Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Prime Minister for his words. This morning in the Great Hall we paid tribute to the survivors of the stolen generation. This morning in the Great Hall we paid tribute to former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for his courage and his leadership, and he's most welcome here with Therese.

This morning in the Great Hall I shared Paul's story. In 1964, when Paul was 5½ months old, he and his mother both fell ill. His mum took him to the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. Paul recovered more quickly than his mother and the authorities recommended to her that she place him at St Gabriel's Babies' Home in Balwyn until she recovered. Soon after, Paul was made a ward of the state and transferred to another institution, so when his mum came to visit him she only found an empty cot. At the age of three, Paul was placed with a family for adoption. Just after seven months, his adoptive mother complained to officials that this boy, barely three years old, was dull, unresponsive and an embarrassment at coffee parties. Paul was then sent to The Gables orphanage in Kew. He remembers being paraded in line-ups when prospective foster parents would view the children. The staff at the orphanage told foster parents not to worry about Paul's dark complexion, explaining that he could easily be mistaken for being southern European.

When he turned six, Paul was taken in by another foster family. He lived with them until he was 18. He was shunned by older siblings as not being their real brother and was bullied at school for his skin colour. Then one day soon after his 18th birthday, Paul was called to the Sunshine welfare offices to be discharged from his wardship. In the space of one 20-minute conversation he was told the following: that he was of Aboriginal descent, and that he had a mother, a father, three brothers and a sister. He was given a file full of letters, photos, and 18 birthday cards from his mother. Paul found his mother working at a hostel for Aboriginal children. She was looking after 20 kids. They had six years together before she died, aged 45. This is just two pages from the Bringing Them Home report.

At Redfern, Prime Minister Keating said that the greatest failing of non-Aboriginal Australians was that we did not stop to ask, 'How would I feel if this was done to me?' Honestly, I don't know I could answer that question. I don't know if any of the members of parliament here could. I do not know if we could imagine ourselves as boys or girls growing up adrift, isolated, bullied, ridiculed, not knowing if anyone loved me, not knowing if anyone cared and not knowing where I came from. And indeed, as a parent, I cannot imagine the horror of visiting my baby only to find an empty cot. I do not know if we would have the strength of Paul's mother to live with years of unanswered letters of desperate pleas for information to break down the faceless rock of bureaucracy. If that had all happened to me, if I'd been a parent or a child subject to these injustices, this shocking cruelty, I do not know if I could have found it in myself to accept the apology. But the survivors did, 10 years ago. They showed us a generosity and a kindness and a humanity that we never showed them. What I do know, what we know today is that saying sorry was the right thing to do, and it was the least we could do. Ten years after saying sorry, we need to know that we mean it with belated compensation for survivors, with support for the healing of their descendants, with national action to tackle the crisis of Aboriginal kids growing up in out-of-home care. We need to show that we mean it by removing the shadow and anxiety from Aboriginal parents and grandparents now that their kids could still just be taken from them. We need to show it by adopting in our hearts the Uluru Statement from the Heart. We need to show that we mean it by not turning a blind eye to those who criticise the black armband view of history, or the paternalism, or the indifference, or who use words like 'Aboriginal industry'. We need to show it by closing the gap so the next generation of Aboriginal children do not get the deal that their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents have had. This is the challenge for the whole parliament. Not just this day, every day of the year.

Honourable members: Hear, hear.

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