This image was first published on Redbubble on the 13th Febuary 2008

This picture of a lovely laughing child was taken some years ago now while I was driving out from Meekathara in the WA central desert on my way towards the Gun Barrel Highway. At a tiny camp called Wiluna I stopped to look for some art and come across this family sitting in their car in the shade. This child’s sweet face has stayed with me all this time but today, this momentus day, is the first time I’ve felt like I could display it. Little Debbie and her family are impoverished by anyones standard but they clearly have love and strong family bonds. This child represents what we that is we white Australians are saying sorry for.  Sorry that we couldn’t see value in our fellow Australians. The first settlers here in this wide brown land. Sorry that we took little children away from their family and their country and people. Only a relatively short time ago this child and her mother would have fled at my approach fearing my whiteness and the dreadful things we whites perpetrated upon them in the name of the law.

So from the bottom of my heart Debbie I would like to say Sorry. Sorry Sorry indeed I am very sorry. And I hope that now we can all go on together in peace and trust and mutal respect.  For all the little Debbie’s white and black and brown and pink and yellow lets all step forward together hand in hand and welcome whatever it is that comes next……..