Pastor Ossie Cruse gave a moving and thought-provoking speech at Merimbula’s Australia Day celebrations on Tuesday morning.
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“We all bear the perpetual shame of our homeland and it’s called Terra Nullius,” Pastor Cruse said.
He spoke about how the use of this term meant the sovereignty of the Aboriginal people was denied and that this set the tone in Australia for the following centuries.
We all bear the perpetual shame of our homeland and it’s called Terra Nullius
- Pastor Ossie Cruse
“The opportunity to talk was lost forever,” he said.
But in his reflection he also praised the accomplishments of the British settlers saying “I’m not going to bag the man in the crooked hat”.
“I love my country, my country means people, my country means us together.”
Pastor Cruse spoke about Stan Grant’s viral Australia Day speech and requested that everyone sit down and watch the speech and understand the plight of the Indigenous people.
“He spelled a truth out about what he’s read and they’re horrendous things that he’s read about, but I want to put forward this point, I actually lived through them,” Pastor Cruse said.
“For all the truth that Stan said there was one thing that he didn’t say, he didn’t go on talk about how there could be some remedial actions in regard to Terra Nullius.”
Pastor Cruse acknowledged that the majority of people in Australia are just what you see, “loving, kind, wonderful people that make up a nation as beautiful as ours,” but that racism still exists in Australia.
He said one of the most beautiful things he has experienced in relation to trying to heal our nation was when Kevin Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generation.
“But really he should have been moving the apology for the stolen homelands, that’s where the real issue is.
“When I look around you I can’t see too many Kooris here, my people,” he said. “They’re not here and I don’t think they’ll ever be here.
“I don’t want to keep raising up the past, I raise it up to remind everyone that we have a big hurdle to get over but the hurdle can be so simply accomplished.
“All the government has to do is raise the sovereignty of Aboriginal people, to recognised that they were the sovereign people of this land and sit down together and rewrite history.”
He also acknowledged and thanked the work of the local community and the Bega Council. He said their ongoing efforts have largely erased racism in the shire and should set an example for the rest of the country.