Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Sorry Day provides opportunities for us all to reflect upon the past and connect with those who suffered as a result of previous government policies. When I say previous government policies, these are governments of all political persuasions, not just one. Last Thursday I was fortunate to share some time with members of the stolen generation, and their friends, who were in Canberra—Matilda House, Sally Fitzpatrick, Margaret Evans, Maryanne Allan, Siani Jones, Helen Moran, Trish Smith, Ruth Bell, Lester Maher, Peter Beal, Steve Ridgeway, Rebecca Curtis, Sandra Kitchen, Julie Shelley, Aunty Martha, Janet Milera, Lyn Jones, Peter Hawkins, Jenny Carty, Jilpia Jones and Jenny Smith. I asked them a very simple question. I asked them what their experiences have been since the apology was delivered three years ago. Have things improved? What are the challenges they now face? What can be done to continue to improve the lives of our Indigenous brothers and sisters? They told me that the apology was not only for the surviving members of the stolen generations but also for those no longer with us—the mothers whose children were ripped from their arms; the brothers and sisters who never knew of each other; the children who grew up without ever knowing their land, their totem, their skin, their people.

These humble souls spoke quietly at first, telling me of the hurt and suffering they still struggle with every day. They spoke of the loss of family, of closeness, of community and of culture. Their stories began when they were small children, taken from their families, sometimes in the middle of the night, and forced into a strange new world that lasted a lifetime. They were taken from communities across the country and forced into homes thousands of kilometres away from their land. In fact, many of them said to me that, when the whitefellas came, they said this: 'Now we are taking you on a holiday.' The absolute devastation of being 'taken on a holiday' never to see your mother again is something that those of us who are non-Indigenous Australians can barely understand—the depth of the hurt, the pain and the scarring which occurs to such people. They were taken from their communities across the country, forced into homes thousands of kilometres away from their land. Through their tears they shared the challenges that we as a nation face in making things right and the importance of supporting the work of healing services offered through Link Up, the Healing Foundation and the many other terrific organisations at work out there in the Indigenous communities of Australia. They spoke of the urgency with which we must act to ensure that the work of these fantastic organisations can continue. They expressed the need for understanding and compassion for members of the stolen generations and their families. They said that what happened must never be forgotten, that we must always remember the hurt and suffering that was inflicted upon these First Australians.

Their decision to share with me their stories was their way of making sure that I could walk away from our gathering with a better sense of where to go from here and that as a whitefella I could begin to understand the importance of what lies ahead and that, while the apology has invoked a tremendous healing process, the journey towards reconciliation has only just begun. But it has begun. They also spoke of their vision for the future—one in which we all can come together to honour our differences, share our struggles and celebrate our successes.

Joining me for this special Sorry Day event was the Koori Mail. The Koori Mail is proudly 100 per cent Indigenous owned and funded and is a true Aboriginal success story. With more than 90,000 readers every fortnight, it is regarded as the voice of Indigenous Australia. The Koori Mail is one of the most important sources for Indigenous people to share their stories, connect with their communities and bridge the gap between what we see in the mainstream media and what is really happening in our communities. I thank the Koori Mail for attending the event and am sure that, like me, they recognise that closing the gap is the beginning of this very long journey.

Fourteen years ago the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's report, Bringing them home, was tabled in this parliament, providing a blueprint for this journey. Dr McKendrick assisted in the writing of the report and found that:

… when Aboriginal people (who were removed) come to have their own children, they've really got no idea how to parent in either the conventional Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal way … so their children are very often removed from them (by welfare agencies) which sets up this terrible cycle which goes on for generations.

The findings showed that much needed to be done to repair the damage caused to Indigenous Australians since settlement and that, if the intergenerational psychological scarring inflicted on the stolen generations was ignored, the cycle of disadvantage would continue. A healing process therefore needed to begin.

One of the key recommendations of the Bringing them home report was for an official apology to be given by the governments of Australia. Every state and territory leader delivered a formal apology in the late 1990s. But a gap remained. As the late and great Rick Farley argued, 'Until the community has a common understanding of what has occurred in the past, there is no foundation for moving ahead together.' There needed to be an acceptance by the wider community that Indigenous Australians were the traditional owners of the land, that the British came and colonised the continent, that atrocities such as those endured by the stolen generations took place and that Indigenous Australians still suffer severe levels of disadvantage.

The apology gave us the opportunity to do that. In the lead-up to the 2007 election, I promised that, if Labor were elected, I would apologise to the stolen generations. I said sorry on 13 February 2008. This was an important day for all of us. I am pleased that it was an important day in the lives of so many people around the country. Since then, the government has used the momentum of the apology to kick-start a comprehensive agenda to improve the lives of our nation's first people.

Closing the Gap is based on six targets and the Australian government has implemented programs to decrease the gaps that exist. The first target is closing the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation. Under the federal government, expenditure on Indigenous-specific health programs has increased by 87 per cent to almost $1.2 billion since 2007-08. Some $58.3 million has been allocated over four years to deliver a major increase in services to address trachoma with the expansion of the Visiting Optometrists Scheme. These changes to Aboriginal life expectancy must be measured into the future so that we can judge the extent to which we are succeeding or the extent to which we are not.

