When Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, stood up in Parliament three months ago to face up to the shameful past policies towards Indigenous Australians and to offer a formal apology, John Bond knew more than most about the decade-long journey of campaigning it had taken to get there. Bond was a guest-speaker at the London centre of Initiatives of Change on 13 May.

Seldom can the uttering of one word have caused such joy across a nation.

Seldom can the uttering of one word have caused such joy across a nation.

Healing? For me that's impossible, Val Linow told John Bond.

The day before Christine Jacobs, one of the ‘stolen generations’ of Aboriginal Australians, was due to speak at the launch of Australia’s National Day of Healing, she was knocked down by a car and killed. Her 14-year-old daughter, Tamara, read her speech at the event in the Great Hall of Parliament on 25 May.

John Bond describes the struggle that lies behind a new memorial in Canberra to Australia’s indigenous ‘stolen’ generations.

One institution which has remained unchanged over the last half century is the cake-shops of Acland Street, with their delectable displays.