On 13 February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology on behalf of the Australian Parliament to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and in particular to the Stolen Generations.

The delivery of a national apology was instigated by recommendations in the Bringing Them Home report, produced by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in 1997.

The apology was the first item of business when parliament opened in 2008, following the election of the Australian Labor Party under Kevin Rudd the previous November.

Presented as a motion to be voted on by the House, Rudd followed the apology with a 20-minute speech about the need for action.

Leader of the Opposition Brendan Nelson also delivered a 20-minute speech. After the ceremony, the House of Representatives unanimously adopted the proposed apology motion.

The apology was witnessed by the thousands of people gathered in Canberra for the event and was broadcast via radio and television across the country.

Cover image: Kevin Rudd official portrait, c2007. Courtesy Department of Parliamentary Services

‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ is a pop song written, recorded, produced and performed by Belgian-Australian singer-songwriter Gotye – the stage name of Wouter 'Wally' De Backer and featuring New Zealand singer Kimbra.

The song was the second single from Gotye's third studio album, Making Mirrors, released by Eleven Music on 5 July 2011.

‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ was written and recorded by Gotye at his parents' house on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula and draws on his relationship experiences.

The song was a huge commercial hit, topping the charts in Australia, as well as the USA, UK and 23 other national charts.

It topped the year-end US and UK charts as the biggest hit of 2012 and also became the most successful song of the 2010s by an Australian artist in Australia.

‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ was voted number one in the triple j Hottest 100 for 2011. The song also won ARIA Awards for Single of the Year and Best Video, Gotye was named Best Male Artist and Producer of the Year and Kimbra was voted best Female Artist of the Year.

In 2013, the song also won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and Record of the Year.

Cover image: Detail from poster promoting Making Mirrors Australian Tour, 2011. NFSA title: 1526622.

‘Wide Open Road’ was the lead single from The Triffids' second studio album, Born Sandy Devotional.

The song explores some of the band’s key themes of distance and physical and emotional dislocation.

Songwriter David McComb said it evoked a particular stretch of the Eyre Highway in Western Australia where the band’s van came to grief with kangaroos on their regular travels across the Nullarbor, from their hometown in Perth to the East Coast.

‘Wide Open Road' reached No. 64 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart. In May 2001 the Australasian Performing Right Association, as part of its 75th anniversary celebrations, named ‘Wide Open Road’ one of the top 30 Australian songs of all time.

Cover image: Publicity still of The Triffids. Photo by Mary Conlon.

The Man from Snowy River soundtrack was composed and conducted by Bruce Rowland (born 1942) and released by Festival Records.

The score utilised a 60-piece orchestra and was recorded at AAV studios in Melbourne. The soundtrack peaked at No. 48 on the Australian Kent Music Chart, and subsequently won best score at the 1982 AFI Awards and 1984 APRA Awards.

The Man from Snowy River was an enormous box-office success, and the highest-grossing Australian film to that date. Rowland composed a version of the ‘Main Title’ theme for the 2000 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, and both the ‘Main Title’ and ‘Jessica's Theme’ were reprised as part of the cast album soundtrack of the 2002 musical The Man from Snowy River: Arena Spectacular.

Following the success of The Man from Snowy River soundtrack, Rowland composed the scores for numerous movies in the 1980s and 1990s, including the sequel The Man from Snowy River II (1988).

Cover image: The Man from Snowy River album, 1982. NFSA title: 355583.

‘Heading in the Right Direction’ was the second single from Renée Geyer’s third studio album Ready to Deal, released by RCA/Mushroom Records in December 1975.

The song was written by guitarist Mark Punch and Garry Paige, both ex-The Johnny Rocco Band who had first recorded the song earlier in 1975.

Geyer’s version became her highest charting single to date, peaking at number 31 on the Kent Music Report in 1976.

A re-recorded version of the song also appeared on her fourth studio album Moving Along in May 1977 and on Geyer’s greatest hits album Renée Geyer at Her Very Best in November 1977, with this version issued as her first US and UK single.

The song was later covered by Marilyn Ali, John Farnham, and Lucy Durack.

Renée Geyer was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2005.

