census, removing the notion of worthlessness. In 1975 Gough Whitlam poured soil into the Gurindji leader Vincent Lingiari's hand and Mr Lingiari responded: "We're all mates now."

The day of the Mabo judgment in 1992, acknowledging that people had lived here before white settlement, might have been Australia's day of redemption. Mr Keating's Redfern Park speech the same year, acknowledging the injustices, was another dawn.

So, too, was the 1997 Reconciliation Convention, when John Howard took water from Aboriginal elders to his lips and Patrick Dodson lit a candle to reconciliation. And the Harbour Bridge walks in 2000.

So, while few people were being carried away yesterday, it was impossible not to be moved by what the occasion meant to those most affected and impressed by the determination of the parliamentary leaders to make things happen. When last did a prime minister and opposition leader walk around the House of Representatives chamber together, acknowledging the applause of Australians in the public gallery and most members?

This was an act of repentance, with dignity rather than humiliation, and perhaps fundamental to Australia's wellbeing.

Fred Chaney, of Reconciliation Australia, said that certain stars were in rare alignment - basic agreement about the needs to be addressed, and progress towards the Commonwealth and states working together.

The applause in the House had started early, its volume rising when Gough and Margaret Whitlam entered in wheelchairs. The people stood for Mr Rudd, suitably serious for this day of great moment, until allowing a smile to crease his face.

Warren Snowdon, the junior Defence Minister, poured water for members of the stolen generations. Wilson Tuckey, back in Opposition but familiar with it, spoke the Lord's Prayer louder than anyone else and promptly departed.

Mr Rudd's apology was broader than many had expected. He spoke in particular of the stolen generations, but in general of past mistreatment of members of the oldest continuing cultures in history.

He said the accounts of people taken from their families, published in the Bringing Them Home report, cried out to be heard: "They cry out for an apology." This was not, he said, a black armband view of history; it was "the cold, confronting, uncomfortable truth".

He foreshadowed substance to add to the symbolism: "It is not sentiment that makes history; it is our actions that make history."

He urged that this day of national reconciliation become "one of those rare moments in which we might be able to transform the way in which the nation thinks about itself".

Dr Nelson had nodded agreement several times during Mr Rudd's speech. At the end, people in the public gallery rose, then the Government benches. Opposition members, looking at one another, were slower to stand, Alexander Downer and Peter Costello among the last.

After Dr Nelson's speech, in which he pointed to the good intentions of many of those who took the children away and to the fact that "each generation lives in ignorance of the long-term consequences of its decisions and actions", he and Mr Rudd reached across the table to shake hands. Both men, with the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, went to embrace members of the stolen generations.

At the reception afterwards, Tom Calma, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, said the day was not about guilt but about belonging, not just for the stolen generations but for all Australians. "Let the healing of the nation begin."

Mr Rudd said it was "a fantastic day for all Australians". He thanked all those present, including the former prime ministers Mr Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Mr Keating.

He praised Sir William Deane, the former governor-general, for his "slow ticking conscience" and who quoted the American writer William Faulkner: "The past is not dead and gone; it isn't even past." Mr Rudd also praised the late Sir Ronald Wilson, for his work on the stolen generations inquiry.

The Prime Minister had accepted from the first Australians, as a gift to Parliament, a coolamon, which Aboriginal women use to carry foodstuffs. And their babies.


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