I've never been one to bow down to people who try to question my identity because I don't fit their mould of what an Aboriginal Australian is supposed to be or look like.
My mum's from Broome, so I'm a saltwater person - Aboriginal people are either freshwater, saltwater or desert mob. So I always feel much more comfortable in close proximity to the beach, even if I'm not necessarily in the water.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
I had spent some time in the outback, but to meet Aboriginals and work with them was wonderful. It gave me a great appreciation of how tough life is and about the indomitable spirit that the Aboriginal people have always possessed.
It's very easy for Australians living in big cities to either romanticise or demonise the situation in Aboriginal places - to kind of look at things through the 'noble innocents' prism or through the 'chronically dysfunctional' prism, and I suspect that is so often the case.