Cover image: Renée Geyer performing on The Naked Vicar Show, 1977. NFSA title: 1469106.

Patricia (Little Pattie) Thelma Thompson (née Amphlett) OAM (born 1949), is an Australian singer whose debut single with The Statesmen, ‘He's My Blonde-Headed, Stompie Wompie, Real Gone Surfer Boy’, reached No. 2 on the Sydney charts and No. 19 on the national Kent Music Report.

The surf pop song was released as a double-A side with ‘Stompin' at Maroubra’, both co-written by Jay Justin and Joe Halford. The songs were part of the short-lived dance craze known as 'The Stomp'.

The single was released by EMI on the HMV label when Little Pattie was 14 years old, having already appeared on the Opportunity Knocks TV series and been a regular performer at the Bronte Surf Club as the lead singer of The Statesmen.

Little Pattie continued to have chart success throughout the 1960s. She regularly appeared on TV variety programs, toured supporting Col Joye and the Joy Boys and entertained troops during the Vietnam War.

In the 1970s she expanded her repertoire, releasing country music with Festival Records and performing swing and jazz songs. In addition to her recording and performance career, she has been a vocal coach and active unionist in the entertainment industry.

Cover image: Little Pattie album cover. NFSA title: 581495.

Gaywaves was Sydney’s first gay and lesbian radio program.

It was considered groundbreaking when it went to air on 2SER FM in November 1979, at a time when homosexual acts between consenting adults were still illegal in New South Wales.

This clip is from the first live broadcast of Gaywaves on 3 January 1980. It features a preface to a discussion with gay rights activists Dennis Altman and Marg McMann about gay identity at the start of the 1980s.

Initially broadcast as a half-hour pre-recorded program on Wednesday evenings, Gaywaves shifted to Thursdays in early 1980 and was soon extended to a three-hour live weekly broadcast.

The program covered everything from HIV/AIDS rallies, Mardi Gras festivals and drama serials to the Australian Transsexual Association program, with a mix of music, talkback, news and event and group listing.

At a time when mainstream media rarely covered LGBT issues positively, and when LGBT print media was mostly published monthly, programs like Gaywaves were a vital news source for the Sydney LGBT community.

Unusually for community radio, significant holdings of Gaywaves are held by the NFSA, State Library of NSW and the Australian Queer Archives.

This ABC recording features the Victory in Europe (VE Day) Federal Parliamentary announcement of the end of Second World War hostilities in Europe.

This was the first Parliamentary sitting broadcast in Australia.

The recording features a description of the scene in Parliament House, Canberra. As members are called to the chamber, Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Solomon (Sol) Rosevear, announces both politician speakers – the acting Prime Minister Ben Chifley and Leader of the Opposition, Robert Menzies.

Speaking with emotion, Chifley declares that 'It is with great pleasure that I announce to the House the complete defeat of Germany'.

After noting the absence of Prime Minister John Curtin because of illness, he details the terms of surrender and asks everyone to 'pause and remember those whose lives have been given, or whose bodies and minds have been broken, that we might live. Let us remember too the men and women and children whose lives and homes were plunged into the horrors of war.'

Regular Parliamentary sittings weren’t broadcast until 10 July 1946.

Cover image: Portrait of Prime Minister Ben Chifley speaking into a microphone, 1945–1949; nla.obj-143402071-1; courtesy National Library of Australia.

The Man from Snowy River soundtrack was composed and conducted by Bruce Rowland (born 1942) and released by Festival Records.

The score utilised a 60-piece orchestra and was recorded at AAV studios in Melbourne. The soundtrack peaked at No. 48 on the Australian Kent Music Chart, and subsequently won best score at the 1982 AFI Awards and 1984 APRA Awards.

The Man from Snowy River was an enormous box-office success, and the highest-grossing Australian film to that date. Rowland composed a version of the ‘Main Title’ theme for the 2000 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, and both the ‘Main Title’ and ‘Jessica's Theme’ were reprised as part of the cast album soundtrack of the 2002 musical The Man from Snowy River: Arena Spectacular.

Following the success of The Man from Snowy River soundtrack, Rowland composed the scores for numerous movies in the 1980s and 1990s, including the sequel The Man from Snowy River II (1988).

