Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I strongly support this motion in the bipartisan spirit in which it was moved in the House and is being discussed here in the Main Committee. As a nation, we say sorry to those Aboriginal people forcibly removed from their families as a consequence of the state and national policies and laws which operated until around 1970. The apology will help the healing. It will not solve every problem—we all know that—but it will help. It will remove a roadblock. It will allow our nation and Aboriginal people to move on together as one. It will build reconciliation.

All of us in this parliament want a better future for Aboriginal people. All of us want to tackle and win the war against the appalling disadvantage that affects so much of Aboriginal Australia. Governments of both political persuasions over many decades have endeavoured to make huge progress and take great steps forward. There have been pockets of success but, on the scale of things, the progress has been minimal. The bold goals that were set by successive governments over the last 40 or 50 years have not been met and the policies pursued have not succeeded.

All of us here and around Australia want to know that one day Australia will conquer Aboriginal disadvantage. We want to know that Australia, one day, will look back at the plight so many Aboriginals face today in terms of life expectancy, education and all the other indicators so many members have referred to in this debate and talk of how progress was made and how the disadvantage was conquered—a day when Australia can look back on Aboriginal disadvantage as history.

We all know that day is a long way off, but if we are ever to see it we need to confront all of the issues that are barriers on the road to that destination. Just as the bipartisan nature of this motion will play a significant role in healing and unifying, we must rededicate ourselves to the practical intervention policies that were introduced by the previous government under the former Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough. They also had bipartisan support. We have to face and confront the problems and deal with the causes of disadvantage in a practical, tangible and determined way.

There will be many speakers in this debate who will have had great experience in their roles as members of parliament and, indeed, in some cases in their preparliamentary life, meeting and visiting Aboriginal communities and seeing firsthand the daily struggles and trials that our Aboriginal and Indigenous Australians face across Australia. I do not hold myself out as being one of those people. I do not pretend to be. I do not bring to this debate years and years of on-the-ground experience. I do not pretend for a minute that I am an expert on all of the complex issues involved. But I know that this motion, which has attracted bipartisan support—and that is very important—will now, at this time, attract wide support in the Australian community. The motion deals with a major blemish in our history. But, in acknowledging that the practice of removing Aboriginal children from their parents in our past was wrong, we need to make sure we acknowledge all the history. In this regard I do support wholeheartedly the statements of the Leader of the Opposition, in his speech in the House of Representatives, recognising and acknowledging that what was done in many, but certainly not all, cases was done with the best of intentions.

The parliamentary speeches of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, as the previous member indicated, were watched in every corner of Australia. They were watched in capital cities, in many of our schools and in many of our communities and city squares right across Australia. I want to make mention of one group of people watching in the electorate of Casey that I represent. The Swinburne University Indigenous Programs Unit, in partnership with the Shire of Yarra Ranges, held a breakfast at the Balluk Yilam Learning Centre on the Swinburne campus in Lilydale. The event was, by all accounts, well attended by more than 100 people, including the mayor, local councillors, community members and, most importantly, Indigenous members of Swinburne’s Indigenous Programs Unit and community elders. They all watched the speeches from parliament, which was a very emotional experience for those in attendance.

I am told by the shire that the speeches from our parliament were received with both elation and sorrow by the Aboriginal people there in particular—elation that the wrongs of the past had been finally apologised for and sorrow at the grief that many had experienced in their lives as a consequence of those policies. The organisers tell me that there was a strong sense from the Indigenous people present, including local senior elders, that this had been a big step forward and a very big day for them. I particularly acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands within the shire of Yarra Ranges, the Wurundjeri people, who have been active supporters of the apology in our local area. Here in this parliament I thank some of those organisers: Anne Jenkins, Shane Charles, Miranda Madwick from the Swinburne Indigenous Programs Unit for organising the event, and Garry Detez from the Shire of Yarra Ranges.

See this speech in context