Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom, it is great to see you back in the chamber. Wednesday, 13 February was a momentous day in the history of this nation. It was a day when this federal parliament, on behalf of all Australians, finally acknowledged that the laws and policies of previous parliaments inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on Indigenous Australians, and offered an apology to members of the stolen generations. I must remind the House that the apology to our Indigenous Australians has been Labor philosophy and, indeed, policy for a decade. In fact, former Labor leader Kim Beazley stated the word ‘sorry’ on behalf of the Australian Labor Party a decade ago. I was particularly pleased that Auntie Lyn Warren, who is Chairwoman of the Bendigo and District Aboriginal Cooperative, was able to represent the members of the stolen generations from my electorate of Bendigo. The fact that Auntie Lyn sat on the floor of the chamber in the distinguished company of former Prime Ministers Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating and former Governor-General Sir William Deane was in many ways symbolic of what Wednesday’s events were all about. It was a day to remember and to reflect upon our history, especially the history of relations between original inhabitants of this ancient land and the white newcomers from across the seas.

Fifteen years ago, former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating launched Australia’s celebration of the International Year of the World’s Indigenous People at Sydney’s Redfern Park. He reminded us then that finding solutions to the challenges of Indigenous Australia starts with non-Indigenous Australians. He reminded us that it was we Europeans who did the dispossessing, who took the native lands and who destroyed the traditional ways of life. We also brought the diseases and the alcohol. We excluded and discriminated against Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, and we took the children from their mothers through our ignorance and prejudice—even if some of those removals were well intentioned. It is now apparent that thousands of Indigenous children were forcibly removed from loving and caring families simply because of the colour of their skin. Mr Keating also reminded us that we cannot ignore these past injustices.

How we resolve Indigenous issues affects our standing in the world today. Our Indigenous inheritance is as much a part of who we are today as Australians as other experiences that we regularly like to commemorate. But we cannot be selective about the things in our past that we choose to acknowledge and claim as our heritage. We rightly acknowledge and pay respect to the men and women of Australia’s armed forces who have given their lives for their country. We commemorate their past deeds on battlefields, on the sea and in the air in theatres of war around the globe. We celebrate the past successes of our sportsmen and sportswomen. We celebrate the past achievements of Australians in the arts and the sciences, but what we are today as a nation is a result of the past actions of our forebears, both good and bad. If we want to remember the highlights in our history, including those with which our generation has no direct connection, we must also take responsibility for the darkest episodes and for righting the wrongs of the past as far as we can. To do otherwise is simply hypocritical.

Last Wednesday, the Prime Minister invited us to reflect on one such blemish in our society—the mistreatment of those who were the stolen generations. We who have never been taken away from our families will never be able to truly understand the hurt, pain and suffering involved. What we can do, however, is reflect on the scale of the removals and listen again to the stories of some of those who were removed. The stolen generations inquiry concluded that, from 1910 to 1970, between one in every 10 and one in every three Indigenous children were taken from their families. Up to 50,000 kids across Australia were forcibly removed from their loved ones. They include a Victorian man who was adopted into a non-Indigenous family at the age of three months. He told the inquiry:

I’ve got everything that could be reasonably expected: a good home environment, education, stuff like that, but that’s all material stuff. It’s all the non-material stuff that I didn’t have—the lineage. It’s like you’re the first human being at times. You know, you’ve just come out of nowhere; there you are. In terms of having a direction in life, how do you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve come from?

Whether they were adopted or placed in institutions or church missions, the children were at risk of physical or sexual abuse, in many cases by their non-Indigenous protectors. One girl who was removed as a baby could not tell her sister that she had been raped when she was 15 years old. She told the inquiry:

And I never told anyone for years and years. And I’ve had this all inside me for years and years and years. I’ve been sexually abused, harassed, and then finally raped, y’know, and I’ve never had anyone to talk to about it ... nobody, no father, no mother, no-one. I felt so isolated, alienated. And I just had no-one. None of that family bonding, nurturing—nothing. We had nothing. That’s why I hit the booze.

Indigenous children were expected to work from a young age, but many were never paid for their labour. One Northern Territory man was 11 when he was sent to work on a pastoral station. He said:

I worked there for seven and a half years. Hardly any food or anything, put out in a remote area on me own, drawing water and that, looking after cattle ... no holiday, no pay. I never received one pay that seven and a half years I was there.

Some of those who have opposed this parliament apologising to the stolen generations have argued that we are not responsible for the well-intentioned policies and legislation of previous parliaments. But, as the Prime Minister reminded the House, the practice of removal was not confined to the dim and distant past. The forced removal of Aboriginal children was happening as late as the early 1970s. Many members of this parliament were adults in the 1970s and, if not members of this or other parliaments, were actively involved in politics or government. One man from New South Wales removed during that era was just eight years old. He told the inquiry:

There’s still a lot of unresolved issues within me. One of the biggest ones is I cannot really love anyone no more. I’m sick of being hurt. Every time I used to get close to anyone they were just taken away from me. If I did meet someone, I don’t want to have children, cos I’m frightened the welfare system would come back and take my children.

