Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme (Facilitation) Bill 2021. This bill will facilitate the establishment of a stolen generations redress scheme for those areas in which the Commonwealth had responsibility when children were removed from their families: the Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory and, of course, Jervis Bay.

In my opening comments I want to acknowledge the family story of Minister Wyatt, about his own mother, and I am sure other members of his family were part of the stolen generation—not in the territories but, nevertheless, part of this awful scheme that existed in one way or another, right across this country, for decades. There is not one Aboriginal family, that I'm aware of, that has not been touched by this shocking series of regimes that existed across the country. The effects of these schemes can still be very much felt today. Other members speaking in this debate will talk about the intergenerational effects.

This bill is long overdue, and Labor hopes to see a speedy and effective implementation of this scheme. For many decades, First Nations Australians were systemically and violently targeted by policies of elimination and assimilation. Culture and language were destroyed—in fact, forbidden. Lands and waters were taken away. And so were children. Sometimes they were taken from the arms of parents and relatives, but, more often, they were quietly and suddenly removed. Indeed, Senator Dodson, in the other place, tells his own story of when he was a child, of being hidden from the welfare and consequently not being removed himself. I'm sure that had my circumstances not been as they were when my great aunt and uncle took me and raised me, I could well have ended up—along with thousands of other children—as part of the stolen generations.

Many children never came home from school, never got off the train or the bus or never left the hospital with their mother. The anguish, the pain, the dislocation, the loss and the grief are all alive today. Even if many of the people who were taken are not with us, their stories go on. This is what intergenerational trauma is. It goes some way to explaining why many First Nations people are distrustful of institutions and authority.

Often, the people who had the shocking responsibility of removing children were, in fact, police. It goes some way to also explain why, in many communities, police are not seen in the trusted way that they are seen in other places. It goes to explain why many Aboriginal people feel that if there's anything they can do to avoid the government being involved in their lives, including being on the electoral roll, that is what they will do. It also goes to explain, very much, why there is still the enormous fear in communities of children being taken. Of course, times have changed, and children wouldn't be taken for many of the fears that are held, but the fears are so ingrained. This went on for so long. Whole families of children were taken and dispersed among institutions, never getting an education and forbidden even to know the truth of their families. They were forbidden even to know anything about their culture and were abused terribly in these institutions. You only have to talk to the old men now who call themselves the 'Kinchela boys', to understand the trauma and abuse that they experienced as young children at Kinchela Boys Home. It also goes to understanding history's cruel lesson that those who are important and powerful have a disproportionate ability to hurt, steal and destroy.

Acknowledging what was done in making reparations is part of healing, not just for individuals and families but for the fabric of our country. It is an act of truth-telling. In 1997, the Bringing them home report was a watershed moment in our country. It drew a line in the sand for this country, where no-one could say anymore, 'We did not know,' because it got such huge media attention. I was in the room on the day the late Sir Ronald Wilson and Professor Mick Dodson launched the report at the 1997 Reconciliation Convention in Melbourne. It was an absolute watershed moment. Among the 54 important recommendations of the report, reparations were acknowledged as critical for genuine reconciliation. The report contained harrowing testimonies. One woman, removed the age of eight to Cootamundra Girls Home with her three sisters in the 1940s, said:

Most of us girls were thinking white in the head but were feeling black inside. We weren't black or white. We were a very lonely, lost and sad displaced group of people. We were taught to think and act like a white person, but we didn't know how to think and act like an Aboriginal. We didn't know anything about our culture.

A submission from another survivor explained the devastation caused by the loss of language. It went like this:

My mother and brother could speak our language and my father could speak his. I can't speak my language. Aboriginal people weren't allowed to speak their language while white people were around. They had to go out into the bush or talk their lingoes on their own. Aboriginal customs like initiation were not allowed. We could not leave Cherbourg to go to Aboriginal traditional festivals. We could have a corroboree if the Protector issued a permit. It was completely up to him. I never had a chance to learn about my traditional and customary way of life when I was on the reserves.

Despite the findings of the report and the well-documented evidence pointing to the systemic disenfranchisement of First Nations people, governments of the day continued to ignore the voice of First Nations communities. In this country, this is one of the worst acts of social engineering that you could possibly think of. We rail against other countries with human rights records of abusing their populations, and it happened here. It happened here to people who are alive today. It happened in my lifetime.

The Bringing them home report also recommended a national apology from the Australian government. Of course, this apology was finally delivered by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. I remember sitting just up there in the gallery as Prime Minister Rudd delivered the apology—a powerful acknowledgement of the past and a turning point for our nation.

I've said, although I can't remember whether I said it at the despatch box, but the years of the Howard government refusing to say sorry—350,000 people walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge calling for the Prime Minister to say sorry. That apology meant so much. It couldn't give people back the years and their families, but it meant so much. It was a powerful acknowledgement of the past and a turning point for our nation. It was a first step in formally recognising the extent of the pain and suffering inflicted upon the stolen generations. There are current members of this House, including the member for Lingiari, who were present for this apology. I was up in the gallery, and the member for Grayndler, the Leader of the Labor Party, cites it as one of his proudest moments as a parliamentarian in this country.

The experience of bearing witness to such a historic moment in Australia's history is something that will always stay with me. I remember the old people sitting around—were you here?

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