The second target is halving the gap in mortality rates for Indigenous children under the age of five by 2018. Between July 2008 and June 2010, children in remote Northern Territory communities and town camps received nearly 8,000 dental services, 4½ thousand audiology services and 3,000 ear, nose and throat services. The government will also be delivering new and expanded maternal and child health services and more access to antenatal care. Once again I sound a note of warning: let us wait for the figures to come in to see if these mortality rates for little children under the age of five across Indigenous Australia do in fact come down. This again must be the subject of rigorous measurement.

The third target is to ensure access to early childhood education for all Indigenous four-year-olds in remote communities by 2013, with $970 million being invested to reach this goal. Progress has been made, with enrolment rates for Indigenous children in New South Wales increasing from 79 per cent to 88 per cent in one year. That is not insignificant. That is an important step forward. The Australian government is investing $59.4 million to improve the quality of 140 early childhood services, including approximately 100 Indigenous services. Again, we need to see the measurements to ensure that we are in fact realising that gap concerning the provision of early childhood education for littlies under the age of four in Indigenous communities.

Target No. 4 is to halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievement for Indigenous children by 2018. The government is assisting schools to expand intensive literacy and numeracy approaches that have previously been successful with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, with $54.6 million over four years. Once again, we wait for the measurements to come in. The inputs are there. Let us measure the outcomes when they are there for the whole community to be seen.

The fifth target is to halve the gap for Indigenous students in year 12 or equivalent attainment rates by 2020. The government is providing $2.6 billion through the Smarter Schools National Partnerships. The government has invested record amounts in education and it is starting to pay off, with school attendance in Aurukun increasing from an average attendance rate of 37 per cent in July 2009 to 63 per cent in July 2010. Again, this is a good number. It reflects measureable progress. What we do need to see, however, is how this is reflected across Indigenous communities throughout the nation.

Finally, target No. 6 is to halve the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians by 2018. The government has implemented reforms to employment programs so that more Indigenous people can gain employment. Since 1 July 2009, more than 28,750 Indigenous Australians have been placed into employment by Job Services Australia.

The apology was a first step towards reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Much has been achieved since then, but there is still much to be done, including the recognition of Indigenous peoples in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia. It has instilled upon future generations an ongoing commitment to justice for Indigenous Australians. Specific, detailed reporting will hold the nation accountable for reaching our targets in the future. It will guide us as a nation as we continue to work together, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap.

As I met with these representatives of the stolen generations only a few days ago in this, the parliament of the Commonwealth, it was a moving experience listening, one by one, to each member of the stolen generations as to what had happened to them over the last three years. I wish I could stand here and say before the parliament that it has all worked really well. The truth is that it has not in all cases. That is the truth. Not one of them, however, said that the apology was not important to them; it was. Since that time it has opened up new possibilities and new hopes but has also created some new challenges.

Think of this for a moment, those of us who do not come from Indigenous Australia: if you have been physically removed from a member of your family for 20, 30 or 40 years and are reintroduced for the first time, how do you pick up the traces again? How do you really pick up the traces again? How do you really establish contact again? How do you really forge an emotional bond again? What has happened in those respective lives over that intervening 40-year period? One by one, I heard these stories about how difficult and painful that road has been. The other thing I heard very clearly was the importance of services like Link-Up being able to stay with these folk of the stolen generation into the future and to have the resources to support them once contact has been established. If you look across the sheer numbers and the physicality of those whom we call the stolen generation we are talking about tens of thousands of our Aboriginal brothers and sisters. And if you begin to think of the case management of this through Link-Up Australia, it is a phenomenal task—that is, for a case management officer to attach themselves to a member of the stolen generation, often with very few research tools, and then commit themselves to walking with that person through a very difficult evidentiary process to establish who the family was, where they have gone and often, worst of all, whether they have died in the meantime. This takes time, energy and resources. I know the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, is working hard on how to make sure that Link-Up is properly resourced into the future so it is able, first of all, to manage the caseload, the sheer numbers of people who still have not had the link re-established.

Then there is a second point. Think about this by putting yourselves into the circumstances of one such person. You are in Melbourne. You have discovered that you have a living relative—a brother, a sister, even a mother or a father—in Perth. You are flown to Perth, where the arrangements have been made to link up after 20, 30, 40 years or sometimes half a century. That occurs, and the difficulties and the joy, the mixture of both that I described before, all unfold; they all happen. What do you do then? It is pretty hard, because our Indigenous brothers and sisters are often living in pretty difficult financial circumstances. So how do you then sustain that contact into the future? What are the mechanisms to provide that ongoing support? If we as a nation have a genuine debt of responsibility towards these for whom successive parliaments—of all political persuasions, state and federal, over the generations—have acted in the people's name in removing the stolen generation, then what do we do at least to make sure that these bonds, once established and often fragile, are sustained? That is a second practical problem which the good folk at Link-Up are having to wrestle with.

I am not for a minute beginning to pretend that any of this is easy for that wonderful band of people at Link-Up who are doing the absolute best they can. But we are dealing with very damaged lives and very damaged souls. It is very important therefore that, in the spirit in which the apology was delivered, it is not just words, it is deeds; that we make sure that what we have committed to we then, in fact, do; and that we stay with these most wounded Australians until healing does occur for as many of them as is possible.

As we reflect on National Sorry Day and where we have come from, there are so many good things to talk about. There are so many things that we do not know because we cannot yet measure them. But for each of these lives, at a very personal and individual level, let us reflect on how hard each of those journeys is and on what we can still do as a civilised and caring community to support these, our brothers and sisters, on their path to healing.

See this speech in context