That man, if he is still alive, is today in his 40s or 50s. He is of our generation, not some distant ancestor. However uncomfortable and inconvenient it may be to acknowledge, the mistreatment of the stolen generations was still taking place in many of our lifetimes. Even while we may have moved on from the mistaken practices of the past, we must acknowledge that the consequences of those actions live on today.

How can we call ourselves a civilised country when so many of our citizens continue to live in appalling, Third World conditions? This is a national disgrace of which we should all be ashamed. We, and especially those of us who are privileged to serve in this place, are responsible for the present-day wellbeing of all Australians, including Aboriginal citizens. There is no room for buck-passing between the federal and state governments over this. For decades we, as the political leaders of this nation, have collectively failed in our responsibility.

In 2000, the Council of Australian Governments adopted its Reconciliation Framework, which recognised the ‘unique status of Indigenous Australians and the need for recognition, respect and understanding in the wider community’. That acknowledgement might be commendable, but the fact that seven years later we were still receiving harrowing accounts like last year’s Little children are sacred report is a reflection of our failure.

The time has come when we in this place have to take responsibility. We can no longer put the blame on past generations. We cannot continue the mean-spirited prevarication of the Howard government, which, for all its emphasis on practical reconciliation, did practically nothing to improve the life expectancy, educational standards or economic prospects of Indigenous Australians. Last year’s intervention in the Northern Territory now has to be seen in the light of Mr Howard’s admission that during his decade in office he failed to deliver reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The intervention was a knee-jerk, election driven reaction to a report made to the Northern Territory government whose conclusions differ little from others during the Howard administration.

In 2003, the Australian National University’s Professor Mick Dodson, in a powerful and emotional address to the National Press Club in Canberra, outlined precisely the same awful incidences of abuse in Aboriginal communities. Speeches last year by the Chairman of the Productivity Commission, Gary Banks, to an OECD forum and by the Secretary to the Treasury, Ken Henry, to a Cape York Institute conference highlighted similar issues and advocated similar remedies to the Little children are sacred report.

The reasons for the sickening treatment of many Aboriginal children are complex and often related to the wider breakdown of society in Aboriginal communities. To quote from the Little children are sacred report:

... the cumulative effects of poor health, alcohol, drug abuse, gambling, pornography, unemployment, poor education and housing and general disempowerment lead inexorably to family and other violence and then on to sexual abuse of men and women and, finally, of children. It will be impossible to set our communities on a strong path to recovery in terms of sexual abuse of children without dealing with all these basic services and social evils.

Complex problems often require complex solutions, and the report suggess that it may take 15 years to address these issues. But, although the answers may be complex, a former Liberal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and now Director of Reconciliation Australia, Fred Chaney, pointed out in a National Press Club address last year that they are well known. The authors of the Little children are sacred report, like many others, recognise that, although the causes may take many years to address, a start needs to be made now. But it must be the right start, on the right basis and in accordance with the right long-term plan. The most important of these is the need to engage in a partnership with Indigenous communities. Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma, in last year’s report to this parliament, said the previous government’s lack of capacity for engagement and participation with Indigenous peoples was a significant problem. And Mr Chaney told the National Press Club there is ‘really no contest about the fundamental importance of Indigenous engagement as a prerequisite for success’. He went on to say:

Let’s be upfront and learn from our mistakes. Centralised, imposed programs delivered from Canberra or state and territory capitals have not delivered the success we must now expect.

The Prime Minister has led the way with an apology that will form the basis of a new approach to the challenges facing Indigenous Australians. As well as aiming to right the past wrongs, this apology is aimed at building a bridge between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians—a partnership based on mutual respect. This new partnership has firm targets for closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians on life expectancy, educational achievements, adequate health care and employment opportunities. Within 10 years we must aim to halve the gap in literacy, numeracy and employment opportunities for Indigenous Australians. Within 10 years we must aim to halve the appalling gap in infant mortality rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children, and within a generation we must aim to close the 17-year gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

As this parliament has finally found the courage—under a Labor government—to say sorry to the stolen generations, I would like to add my own apology, an apology to all Australians—Indigenous and non-Indigenous—for the length of time that this unfinished business has languished in this parliament. I am sorry it has taken so long for the highest parliament in the land to take this historic step. But I am proud that we are now taking it and that last Wednesday’s apology has resonated right around the communities—Indigenous and non-Indigenous—of our whole nation. Consigning poverty, prejudice and injustice to the history books must now be one of our highest priorities over the next 10 years or 20 years or however long it takes to remove this stain from our nation. I note a recent statement by the shadow minister for Indigenous affairs—the member for Warringah, Mr Abbott—who said he had been on a journey of rediscovery in attempting to forge a deeper understanding of the history of the stolen generations tragedy. I sincerely hope that his journey leads to the same destination that I believe most Australians have arrived at, as outlined in the Prime Minister’s speech last Wednesday, because if that is the case then we have a far stronger chance of righting the wrongs of the past and making a stronger bipartisan beginning for the future. I commend the motion to the chamber as a start to that process.

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