Rural communities, including farmers, must use this week's apology to the stolen generation as a catalyst for change and an opportunity to work with Aboriginal people to generate economic growth once again in country towns and, in turn, break the Indigenous poverty cycle.
An apology to the stolen generation is simply a symbolic gesture, but should be used to build the bridge between a past of poverty, poor health, crime and a woeful welfare system, and the start of practical partnerships across the bush to skill and educate young Aboriginals in order to break free from a life of abuse, violence, alcohol and unemployment plaguing towns throughout country Australia.
The past 30 years or more has shown us that Government programs are just not working, and over-administration is creaming huge chunks off the billions of dollars being poured into Indigenous issues.
It's time farm communities used this week's "sorry" as a chance to turn around the economic fortunes of their own districts and genuinely engage Indigenous people.
Rural apprenticeships for Aboriginal teenagers will help get school students into a decent job with decent pay, and is an instant local workforce.
It's estimated there is a current shortage of 50,000 farm workers in Australia, yet at the same time Aboriginal employment is running at double digits in every country town.
According to former Labor party president and Aboriginal leader, Warren Mundine, who is also originally from Dubbo, farmers and rural communities know too well the social issues experienced by Aboriginals, but believes they provide the answers to breaking that cycle.
He said the issue of "sorry" had been dividing Australians for the past 10 to 12 years and had stopped us from "getting into the real nitty gritty and fixing the stuff that's got to get done".
"We've got to get real economic stimulus back into rural communities," Mr Mundine said.
"Sorry is an issue which needed to be dealt with. So we're dealing with it, it's very simple, now let's put it away and do the real work and get these towns moving."
He says to get economic stimulus in country communities we've got to get Aboriginal people into real jobs.
"But to do that we've got to deal with the law and order issues and make these communities safe and we've got to deal with the poverty issues, it's a real cycle," he said.
"There's got to be a focus on economic development, but a real one, not driven by community groups or government like we've had for the past 30 years and has failed.
"We've got to have an Indigenous private sector working in with the wider Australian private sector."
Mr Mundine said he's been to too many towns in Western NSW which would not look out of place on the West Bank of Palestine – citing examples of handing money through steel bars to pay for a hamburger.
He said unless Aboriginal people started getting a pay cheque for real work, those western communities would continue going backwards.
"There's a lot of good will in the farming community and among all Australians to move forward, and I think both communities can benefit from working together on this."
Practical reconciliation is something Moree farmer, Dick Estens, has been putting into practice for years.
An advocate of skilling rural Aboriginals so they can work in local banks and rural businesses, Mr Estens has been able to help break some of that poverty cycle in both his home town, and bigger centres like Tamworth and now also in Sydney.
But despite his success in establishing the Aboriginal Employment Strategy, Mr Estens is immensely frustrated by the Federal bureaucracy in Australia which he said has largely blocked many good practical solutions to the social and welfare crisis.
He says more than $3.7 billion is currently being poured into managing Aboriginal issues in Australia, yet at least 75 per cent of it is tied up in administration, and not going to practical measures.
As the lights outside Parliament House illustrated this week, sorry is just the start, but let's hope it’s a practical one.
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