About 50 people gathered to see Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes join local Indigenous leaders in raising the Aboriginal flag in Civic Park yesterday, the 10th anniversary of Kevin Rudd's apology speech.
Mr Rudd's speech delivered ten years ago by was what many saw to be the beginning of a reparations movement for the community and the anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on how 'closing the gap' has progressed.
Worimi Local Aboriginal Land Council chief executive Andrew Smith said the apology speech was "a great step towards real reconciliation," and the Awabakal Land Council chief executive Rob Russell called it "an enormous feat... by Kevin Rudd to get up in front of all of Australia and all the world to say sorry."
That said, it must also be noted that the speech hadn't "delivered on outcomes it was designed to achieve."
The Closing the Gap Program progress report shows that only three out of seven people in the program are properly on track to reaching the target.
During the meet up in Civic Park, Rob Russell said, "Unfortunately... when you look at the lack of achievement by governments - in making reparations for the harm that's been done, for the outrageous historical trauma that they've caused and continue to cause today - they need to... say 'We could have done much more and we've done basically bugger-all except for talk about it.'"
While talking to 2NURFM, he also described the importance of the people of Newcastle acknowledging the anniversary of the 2008 Stolen Generation Apology Speech and described it as "a very symbolic moment for a lot of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples."
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| Raising of the Aboriginal flag in Civic Park yesterday. Source: The Herald |
