The proud Indigenous woman’s father was a Rat of Tobruk in World War 2, part of a mainly Koori battalion that endured every day of the brutal and bloody 241-day siege in 1941.

“Dad fought for this country to protect its people and their children, yet they took his children away,” Ms Moseley said.

Not long after her father returned from war, Ms Moseley and her five siblings were walking to school one day when they were hauled into a vehicle.

She was shipped off, against her will, to the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls to be trained as a servant and assimilated into white society.

Australia is a compassionate nation and yet, in many corners, there is a wilful ignorance about how widespread and profoundly unjust these actions were.

The Stolen Generation remains an open wound.

And the nation’s inability to reconcile its historical divide between black and white remains a scar on our collective soul. 

Kevin Rudd’s 2008 apology was not a watershed moment. It was merely a circuit breaker. 

True reconciliation will only be realised when both white and black Australia truly believe in it. 

Closing the gap on health, poverty and education would be a colossal leap towards reconciliation, but equality is about so much more than that. 

Equality is about acceptance.

It’s about looking beyond the pigment of a person’s skin and seeing Indigenous Australians as one of us, as an integral part of our national character and our community.

And that’s not being felt by most people in the Riverina. 

Too many of us conflate the debate around reconciliation with peripheral issues like juvenile crime and welfare dependence.

And too many Indigenous leaders remain mired in black politics, rather than acting as true role models and injecting confidence into their community.

Reconciliation is not just a symbol.

It’s an ongoing process, a relationship, a commitment from white Australia to shrug off the cloak of racism and work slowly towards equality. 

It’s about fairness and decency; such important parts of the Australian character. 

And it must be driven by all of us.