Matilda House was part of a group of people from the Stolen Generations survivors who met with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at a presentation of a painting to Rudd as a gift to say thank you on behalf of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians for Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008.
She is the cousin of
Isabell Coe.
House has said of herself:
I call myself a 'Canberry' woman. That's the name of the people that came and are from here [the Canberra area]. I guess, to me, it means an identity. And I feel that by having my identity being the, you know, the matriarch of my family, it helps to establish, you know, the generations that are going to be coming up. So, it gives them that foothold. You know, that footprint. And footprint's what's country's all about and what your identity's all about.
Source: 'The Future of the Tent Embassy',
Message Stick, Friday 25 November 2005, 6 pm ABC1, transcript. (Sighted http://www.abc.net.au/tv/messagestick/stories/s1518943.htm 9/5/2012)
