Anger Rises On Day Of Emotion

Illawarra Mercury

Thursday February 14, 2008

By JODIE MINUS

SILENT tears gave way to cries of rebuke from the crowd gathered at Wollongong's Aboriginal Cultural Centre during the live broadcast of sorry speeches yesterday.

While Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's wording was described variously as "beautiful" and "symbolic", Opposition leader Brendan Nelson's address was "inappropriate".

About 100 people from elders to tots gathered at the centre for the 9am formal apology projected on to a wall via a live video stream from the internet, which at times was less than optimal.

Among the crowd was Unanderra's Adelaide Weinberg who was forcefully removed from her Grafton family at the age of five.

"Rudd was magnificent, he covered everything," she said.

"But not that other chap (Dr Nelson), he did not say the word sorry and that means a lot to me."

Ms Weinberg recalled years of abuse at the Aboriginal Girls Training Home in Cootamundra where she was housed until her late teens.

"The bloke down at the stockyard gave the matron a cat o' nine tails to keep the girls in hand," she said, remembering one painful incident.

"When I was about 13 I was getting into the bath and the next minute I got this whack across the back.

"I didn't know then that I had damaged a kidney but I was in pain until I had it out at 19. Oh, I used to suffer the pain but you could never complain because you would be punished."

Many others voiced disapproval of Dr Nelson's speech, which cited recent cases of child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory.

"Today was about sorry, about the past injustices, but Nelson went on about this other stuff," said Richard Davis, son of the late Aboriginal activist Mary Davis.

"Yes, things need to be done about the problems in the NT, but today was the wrong day and it was inappropriate."

© 2008 Illawarra Mercury

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