Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

Today is National Sorry Day, marking 24 years since the Bringing them home report. We reflect on and grieve the profound harm done to stolen generations and their families. Saying sorry is important, but we must match our words with deeds. It has now been four years since the release of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, in which First Nations people called for a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament and a makarrata commission to deliver agreement-making and truth-telling. There were three clear asks—voice, treaty and truth—yet four years later the government continues to place these very reasonable aspirations in the too-hard basket, kicking the can down the road. It's not good enough. Only First Nations people truly know and understand the suffering that has been endured since the colonisation of this ancient land.

I am lucky enough to be in the same party as Senators Pat Dodson and Malarndirri McCarthy and the member for Barton, Linda Burney, who have guided Labor's position on these issues. Labor is the only party which has fully committed to the Uluru statement. In the 1930s, the Aboriginal activist William Cooper—the namesake for my electorate—wrote to the King, asking that Aboriginal people be given a voice. Today, 85 years later, the fight is still on to achieve that.

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