The Moree community, both young and old, came together on Friday to reflect on the past and look to a better future during Pius X Aboriginal Corporation’s annual Sorry Day event.
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“We’ve come a long way,” one of the guest speakers Liz Taylor said.
“I know I started school in 1961 and didn’t become a citizen in the land of my ancestors until 1967.
“We were lucky, us kids from the row, we weren’t forced to go to the mission school, we were able to go to Moree East and we became part of the Moree East family with non-Aboriginal people who we are still friends with today.
“I see Moree’s come a long way; we do have a reconciliation committee with council and we do have a reconciliation group that organises all the activities for this week.
“It’s an opportunity to learn, to remember and to understand because we do have a lot of issues still today impacting on Aboriginal lives.”
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National Sorry Day, held annually on May 26, is an opportunity to remember and commemorate the mistreatment of Australia’s Aboriginal people, acknowledging and recognising the stolen generations.
Many Aboriginal people in Moree know of someone who was taken from their family – Ms Taylor’s family is one of many others that has been, and is still affected, by the forced removal of children.
“I’ve got a couple of cousins that were taken in Moree,” she said.
“Two generations of that family were taken but the impact is transgenerational. Four generations were impacted; it’s still affecting them now.
“It’s just devastating. It was part of an evil policy that was designed to disect Aboriginal people from country, to break up our families and destroy our culture.”
Ms Taylor shared with The Moree Champion how she was reconnected with her cousin who was taken when she was a baby.
“I worked in Sydney and was visiting TAFE in Redfern and this young woman asked who I was,” she said.
“As soon as I said my name, she said ‘I’m you cousin’.
“I didn’t know her. I was a baby when she was taken.
“Thank God she was able to reconnect with our family. We invited her back to our first Apology Day ceremony. But some people never come back.
“When we buried my cousin’s brother 10 or so years ago, I discovered her mother and her two sisters were taken and that just totally broke my heart. I’d see them as older women and I didn’t understand what had affected their lives. They were stolen and taken to very cruel homes and insitutions where they were abused. They were like prisoners, treated very cruelly and told their parents didn’t want them.”
Ms Taylor said while we’ve come a long way, there are still many injustices that Aboriginal people face today, such as shorter life expectancy, high suicide rates, higher rates of incarceration and out of home care.
She believes the way forward is greater education of Aboriginal people and more leadership opportunities. Locally, Ms Taylor would love to see an Aboriginal representative on Moree Plains Shire Council.
“Hopefully in the future, there’ll be more opportunities for young people, especially in decision-making,” she said.
Other guest speakers at Friday’s Sorry Day morning tea, including Cathy Budda-Deen, councillor Kerry Cassells and Denise Webb, echoed Ms Taylor’s sentiments about children being the way forward to creating a more equal society.
Following the official ceremony, attendees enjoyed a morning tea before making clay handprints.
