Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, the Service Economy and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I came into this parliament as the product of a Far North Queensland upbringing. I grew up in a small country town that is just west of Cairns called Mareeba, with a population of about 10,000 people. It was a relatively unique upbringing, I suppose, in a number of respects. The first is in my experience. Whilst it is certainly not the case that I am unique in this parliament in my upbringing, I think it would be fair to say that some of the experiences and exposure I had as a child are perhaps a little different to what a large proportion of those who are in this chamber and, indeed, in the parliament would have experienced.

In particular, I think about the fact that as a young boy growing up in Mareeba, a country town that had a very large Aboriginal population, it was not unusual for me to be at school with a large number of Aboriginal children and to count among my friends some Aboriginal children. My experiences as a young boy growing up in Far North Queensland—including regular travels out to the very western parts of Queensland, including Aboriginal communities such as Kowanyama and Weipa—were times I look back on with a certain degree of fondness. Having said that, it is also realistic for me to acknowledge that, in looking back at my experiences as a young boy, it was very evident, even from an early age, that a great gulf existed between Aboriginal Australia and a white person’s Australia.

In that respect, for me this debate has had a certain amount of poignancy. It has been particularly poignant because in a number of respects I have drawn on some of the experiences I had as a young child. But I have also sought to lay a fabric of evaluation across it and evaluate it through my more recent experiences and through the experiences and the feedback that I have received from members of my party and of other parties, as well as from the general community. I have got to say that I certainly understand the reasons for the apology that was made in the parliament and I certainly wholeheartedly support it. I support the apology because something that really crystallised in my mind in the past week or so—and it was largely from a document that Reconciliation Australia put forward, which was an objective and unemotional analysis of what an apology is about for Aboriginal Australia—was the fact that in part of this debate and in the tumult and divisiveness that this debate has in the past caused, we have lost sight of the fact that there are, in fact, several elements to what has taken place in Australia’s history. There is the element that deals with young Aboriginal children or teenagers who were removed and separated from their families for no reason other than the fact that they were black. And then there are also those young Aboriginal children and teenagers who were separated from their families on genuine grounds of welfare.

I do not intend to be an expert, nor do I believe, perhaps, that anybody should be an expert at raking through the coals of history and determining who was removed and for what purpose they were removed, but there can be no doubt—and history has made this clear—that there were a large number of Aboriginal children forcibly separated from their families for no other reason than the fact that they were black. To those Aboriginal children, many of whom are now adults, I think it is appropriate and fitting that the parliament, on behalf of all Australians, issued an apology.

But in the same way it would be intellectually dishonest to not acknowledge that there were also Aboriginal children who were taken with the best of intentions. In that respect, it has been my observation in attempting to be objective about this that there are many Australians who feel that in some way, when the apology washes from being an apology merely about one category of the community and then becomes an apology that is issued to all Aboriginal Australians, it erodes the bona fides of those children that were removed on true welfare grounds. I think it is important to put on the record the very clear delineation between these two acts. One act has at its core a malfeasance about it; the other act has at its core the very best of intentions. The reason I deliberate between these two is that the divisiveness of this debate in my view is principally drawn from which side of the camp you stand on with respect to those two experiences.

A number of speakers in this debate have spoken about those two elements and have decided to draw on experiences they thought were appropriate to suit their arguments in this debate. From my perspective, the most important aspect is that the Australian people in no small way came together last week through this national parliament to issue an apology. That apology—and I guess the fact that we were able to transcend politics on that particular day—truly was an uplifting experience. It truly was, I believe, cathartic to those Aborigines that had been removed from their families for the wrong reasons. Hopefully, as well for those that were removed with the best of intentions, it might also provide some peace.

Historically, the coalition has been against the symbolism of an apology, preferring instead to focus on the phrase that is often used, ‘practical reconciliation’. It seems to me now that the symbolic act of an apology has been carried through that we can start to move forward and again refocus on where the debate has been for so long—that is, on practical reconciliation. I have heard from a number of Indigenous leaders who have turned around and stated that following the apology there is forgiveness and there is opportunity for all Australians to move forward in a reconciled way and that is truly tremendous. The fact is—and it is a very sad fact—that we still have many concerns with respect to practical reconciliation.

I have to say that one area I am profoundly apologetic about and personally, as a member of this parliament,  would take very deliberately on my shoulders is the issue of an apology to those Aborigines living in Australia today who are forced to endure the most horrific of circumstances. It seems to me that in many respects on the heady day that was last Wednesday, there were too many instances of and almost a blindness to the problems that exist in Aboriginal communities. I am sorry—and I say ‘sorry’—that this government and previous governments have not done enough to improve the lot of Aboriginals, especially those in remote communities.

It is worth putting on the record articles like one written in the Sydney Morning Herald on 1 December last year entitled, ‘Where children run from playtime’, which said:

It is late morning in Alice Edward Village, a sparse, windswept Aboriginal settlement behind Bourke, and already residents are gathering to drink, smoke marijuana or inject speed. For many of their children, it’s the start of a daily battle. The adults become aggressive as the day wears on. By nightfall, some have become sexual predators. Children, terrified, hide in ceiling cavities or wedge their bedroom doors shut.

‘I haven’t spoken to an eight-year-old and above that hasn’t been molested,’ said Ron Pagett, a small business owner whose family has lived in the state’s north-west since the area was settled by Europeans.

Pagett says he has visited homes where children have taken the knobs off their bedroom doors to protect themselves. ‘Most of the doors have been kicked in.’

He has heard of 12-year-olds giving birth, and of even younger girls having backyard abortions. Once he found two young girls who had been camping near the school for weeks. ‘We’re not going home any more,’ they said, ‘we’re sick of being dooried’ ...

an Aboriginal word which means raped. I talk about these things because we must recognise our responsibility on both sides of the chamber to do what we can to improve the law and order aspects, to improve the health aspects and to improve the childhood of young Aborigines in Australia today. It is not good enough if we now, having said the symbolic sorry, simply turn around and think that our work is done. In that spirit, I welcome the bipartisan committee that has been established in this parliament because, frankly, this issue must transcend partisan politics.

The fact is that if the kinds of rapes, gang rapes and child abuse that for some reason are accepted in Aboriginal communities—largely because they are off the front pages of newspapers—were occurring in white communities, there would be such an uproar that it would be unparalleled. Yet this has been going on for decades. I think back to when I grew up in that small country town when, I have no doubt, these same events were taking place and no-one said anything.

So it is a symbolic act of sorry, but a very sincere sorry now issued. It is important that we use this apology to now take practical reconciliation forward strongly. Certainly, we must make sure that young Aboriginal children, who in the past have been in harm’s way and who in the future might be in harm’s way, have the opportunity to actually enjoy being a child, have the opportunity to embrace some unique aspects of Aboriginal culture that they are exposed to, and have the opportunity provided to other Australian kids who are not in the same situations.

In every respect it is important that we do not think, because there has been one simple word of sorry put forward, that our work is finished. Each of us must absolutely steel ourselves to make sure that we take concrete steps forward to improve conditions, life expectancy and general educational experiences for young people in existing Aboriginal communities. So I am pleased to support the apology motion. I was pleased to see the parliament come together. It is now time though to truly feel sorry for all of those people who we in this chamber have stood by watching while so many negative things were happening. And we have not done anywhere near enough to improve the lives of children who are subjected to so many nefarious acts.

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