Prefaced by yesterday, National Sorry Day, today marks the anniversary of that landmark 1967 referendum passed with a majority to make laws for and count Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as Australians. 

The anniversary is also the first day of Reconciliation Week which will end June 3, the anniversary of Mabo, and though for some it can be a time of jubilation, for others, this period is a reminder of so much that was lost.

For some, lost was their family, their culture, their stories, and their connection to the land. One of our Elders, Aunt Elizabeth Connors, vividly recalls the day the officals came to Tingha to take her and her siblings away. If not for the brave actions of her brothers, Elizabeth’s future, and the future of her family might have taken a very different turn. 

She, and other elders can share, first-hand, the devastation of families, and death by broken heart of parents who came home to find their children taken, or watched as their sons and daughters were carted away, never to be seen again.

Within the Inverell district, probably every Aboriginal household can share a story how they, or a mother, a father, auntie or uncle, nana or pop, was torn from their parents and sent to assimilate into a  world, of which they knew nothing.

In the process, the culture and sharing of stories and language they were wrenched from was eroded, leaving behind a legacy of too many people trying to realise where they are from and coming to grips with the depth of history denied by that removal.

For some, it has taken decades or even a lifetime to find family and reconnect with community. It is a pattern within our society of which we cannot turn our backs. 

Inverell celebrates NAIDOC Week with a growing community of participants every year. However, it may only be behind closed doors, or behind closed eyes local people consider Reconciliation Week and Sorry Day.

As a district, we should not relegate those thoughts only to our Aboriginal neighbours, schoolmates, colleagues, partners and friends, but share in the knowledge that the week’s very name is a chance to make some distance toward understanding.

And it takes every one of us.