Mission
When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered his apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008, Laura Rademaker was part way through studying an Arts degree at the Australian National University (ANU).
At the time she had no clear idea on where her studies might take her.
Eighteen years later Laura, who delivered the first Northey Lecture for 2026 in February, is a distinguished academic and prolific author, with a strong focus on Indigenous history.
None of this would have happened, she says, without Kevin Rudd’s apology to First Nations people.
It proved to be a pivotal moment in shaping what was to follow for her.
Growing up as part of an Anglican family, Laura had what she describes as a “fairly standard conservative Christian upbringing”.
She hadn’t, she says, given Indigenous issues much thought, until Kevin Rudd’s February 13, 2008 apology.
“That was when I realised the Anglican Church, which I had supported all of my life, was complicit in the removal of Indigenous children from their families,” Laura says.
“I wasn’t aware of this growing up, and it wasn’t something that was talked about, although by 2008 I knew that First Peoples were asking for an apology for what had been done to them.
“I probably wasn’t fully aware of its impact at the time, but that apology by the Prime Minister has gone on to shape so much of what I have done since.”
The apology sparked an interest in Indigenous history that saw Laura complete an honours thesis exploring the diaries of female missionaries with responsibility for caring for Indigenous children who had been taken from their families.
“It was a project which explored the motives of these missionaries and how they understood those motives themselves,” she says.
“What was so confronting was that these missionaries weren’t simply ‘horrible people’. They were ordinary white women just like me, but they were involved in enabling such an injustice.”
It meant, Laura says, a further questioning of whether what she had learned was compatible with her Anglican Church faith.