Cover image: The Man from Snowy River album, 1982. NFSA title: 355583.

‘Where the Dog Sits on the Tuckerbox’ is a popular foxtrot for voice and piano with words by 'Alf', and music composed by Jack O’Hagan. It was first recorded and released by Jim Davidson’s Dandies with vocalist Dick Cranbourne on the Regal Zonophone label.

The subject of the song is an Australian historical monument and tourist attraction, located at Snake Gully near the NSW town of Gundagai. The recording features Jim Davidson’s Dandies, one of the most popular dance bands of the 1930s, and the comic voice of Dick Cranbourne (1905–1971), musician, vocalist and later radio broadcaster.

James (Jim) Hutchinson Davidson (1902–1982) was a drummer who began leading his own orchestra in the 1930s. In 1936 Davidson signed a contract with the Australian Broadcasting Commission, expanding his orchestra to form Jim Davidson’s ABC Dance Band, broadcasting over the national network to all states on Friday and Saturday evenings and touring Australia.

O'Hagan wrote several songs about the town of Gundagai, including 'Along the Road to Gundagai' (1922) and 'When a Boy from Alabama Meets a Girl from Gundagai' (1942).

Cover image: Jack O’Hagan with his wife, standing next to the statue of the Dog on the Tuckerbox at Gundagai, 1956. NFSA title: 791768.

‘The Absent Minded Beggar’ is a patriotic poem written by Rudyard Kipling in 1899 in order to raise money for soldiers fighting in the Second Boer War.

Sir Arthur Sullivan set the poem to music. The Absent Minded Beggar Relief Fund, or Transvaal Patriotic Fund, managed to raise about £250,000 for soldiers and their families – including by selling the poem and sheet music, and through royalties from performances of the song.

John J Virgo, evangelist and secretary of the YMCA in Adelaide, performed ’The Absent Minded Beggar’ on at least 3 occasions: at the Adelaide Show on 29 February 1900 and at Grand Military and Patriotic concerts on 27 January 1900 and 4 February 1900.

This recording was made at the music store Reeves and Co. in Adelaide. We presume that JJ Virgo recorded the song onto cylinder so it could be sold to make money for the fund and it is possible that he made multiple copies on cylinder to sell.

This cylinder was part of a collection of wax cylinder recordings made, or collected by, Thomas James Mitchell, the majority of which are stored at the State Library of South Australia.

Thomas James Mitchell was born in London 1821 and arrived in Adelaide in 1839. He worked at the Bank of Australia for 47 years until 1886, including as a branch manager for nearly 20 years. He was a loyal member of the Methodist Church, working as a superintendent of various Sunday schools and as trustee of many church properties.

Cover image: The Absent-Minded Beggar (Melbourne: Allan & Co., c1899); nla.cat-vn4767601; courtesy National Library of Australia.

Gaywaves was Sydney’s first gay and lesbian radio program.

It was considered groundbreaking when it went to air on 2SER FM in November 1979, at a time when homosexual acts between consenting adults were still illegal in New South Wales.

This clip features an interview with members of the then newly-formed Gay Liberation Quire on 28 May 1981 and extracts from their song, 'Hark the Herald Fairies Shout'. The clip was re-broadcast as part of a Stonewall Day radio special on 3CR on 28 June 1988.

Initially broadcast as a half-hour pre-recorded program on Wednesday evenings, Gaywaves shifted to Thursdays in early 1980 and was soon extended to a three-hour live weekly broadcast.

The program covered everything from HIV/AIDS rallies, Mardi Gras festivals and drama serials to the Australian Transsexual Association program, with a mix of music, talkback, news and event and group listing.

At a time when mainstream media rarely covered LGBT issues positively, and when LGBT print media was mostly published monthly, programs like Gaywaves were a vital news source for the Sydney LGBT community.

Unusually for community radio, significant holdings of Gaywaves are held by the NFSA, State Library of NSW and the Australian Queer Archives.

Cover image: Neil Fitzgerald and Phil Stevenson at the launch of Hormones or Jeans, the Gay Liberation Quire EP, 1983. Photograph by Paul van Reyk from the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives.