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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-06-19 Daily Xml
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NATIONAL SORRY DAY

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS (15:32): Recently I had the great pleasure of attending a Sorry Day event at the Wiltja campus at Northgate. Also in attendance was our President, Hon. John Gazzola, and Robyn Geraghty MP (member for Torrens). The Wiltja Program offers secondary education and supported accommodation to Anangu students from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands from years 8 to 12.

Wiltja originally came about through the efforts of a group of Anangu women from Ernabella (now Pukatja) who in the 1970s attended an Indigenous peoples conference in Adelaide. They saw the advantages of offering mainstream secondary schooling to Anangu students from remote Aboriginal lands. Initially female students were enrolled at the Ingle Farm High School in 1980. This program transitioned into the current Wiltja Program which was then consolidated into the Woodville High School campus in early 1990.

Wiltja is the Pitjantjatjara word for shelter. The Wiltja Program offers secondary education and supported accommodation to Anangu students. These students are selected from remote community schools in the APY lands from Yalata and Oak Valley. Wiltja students who are enrolled at Woodville High School wear the school uniform and attend both mainstream and Wiltja classes. Simultaneously students board at the Wiltja residence at Northgate where they participate in a comprehensive recreation program. Because of the expansion in the Wiltja Program, Windsor Gardens Vocational College is now also supporting Wiltja students.

Coming back to the Sorry Day event, the students at the Wiltja Residential Program decided to do their part in closing the gap and furthering the spirit of reconciliation. This was the second year that the Wiltja students has organised a Sorry Day event at the Northgate campus. They did this through song, art and culture.

The Wiltja residential premises are flanked by the Lightsview housing estate. The Wiltja Program and Lightsview, the CIC and Urban Renewal SA joint venture, came together as partners to encourage the residents of Northgate to come along as a community to acknowledge Sorry Day and to enjoy a great cross-cultural event.

This year's national Indigenous Sorry Day fell on the eve of Reconciliation Week with its theme, Let's Talk Recognition. This year, we celebrated the 15th anniversary of Sorry Day. The first national Sorry Day was held on 26 May 1998, one year after the tabling in May 1997 of the report, Bringing Them Home. The Bringing Them Home report was the result of an inquiry held by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission into the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, now known as the stolen generation. The history of the stolen generation has shaped all of our lives, particularly the lives of Aboriginal people.

Among many things, the annual Sorry Day event recognises the impact of cultural dislocation amongst Aboriginal communities and families and seeks to redress this past injustice through measures of healing and counselling. Following on from that, there are lessons to be learnt from the past to guide our collective future about how we, as a multicultural society, must instil in each of us a sense of belonging and acknowledge the richness that cultural diversity brings.

Whilst much has been done to recognise the role of Aboriginal people in Australian society, with the likes of the recent amendments to the South Australian constitution, more still needs to be done. We know recognition is about a lot more. Being recognised as a citizen or being recognised in the constitution is important, but we must all recognise, acknowledge and respect each other in our everyday lives to ensure an inclusive and diverse multicultural society. We must move forward to a place where we can say sorry and begin to right the wrongs of the past.

I commend the Wiltja students for putting on the recent Sorry Day event at their campus in Northgate. Well done.

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