Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House:

(1)

notes that:

(a)

26 May marks the tenth anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report, which documented the systematic removal of up to 100,000 indigenous children from their families between 1910 and the 1970s, and its serious, and ongoing impact;

(b)

the Howard Government’s decision not to apologise for this systematic removal has compounded the distress of survivors and held us all back from achieving genuine reconciliation;

(c)

research subsequent to the report has shown that indigenous children who were removed:

(i)

were more likely to have been victims of family violence (38 per cent compared to the figure of 23 per cent for the broader indigenous population);

(ii)

were 2.3 times more likely to experience clinical depression and behavioural difficulties;

(iii)

had double the rate of both alcohol and other drug use than other indigenous children; and

(iv)

were more likely to end up in jail; and

(d)

a recent Urbis Keys Young report commissioned by the Government described the Government’s response to date as “poorly coordinated and insufficiently targeted” and also revealed that some Bring-ing Them Home and Link-Up counsellors are struggling to cope with up to more than 80 clients each, compared with the average caseload of 25 for a mental health worker in mainstream services; and

(2)

calls on the Government to:

(a)

apologise for past policies and practices that resulted in the systematic and forced removal of indigenous children from their families; and

(b)

immediately implement measures to address the continuing adverse social, physical and mental health outcomes impacting on the Stolen Generation and subsequent generations.

When I was growing up, it was almost impossible to find a family that had not been affected, either directly or indirectly, by World War II. Sons, fathers, husbands and brothers had been to war, and many of them did not come back. Many Indigenous children were forcibly removed—or stolen—from their families. Although there are fewer and fewer members of the stolen generations every day, the profound loss continues to be felt by Indigenous families everywhere across Australia. So much of our childhood is about learning to trust, to depend and to belong. If a child is separated from his or her parents, these fragile ties are shattered, and that can have lifelong consequences for that person’s wellbeing.

Page upon page of the Bringing them home report tells of children being taken away and left unloved—children who grew up to be adults who themselves did not know how to love. The Bringing them home report was seminal, because it was our first proper attempt, as a nation, to acknowledge the loss felt by Indigenous people. It recognised that this nation needed more than the cold facts about the forced removal of thousands of Indigenous children and babies. We all needed healing.

Today, I want to reiterate Labor’s commitment to a formal apology, in government, to the stolen generations. It is the just and decent thing to do. An apology is not an empty gesture; it can, I think, be a circuit breaker. If we acknowledge past wrongs and assess honestly and rigorously what needs to be done, we can all move forward—and move forward we must. Just last week Labor announced that, in government, we would make available to members of the stolen generations more than $15 million in funding for Link Up services.

I am very pleased to table today a petition from nearly 40,000 Australians calling on the government to close the 17-year gap in Indigenous life expectancy. This petition, organised by Get Up!, demonstrates the enormous support around Australia for closing the gap. I seek leave to table this petition.

Leave granted.

Labor has committed to closing this life expectancy gap. From now on we want every single baby born to an Indigenous mother to have the same chance in life as every other Australian child. It is so warming to see that there are so many Australians who stand with us to close that gap. Just this weekend Labor announced a $260 million comprehensive child and maternal health program for Indigenous mothers and their babies—for early development, family support and literacy and numeracy programs in the early years of a child’s life—as our down-payment on meeting this target. We think that, if we are to turn this around, the place to start is with the children who are being born today.

I hope that the Prime Minister will join with Labor in committing to closing this gap in life expectancy. In moving forward from the trauma of the stolen generations, I hope we can make our promise to Indigenous children a bipartisan one, because there is no question that support will need to come from both sides of politics if we are to close this gap within a generation.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Barry Wakelin (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important matter. The federal government is committed to addressing the traumatic legacy of past practices of Indigenous child separation. There is no doubt that these practices represent a tragic part of Australia’s history. Viewed from a present day perspective, the government has recognised that these practices were misguided and caused great suffering, and it has established programs to assist those affected to move forward. I quote there from the parliamentary secretary, who was then responding to the Bringing them home report and to the Senate report.

As the member for Jagajaga has said, this is a tragic matter and the issues of trust, child separation and all the consequences are very difficult things for a nation to come to terms with, but come to terms with it we must. The government has expressed sincere regret and recognises that pain and hurt. The committee which responded to the Bringing them home report did not produce a consensus report. The majority report of the committee, which was signed by no government member, contained 10 recommendations, of which nine were relevant to the Commonwealth. The government supported either in full or in part five of the nine recommendations. We agree with the committee’s first majority recommendation that it is timely for all relevant parties to evaluate the original response to Bringing them home. This is a longstanding process. Over that time I believe we have come a significant distance—not all the distance but a significant distance.

