When the world changed, people were different. Towns closed, cities were boarded up, communities abandoned, their governments collapsed. They seemed to have no qualms that were obvious to you or me about walking away from what they called a useless pile of rubbish, and never looking back.

It's a really important thing for Aboriginal people to remember how stories are told and the power of stories, and make it an important feature in our world again.

I've never seen myself as a spokesperson. I've always seen myself as a worker and am very grateful for the trust that my own people have given me over the years.

That attitude that I wouldn't succeed didn't come from my family; it came from school and then the township we lived in. I wasn't going to settle for that, and my mother warned us not to settle for less, to make the most of our lives.