Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

to move:

That the House:

(1)

notes that:

(a)

26 May marks the tenth anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report, which documented the systematic removal of up to 100,000 indigenous children from their families between 1910 and the 1970s, and its serous, and ongoing impact;

(b)

the Howard Government’s decision to not apologise for this systematic removal has compounded the distress of survivors and held us all back from achieving genuine reconciliation;

(c)

research subsequent to the report has shown that indigenous children who were removed:

(i)

were more likely to have been victims of family violence (38 per cent compared to the figure of 23 per cent for the broader indigenous population);

(ii)

were 2.3 times more likely to experience clinical depression and behavioural difficulties;

(iii)

had double the rate of both alcohol and other drug use than other indigenous children; and

(iv)

were more likely to end up in jail; and

(d)

a recent Urbis Keys Young report commissioned by the Government described the Government’s response to date as “poorly coordinated and insufficiently targeted” and also revealed that some Bringing Them Home and Link-Up counsellors are struggling to cope with up to more than 80 clients each, compared with the average caseload of 25 for a mental health worker in mainstream services; and

(2)

calls on the Government to:

(a)

apologise for past policies and practices that resulted in the systematic and forced removal of indigenous children from their families; and

(b)

immediately implement measures to address the continuing adverse social, physical and mental health outcomes impacting on the Stolen Generation and subsequent generations.

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