2012: Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, the fight is over

"THEY may have had an emotionally gruelling time, but they've made a few dollars out of it," former NT chief minister Paul Everingham said in 1992.

"THEY may have had an emotionally gruelling time, but they've made a few dollars out of it along the way," former NT chief minister Paul Everingham said in 1992.

Everingham's comment, made on radio four years after the convictions of Lindy and Michael Chamberlain were overturned, and shortly before they were to receive a compensation payment from the NT government, was typical of the cold-hearted cynicism they've had to endure.

It was not until June last year that the Northern Territory deputy coroner, Elizabeth Morris, finally put 32 years of innuendo and smear to rest by ruling that a dingo had taken baby Azaria at Uluru on August 17, 1980. With the death certificate amended to reflect the finding, there was only one thing left to do. "Mrs Chamberlain-Creighton," the deputy coroner began, fighting back her emotions, "Mr Chamberlain, Aidan and your extended families, please accept my sincere sympathy on the death of your special and loved daughter and sister, Azaria. I am sorry for your loss. Time does not remove the pain and sadness of the death of a child." It was an apology that should have been made on behalf of the nation, because, let's be honest, many of us who were around at the time, even if we were kids, thought Lindy Chamberlain was guilty of murdering her baby. We were wrong.

She was right, but she has paid an awful price. First, she lost her baby girl, Azaria. Then, in 1982, heavily pregnant, she was jailed for life for murder; her fourth child, Kahlia, was born in custody and taken from her. She was separated from her sons, Aidan and Reagan, and her then husband, Michael.

Then, in 1986, Azaria's bloodstained jacket was found near the base of the Rock, casting doubts on the prosecution case. Lindy was released. A substance in the Chamberlains' car that a forensic scientist had insisted was blood turned out to be a sound baffling component. Their convictions were quashed. A third inquest in 1995 cleared them but left the cause of death "open". The deputy coroner's finding last year was the final chapter. The saga was over.

What does this mean for Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, now 65 and eagerly awaiting the birth of her first grandchild? "Well, at the moment, I am sitting here looking at 15 or 20 boxes of paperwork," she says on the phone from her house in NSW's Hunter Valley, which she shares with her second husband Rick Creighton.

"It's all going to the National Archives. At last I'll be free of paperwork! What it means is that the fight is over. Forever. There can be no more people saying, 'Oh, smart lawyers, she got off on a legal technicality' or whatever."

The burden has also been lifted from her kids, who have had to live with the smear that their mother had murdered their sister. "My son Aidan, particularly, was very angry about people being told the truth and not believing it," she says. "Now that he's not tarred and feathered with that brush anymore, he's had to think about who he really is - he can move on." He's got a death certificate that says "it wasn't his mum who was telling the fibs - it was the Northern Territory Government that got it wrong, willfully wrong."

And while the coroner may have said sorry, there's been no official apology from the Northern Territory Government. There's no plaque at Uluru commemorating Azaria's death.

Several people in the public eye, including comedian Wendy Harmer, have apologised - she'd lampooned Lindy years ago in a sketch. "In pursuit of a laugh, I too carried a burning stick. What was I thinking?" Harmer wrote. "Such was the firestorm of hatred, all rationality was lost."

Chamberlain-Creighton says it happens to her all the time - she gets hundreds of emails to her website and when she speaks, to church and community groups around the country, people often get up and say sorry for the nasty things they'd said about her.

"I say, 'Thank you for your apology - but it doesn't bother me, I have moved on. The responsibility was yours. It is between you and God, not between me and you.'"

ALSO IN 2012:
* Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, philanthropist, dies at 103
* Millennium drought ends
* Robert Hughes, writer and art critic, dies
* Wikileaks' Julian Assange takes refuge in Ecuador's embassy in London
* Sally Pearson wins gold at London Olympics
* Gonski school education review released