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

I 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 serious, and ongoing impact;

(b)

the Howard Government’s decision not to 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 Bring-ing 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.

When I was growing up, it was almost impossible to find a family that had not been affected, either directly or indirectly, by World War II. Sons, fathers, husbands and brothers had been to war, and many of them did not come back. Many Indigenous children were forcibly removed—or stolen—from their families. Although there are fewer and fewer members of the stolen generations every day, the profound loss continues to be felt by Indigenous families everywhere across Australia. So much of our childhood is about learning to trust, to depend and to belong. If a child is separated from his or her parents, these fragile ties are shattered, and that can have lifelong consequences for that person’s wellbeing.

Page upon page of the Bringing them home report tells of children being taken away and left unloved—children who grew up to be adults who themselves did not know how to love. The Bringing them home report was seminal, because it was our first proper attempt, as a nation, to acknowledge the loss felt by Indigenous people. It recognised that this nation needed more than the cold facts about the forced removal of thousands of Indigenous children and babies. We all needed healing.

Today, I want to reiterate Labor’s commitment to a formal apology, in government, to the stolen generations. It is the just and decent thing to do. An apology is not an empty gesture; it can, I think, be a circuit breaker. If we acknowledge past wrongs and assess honestly and rigorously what needs to be done, we can all move forward—and move forward we must. Just last week Labor announced that, in government, we would make available to members of the stolen generations more than $15 million in funding for Link Up services.

I am very pleased to table today a petition from nearly 40,000 Australians calling on the government to close the 17-year gap in Indigenous life expectancy. This petition, organised by Get Up!, demonstrates the enormous support around Australia for closing the gap. I seek leave to table this petition.

Leave granted.

Labor has committed to closing this life expectancy gap. From now on we want every single baby born to an Indigenous mother to have the same chance in life as every other Australian child. It is so warming to see that there are so many Australians who stand with us to close that gap. Just this weekend Labor announced a $260 million comprehensive child and maternal health program for Indigenous mothers and their babies—for early development, family support and literacy and numeracy programs in the early years of a child’s life—as our down-payment on meeting this target. We think that, if we are to turn this around, the place to start is with the children who are being born today.

I hope that the Prime Minister will join with Labor in committing to closing this gap in life expectancy. In moving forward from the trauma of the stolen generations, I hope we can make our promise to Indigenous children a bipartisan one, because there is no question that support will need to come from both sides of politics if we are to close this gap within a generation.

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