Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to second the motion. I commend the member for Swan for moving this motion and I thank him for his great contribution. I too remember Monday, 16 November 2009, when Prime Minister Rudd delivered the apology to the forgotten Australians and former child migrants. I also acknowledge the member for Blaxland and the many other people who were involved in making sure it happened.

I too remember being in the Great Hall of the people. There are three apologies that I have heard in the parliament, including on my very first day at work, when Prime Minister Rudd delivered the apology to the stolen generations. Like this one in the Great Hall, it was poignant and heart rending, as was the forced adoptions apology by Prime Minister Gillard, a process in which I was involved. Prime Minister Rudd said:

… we come together today to offer our nation’s apology.

To say to you, the forgotten Australians, and those who were sent to our shores as children without your consent, that we are sorry.

Sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where so often you were abused.

Sorry for the physical suffering, the emotional starvation and the cold absence of love, of tenderness, of care.

They were incredible words, delivered particularly well. I remember the member for Swan's first speech—we were elected at the same time, in the 42nd Parliament—and that is when I became particularly aware of this story. There are so many stories: 500,000 Australians who have had a similar experience during the last century—quite late into the last century, in fact. They were placed in care for a variety of reasons—either because they were orphaned, because they were born to a single mother or because their families were dislocated due to domestic violence, divorce, separation or that most cruel of conditions, poverty and the parents' inability to cope with the children, often as a result of hardship. There were people that were made wards of the state because they were uncontrollable—perhaps it could be treated now—or they were neglected or in moral danger.

Obviously, in all of those circumstances, the strong story that came through five years ago today was that it was not the fault of the children. They were placed in those institutions—the orphanages, the homes, the training schools and the industrial schools. Whether they were administered by the state, by religious bodies or by charities or welfare groups, it was not the fault of the children that they were placed in these situations. As we are seeing now, the royal commission instigated by Prime Minister Gillard—the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, headed by Justice Peter McClellan—is revealing time and time again through these stories, by shedding a light, that these children sometimes were treated appropriately but all too often they suffered harm and heartache.

As the member for Swan touched on in telling that story five years ago today and as my wife, who works in this area, says, too often these people have carried the burden of silence. This apology five years ago told some uncomfortable truths and put a spotlight where it should be shone, because the truth, sadly, is not always the best thing for people when they discover what went wrong, but it is never the wrong thing to tell these stories. I commend Justice Peter McClellan and all of the other commissioners for the great work that they are doing.

Today, whilst many of us will also be acknowledging that it is World AIDS Day, here I am wearing a badge which is the wattle with the fifth anniversary symbol. The wattle, the spirit of Australia, is a national symbol and a beautiful flower, as we know, but also a particularly hardy flower from a hardy tree—resilient. As farmers know, often to their chagrin, the wattle will endure. From so many of those stories that we heard, both five years ago and since then in the royal commission, we know that—despite the darker days and the burdens that many of these people have had to carry and will carry to their graves, sadly—like the wattle, they will endure. So I commend them for their resilience and I urge them to come forward through that royal commission process to make sure that their stories are heard and that we never, ever again have such a horror visited upon young people. As the member for Swan said, we shall not forget.

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