Morning taken up with the work function; afterwards I made my way the short distance to Nan’s place for her birthday lunch. She is looking wonderful but I think we wore her out. Matter of fact I feel quite worn out too!
Jo and I gave Nan a joint gift, chosen out by Mum actually so we didn’t really have to do much – all I had to do was wrap it! Nice pink dressing gown and matching slippers.
The Hospice ran a special team building day this morning, a joint effort of staff and management to consider various organisational issues. We looked at five areas – Human Resource Management, Volunteers, Finances, Self-Care and Workplace Behaviour. I sat on the Volunteers table and narrowly avoided having to make the group presentation at the end – not sure why it was delegated to me, but convinced one of the managers to do it.
Was good but a little overwhelming – covered a lot of ground in a short space of time. Some very good points raised – among them a “gap review” of various roles in the organisation with a view to modifying or creating new roles. The organisation has undergone a lot of changes and this review would be well overdue. This one came up on the HRM table.
On the Volunteer table we looked at three main issues – recruitment, retention and increasing the volunteer co-ordinator position from a part-time to full-time role. Fairly predictable but a couple of good new ideas came up in our discussions.
The table I should have been on I suppose, was finance. I felt Gayle would have liked me to be there, oh well! They were looking at lobbying for government funding, seeking sponsorship for other areas of the organisation and looking at increasing our private health funding somehow (getting registered as an acute health service provider – gets the higher rates).
The other two tables were also quite interesting – Self-Care, all about dealing with the stress of the job, putting mechanisms in place to deal with that. Workplace behaviour covered confidentiality and ambassadorship.
Was a lot to cover in four hours – apparently all our suggestions will be taken up at a special executive meeting to be hashed out. Hopefully we’ll see some good changes happening.
Former PM Paul Keating told an ABC reporter “This is a day of open hearts”.
A friend on Facebook wrote – “Johnny Howard was a coward – GO RUDD!”
The historic apology read out at parliament today by PM Kevin Rudd was well supported and generally well received. The consensus seems to be that it marks a genuine new starting point from which aboriginal reconciliation can at last move forward.
Read more on smh.com.au.
“Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations – this blemished chapter in our national history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.
We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.
For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.
A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.
A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.
A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.
A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.
A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.”
– The “Sorry” speech by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
The other day I let the doctor loose on my back with a scalpel, he cut out a mole and sewed me up with four stitches. Gosh it stings! Back in a couple of weeks to get stitches removed.
I am also back to working for Melissa on Fridays again – the new employee quit after three days. Melissa said she would look for someone else to take over from me but in the meantime I’m still helping her out..
My car had a 12-month service earlier in the week. What a difference it has made to the performance! Just wish I could get rid of the musty smell inside, it has been some years now but I miss that “new car” smell it used to have.
Next month we may finally see an overdue gesture by the Australian government to acknowledge mistakes of the past and the injury caused to the people who were here before British settlement. PM Kevin Rudd has ruled out compensation payments, but unlike his predecessor, is embracing aboriginal reconciliation and the word is he intends to say “sorry” next month at the opening of parliament. An important symbolic step hopefully, towards jointly moving on and looking towards a better, brighter future.
A history of the Stolen Generations (from news.com.au)
1869 Removals begin: The policy of taking Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and placing them in orphanages and internment camps starts in the then colony of Victoria. The removals are based on an opinion that the “full-blood” tribal Aboriginal population is unable to sustain itself and is doomed to inevitable extinction.
1967 Referendum: The referendum allowing Aborigines to be counted as Australians instead of being processed under the Flora and Fauna Act passes with a 90 per cent majority. It gives the Federal Government the power to make laws for the indigenous population and is the largest affirmative vote in the history of Australia’s referenda.
1969 Removals stop: The government policy of removing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island children from the families officially ends.
1988 Native Title: A High Court case – Mabo v. Queensland No. 1 – finds that the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act, which attempted to retrospectively abolish native title rights, is not valid according to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. Two years later, national indigenous organisations begin pushing for an inquiry into the Stolen Generations.
June 1992 Mabo: In a landmark case brought by the Meriam people (of the Murray Islands in the Torres Strait) in Mabo v. Queensland No. 2, the High Court of Australia finds that the declaration of terra nullius – or “land belonging to no-one” – assumed from British colonisation in 1788, is irrelevant. Instead the court recognises a form of native title.
Dec 1992 Redfern address: Prime Minister Paul Keating delivers a landmark address at the Australian launch of the International Year for the World’s Indigenous People in Sydney’s Redfern. He acknowledges the injustices perpetrated by non-Aboriginal Australians and places reconciliation on the national agenda.
1995 – 1997 Human rights: The Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission heads an inquiry into the removal of indigenous children from their families. The final report, Bringing Them Home is released in Federal Parliament two years later in 1997. It estimates that between 1910 and 1970, at least one in every 10 indigenous children has been forcibly removed from their families and placed in church missions, institutions, adopted or fostered. It also recommends that Australian parliaments offer official apologies and funding be made available to agencies to allow indigenous people forcibly removed to record their history.
1998 Sorry Day: A year after the release of the Bringing Them Home report, the first National Sorry Day events are held across Australia.
1999 “Deep Regret”: Prime Minister John Howard formally recognises past injustices to Aborigines by moving a motion of deep and sincere regret in Federal Parliament. He refuses to use the word “sorry”. The following year, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva criticises the Howard government for its manner in attempting to resolve the Stolen Generations issue. Australia is also the target of a formal censure by the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
2008 Apology: The newly elected Government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announces on December 11, 2007, that an official apology will be made to indigenous Australians in the first sitting of Parliament on February 13, 2008.
My brother’s 35th birthday today. Also the day our friend Paul’s mother died, she has been staying at the Hospice where I work. Also the day Heath Ledger died, in his New York apartment.