Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in strong support of this motion to offer a formal apology to our Aboriginal people. I have had a longstanding involvement with members of Indigenous communities in various remote areas of Australia and I feel very strongly about the need to address the totally unacceptable situation which characterises the circumstances of so many of our Indigenous people.

This apology is a symbolic gesture which cannot stand alone. Yet symbols are important. Symbols convey a state of mind. Symbols often convey the essence of complex situations. Symbols can soar above the preoccupations of our everyday life, and by doing so often become powerful, immutable statements.

The formal apology issued to our Indigenous Australians on 13 February was a powerful symbol, a symbol for good and an immutable and broad acknowledgement of the greatest blemish on our past, namely, the treatment of our Indigenous people. For my part, the apology is a heartfelt acknowledgement not of any one act but, as my friend and colleague Scott Morrison so eloquently implied in his maiden speech last Thursday, of the result of ‘more than 200 years of shared ignorance, failed policies and failed communities’. In many respects government paternalism and welfare has done so much to enfeeble and marginalise our Indigenous people. I have had exposure to that again and again, and it is a situation which is of great urgency and great need.

If the apology allows some closure for so many with a disadvantaged and unhappy past, if it allows them to put aside a sense of injustice, to move on, to gain confidence and resolve to improve their own lives, then this is a wonderful thing. However, a true sense of balance will only be fully achieved in Australia when we complete the unfinished business of providing Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Australia with a shared destiny. Until we effectively tackle the hopelessness, the substance abuse, the violence and welfare dependency that unfettered welfare or sit-down money has entrenched in so many of our Indigenous communities, there can be no shared destiny.

In the name of compassion and a well-placed sense of guilt we have ironically locked in disadvantage and a state of mind which works against many of our Indigenous people seeing how, or wanting, to take control of their own lives. Hopefully, the apology lays an important psychological foundation to empower and encourage individuals and communities to seek to improve their own lives. Hopefully, the apology raises the expectation and the accountability of our governments to apply a large measure of originality, common sense and resolve. I say originality, because so much of what we have done, despite good intent, has failed. The policy approaches of state and federal governments and successive governments have failed comprehensively. So we need to apply a large measure of originality, common sense and resolve in seeking to address the critical health, education, employment and housing issues confronting so many Indigenous communities. In doing so, the policies and approach of our governments must seek to empower individuals to foster a sense of self-worth, a sense of defiance, in many respects, and self-responsibility. It is only this state of mind among our Indigenous Australians that will be associated with any sustainable achievement of the quality of life and the quality of opportunity that will mark the achievement of a shared destiny with all other Australians. And for that reason, I see the apology as a very important starting point.

See this speech in context