Katanning elder calls on community to get involved in reconciliation

Katanning Noongar elder Gabrielle Hansen says Sorry Day is an important acknowledgement of the brutal policies of past governments and an integral step towards healing and reconciliation.

Speaking at a Sorry Day event last Thursday in Katanning, Ms Hansen gave an emotive speech in which she called on everyone to contribute to the process of reconciliation

“I’m proud to be a Noongar woman and I’m sure my Noongar family all around me are proud to be Noongar too,” she said.

“And we know that if you help us, put your hand in our hand, we could make a lot of difference.

“Are you willing to stand up and to be counted? You might be one, you might be two but are you willing to stand in the gap and make the difference.”

Sorry Day is far more than just symbolism or tokenism for Ms Hansen, who said it was recognition of the pain the Noongar people carried as a nation.

“We are a nation of people who, through policy, have suffered at the hands of the Government,” she said.

“We can only take small step at a time and there’s a lot of hurt and we need to remember that for 200 years we lived under oppression and, in a lot of cases, we still do.”

Ms Hansen and fellow elder Graham Eades both spoke of their memories of living under the 1905 Aborigines Act which had an impact on almost every aspect of Aboriginal life in WA until 1963 when it was replaced with the Native Welfare Act.

Mr Eades recalled how his father, a returned World War II soldier with an exemption that afforded him the privileges of white Australians, was sent to prison for six months for buying his brother two bottles of beer.

Ms Hansen said during her childhood every Aboriginal child belonged to the Government, and mothers and children living on reserves in Gnowangerup and Tambellup would run and hide in the bush for hours at a time when they heard government welfare agents were about to visit.

“When we were locked into these reserves the women were still able to continue their role nurturing the children,” she said.

“But our men lost their role, they were hunters and gathers who went and caught the big game and all of a sudden they were locked in a reserve and they lost their role in life.

“People might say that happened a long time ago, and it did happen a long time ago, but not that long ago.”

Ms Hansen finished by thanking all Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people who attended Sorry Day and said their support meant everything to her as a Noongar.

“A lot of positive steps are being taken here in Katanning; small, slow steps because you can’t change anything overnight,” she said.