Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House notes:

(1) that 16 November 2014 marked the 5th anniversary of an important milestone in Australia’s history, when the Australian Government delivered its formal apology to the Forgotten Australians and former child migrants;

(2) the significant work of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and the inquiry’s Chair, the Hon. Justice Peter McClellan AM, to date in:

(a) raising public awareness of Forgotten Australians;

(b) conducting public hearings and private sessions to ensure that the victims’ voices are heard;

(c) examining abuse in particular institutions across Australia; and

(d) reporting allegations of child abuse to appropriate authorities; and

(3) the Government’s commitment to provide additional funding to extend the Royal Commission’s Inquiry.

I thank the member for Berowra for seconding this motion. I appreciate that as a father of the House, he might have been around at the time when these sorts of events were occurring that the apology was directly attributable to. It was a dark time in the history of care in our state systems.

I would like to set the scene of the day of the national apology and to take the opportunity to acknowledge the members for Corio and Blaxland, who were involved with me on the national apology committee. During that process, we worked closely to make sure that the national apology on 16 November was a day that would help a lot of people who had been through those experiences. On the day there was a lot of anticipation and a lot of excitement in the air. A lot of people travelled to Canberra to the Great Hall to hear former Prime Minister Rudd and then opposition leader, the member for Wentworth, deliver their apologies on behalf of not only the government but the opposition.

There were over 900 people gathered in the Great Hall, and I am sure the member for Corio and the member for Blaxland, who were there, remember the anticipation and the buzz within that room. As the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition entered the hall, it fell silent, and then those words that meant so much to so many people, to over 500,000 forgotten Australians and child migrants, were delivered. Who can forget Peter Hicks coming up to the podium when Malcolm Turnbull was delivering his speech and hugging him halfway through? It was one of many emotional times during that day. It was a day full of emotion.

I want to acknowledge the work done by Joanna Penglase and Leonie Sheedy from CLAN, who worked with the members for Blaxland and Corio to make sure that the apology was actually delivered in parliament. I also want to acknowledge the Senate committee reports that had been done on the forgotten Australians and the victims of child sexual abuse in institutions in Australia; and Senator Siewert and former senator Andrew Murray, who is now on the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, for the work they did to help the apology come to the fore in this place.

My brother had come up for the apology. He was one of the children who was left behind; he was not taken away but left behind. The emotions he felt on that particular day, along with all the other people in the hall, were enormous. I left the hall to go and do a quick interview with one of the radio stations, and there was a young woman from Western Australia whose name was Cheryl just standing outside the hall in the foyer; she was shaking and just did not know what to do. I went over and gave her a hug, and she said that was one of things that made the day for her—that the MPs who were involved and who helped deliver the apology were there and were prepared to get emotionally involved with them.

We then held a fantastic barbecue out on the front lawns of Parliament House. For the first time and the only time while I have been in parliament, I got leave from question time to go and join all the forgotten Australians and child migrants on the front lawns. The mood was ecstatic. One woman, who had got out of her hospital bed that day and travelled from Victoria, said to me that she had thought she was coming to parliament to hear just another diatribe, a lot of words and the delivery of non-meaningful speeches by politicians; but she said that it was well worth leaving her hospital bed and travelling to Canberra to hear the words of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. She said she could go to her grave happy now that that apology had been delivered.

The royal commission has been extended by the coalition government, acknowledging that the previous government instituted it, but there is much more work to be done. We will continue to fight. As I keep saying to the forgotten Australians and the child migrants, including those from Malta and the UK: never give in.

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