Genocide involves the attempt to achieve the disappearance of a group by whatever means. It does not have to be violent, it could be a combination of policies that would lead to a certain group dying out.

I think the climate is too important to say we are going to wait until all our economic woes are over before we act effectively.

Even Australians who take a very, very hard line about asylum seekers - and unfortunately there are more than I would like to think - are probably a bit uncomfortable with the kind of treatment that has been meted out to children in detention by the Australian Government, in their name.

Solutions will not be found while Indigenous people are treated as victims for whom someone else must find solutions.

Last year the National Sorry Day Committee consulted with stolen generations people in every State and Territory, and concluded that programmes set up in response to the Bringing Them Home Report are reaching only a small fraction of those they are intended to help.

Three years ago the Government announced the creation of Reconciliation Place, and said that it would include a memorial to those removed from their families. However, they refused to include any of those who were removed in the design of their own memorial.

Reconciliation requires changes of heart and spirit, as well as social and economic change. It requires symbolic as well as practical action.