I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, and I pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
It is one of my greatest honours as Prime Minister to be here every year.
Of course, we wish that we weren't commemorating the apology, because we wish there wasn't a need for that apology to occur.
But indeed, of course, there was.
I particularly want to welcome the survivors who honour us with your presence here this morning.
You found within yourselves the strength to turn your suffering into a chance of a better Australia.
And make no mistake, when that apology was made, you not only provided a moment of healing for yourselves, you created a better Australia.
There was a sigh that you could actually physically feel in this nation, as people gathered in the chamber, out the front apartment of Parliament House, in school playgrounds right around the nation, screens in workplaces, the nation stopped.
And whilst it was Kevin Rudd who had the courage and the conviction to utter the words that we were told, for so many years before, that would be divisive.
At that moment, the nation said, sorry.
It was an act of leadership, the first action of the incoming Rudd Labor Government, and it remains my proudest moment to be a member of the House of Representatives.
It was only made possible because of the generosity that, quite frankly, overwhelming and in some ways not even understandable or able to comprehend that level generosity given what had been done to generations of First Nations people.
So I say to you, simply in the words that are on this beautiful photograph that is before you, thanks.
Thanks.
That photo says so much in one image of what was a moment for this parliament.
An act of grace. An extraordinary act of generosity.
We come together here in a week of pivotal anniversaries.
Yesterday we marked 60 years since the start of the Freedom Ride, a 15-day bus journey through regional New South Wales that lifted the veil on the discrimination against Indigenous Australians.
Led by Charles Perkins, the Freedom Ride aroused controversy and, in some quarters, deep hostility.
Yet what emerged from the courage of the Freedom Riders and the locals who stood with them was a wake-up call for Australia – and a turning point in our self-awareness as a nation.
We could no longer turn our eyes from the segregation that had been cemented into law and society, and hardened into cruel routine.
The discrimination that blocked the way to every form of the fair go. It stood between Indigenous Australians, better health care, a good education and fair wages.
It trampled on the bond between a mother and her baby. It even stood between children and a swim on a hot day.
Six decades on, that remarkable photo of those local boys in the pool in Moree with Charles Perkins still speaks to us.
It was the beginning of the overturning of an injustice entrenched by law. It was the beginning of the chance of something better.
Today it is 17 years since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered the Apology to the Stolen Generations.
It was a day to tell the survivors: We hear you. And it was a day of catharsis that held the promise of a fresh beginning.
The Apology could not have happened without your courage. Nor would we have had the annual report card that is Closing the Gap.
Yet like the Freedom Ride, it was the target of controversy and hostile opposition. The power of hindsight only serves to render that opposition even more baffling.
Those, like John Howard, who argued it would divide were wrong. Australians were united in a moment of fundamental decency.
When the Apology was formally offered here – in this very institution that had so often let you down – only one question remained: Why didn’t this happen sooner?
I was raised as I think most parents raise their kids. When you do something wrong on the playground you say sorry.
I keep returning to Prime Minister Rudd’s words that day:
Let us turn this page together and write this new chapter in our nation's story together.
And I pay tribute to the leadership of Brendan Nelson on that day as well as the Leader of the Liberal Party, who had the courage to resist others those within his own organisation and say, no, this is going to be a moment of bipartisanship.
And he showed real leadership on that day and it would have been a different event were there some of the contemporaneous opposition and the opportunism that some showed on that day.
It was the first act of the new Government. And my proudest.
It was a day that mattered in the life of our nation.
When you're elected to this place, you can either make a decision to try and enlarge the nation, or you can make a decision to try and make it small.
To look at how can we create a division and an argument, about a flag, about a word.
My view is very simple, when I stood in this room on my first day as Prime Minister, when we had a breakfast for the opening of parliament, I said, we’re not here for all that long particularly when we bear in mind the fact that we share this continent with the oldest living culture on earth.
I've been here a while. Feels like a long time. It is nothing.
When you're sitting on the porch when you leave here, you want to be able to look back say, I tried best to enlarge the nation, and that certainly is my objective, that I have no regrets in enlarging our nation, because we will get there, that’s the thing.
The apology didn't come at the first suggestion. It took a long time. Two steps forward, one step back.
History does move forward. The arch of history bends towards justice as the great Martin Luther King declared all those years ago.
I’d like to quote survivor Ian Hamm, a Yorta Yorta man taken from his mother in 1964 when he was just a few weeks old. He says:
It is perhaps a measure of our maturing as a nation that we are becoming more prepared to own and accept the bits of our national narrative that are unsavoury and uncomfortable as much as we want to celebrate that which makes us proud and confident.
That day was when Australia crossed a threshold. It’s where we stopped the argument about whether there were Stolen Generations.
It marked a critical turning point, and it encompassed something greater too. Indirectly, it was a broader apology to Aboriginal Australia.
The Apology was never intended as the end of the story, rather – as Prime Minister Rudd said – the beginning of a new chapter.
We put behind us the old chapter that took from you the most profound of rights: to grow up safely in your own family.
And together we write a chapter of self-determination.
The new chapter must be an Australia in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have the same choices as non-Indigenous Australians.
An Australia in which the Government works carefully with you towards a future in which Indigenous Australians have the economic security of a job and a home.
What guides my Government every day is the instinct to ensure all Australians get the same chance in life.
To work towards the reality in which all Australians have power over their destiny.
And this all began when you – and all survivors – through patience, persistence and grace at last found your nation was ready to hear your hard truths.
The process of healing that began with the Apology goes on, a process we are assisting by extending the Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme to 30 June 2028.
This means we will be able to continue to accept applications from Stolen Generations survivors for an additional 18 months, bringing it more into line with state redress schemes in place
I want to thank the Healing Foundation and Stolen Generation organisations for supporting more than 60 survivors from across the country to attend this breakfast. To come together to remember, make connections and heal.
I acknowledge the dozens of Stolen Generations organisations, driven by survivors, which provide much needed services and support to their communities.
The Apology was an acknowledgement that the better future that is possible for our country can only be brought within reach when we fully come to terms with our past.
The old saying that my mum used to say to me, you can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been.
Memory has to be a conscious act. It must be cared for, and it must be handed into the care of the next generation.
That is why this anniversary is so important.
It’s why for every year that I am Prime Minister, I will attend this breakfast. Because it is important that this moment in history be turned into practical reform making a real difference.
This is an expression of memory wrapped in our collective gratitude to all of you.
And by learning from the mistakes of the past, we renew our promise of Australia’s better future.