It is my sad duty to acknowledge in this place that, as I understand it, the removal of Indigenous children continues today. Statistics available some three or four years ago suggested that Indigenous children are six times more likely to be removed for child welfare reasons and 21 times more likely to be removed for juvenile detention reasons than non-Indigenous children. I am sure there are statistics that update those, but they still highlight the huge challenge that we in this country have, remembering of course that the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families made 54 recommendations.

In the time available to me, I acknowledge the government support that has been given to this matter over the past decade. But, in saying that, I think we need to also address the jurisdictional issues which to this day predominantly remain with the states and territories of this Commonwealth. That is by no means attempting to divert the responsibility, but we need to understand that this is a cooperative effort if we are to make the genuine progress that we must.

I conclude by acknowledging the symbolism of the 1967 referendum of 27 May, 40 years ago, and of the Bringing them home report of 10 years ago on the same date. With these issues still very much in front of us, the Weekend Australian stated:

While Aboriginals were politically enfranchised, they have been economically disenfranchised.

I challenge these ‘voices on the Left of politics,’ quoting from the Weekend Australian:

… among them the Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd, ALP president, Warren Mundine and former Labor minister Gary Johns, are promoting the cause of responsibility rather than welfare …

These are the challenges of practical reconciliation and these are the challenges of where we as a country need to go. I thank the House for the opportunity to make those remarks.

Peter Andren (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those of us who attended the 10th anniversary of the Bringing them home report—a gathering I was privileged to cohost with other House and Senate colleagues—could only have been impressed by the incredible forbearance of our Aboriginal peoples. Despite the shocking health statistics of life expectancy being no greater now than in the 1920s, despite the bitter disappointments of seeing structures of self-determination and self-governance dismantled, despite the lack of an apology for past practices that separated kids from families and set in train an intergenerational grief—despite all this and more—the Aboriginal peoples of this nation politely seek our understanding of their prior ownership of the land and ask us to support but not dictate their lives and to say sorry. Our health minister tells them to be patient.

Tens of thousands of Australians took part in the first Sorry Day in 1998, a year after the Bringing them home report was tabled in this parliament. One million people signed the Sorry Book and marched for reconciliation. A year later the journey of healing was launched. There were great expectations. But a decade later there has been no formal apology and two-thirds of the recommendations of Bringing them home have been ignored. Last week the National Heart Foundation of Australia and the Australian Medical Association reported a disturbing lack of access by Indigenous Australians to health programs, which many see as a result of institutionalised racism. It is a health system that still means an Aboriginal child in Australia is likely to die before his or her counterpart in Bangladesh dies. The difference in life span between an Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal person is around 20 years. Twenty years ago in Orange I saw how Aboriginal mothers were reluctant to take their kids, many with serious inner ear infections, to a baby health centre because of a deep suspicion, a reluctance to deal with a non-Indigenous health system, however committed the workers. It is still happening, as several reports in the past week show, which underlines the reality that mainstreaming services is not the answer. Specific training and services delivered by communities and a properly funded Aboriginal health service would seem the only way forward to address these terrible statistics.

As this motion details, the impact of the removal of children in mental health care is still having enormous social and health impacts several generations down the track. The Urbis Keys Young report into stolen generation mental health services has revealed that many counsellors are struggling with more than 80 clients each, compared with the average case load of 25 for mental health workers in mainstream society.

Why has it taken this report, stemming as it did from the stolen generations document a decade ago, to prompt the government into some action on these statistics just last week? The Urbis Keys Young report listed those continuing health and social consequences. The minister has promised 22 extra Link Up places. I learnt this morning that the New South Wales Link Up service has over 200 cases—counselling and family reunion cases—per worker. Has the government even begun to do an audit of the demand for these services? There are 8,000 Indigenous people in New South Wales waiting to go home—not only the victims of the stolen generation but a subsequent generation or more of children adopted or fostered out.

Contrast this with Canada where $4.8 billion has been set aside to meet the aftermath of that country’s child removal policies. This includes a truth and reconciliation commission charged with uncovering the whole story of the native Canadian residential school legacy. There is half a billion dollars for a healing foundation to provide proper counselling and parenting programs. And, yes, there will be compensation for every surviving stolen generation child. On top of all that there is a commitment to a national apology after the findings of the truth and reconciliation commission are handed down. Importantly, some compensation has come before the apology. There was no fear that an apology would lead to claims.

I apologise to our Indigenous peoples and call on all fair-minded Australians to insist that this vitally symbolic act of acknowledgement of pain and suffering is delivered now and that this nation sets in train a process no less comprehensive than the Canadians’ to address the long-term consequences of government policy now and past.

Kay Elson (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this motion today. Having travelled to many Aboriginal settlements in remote Australia and seen firsthand some of the serious issues these isolated communities face, I have a very strong personal interest in Aboriginal health and welfare. In the final sentences of this motion, the member for Jagajaga talks about ‘the continuing adverse social, physical and mental health outcomes’ of the so-called stolen generation. I am strongly of the opinion that the saddest and single worst ongoing outcome of the national obsession with the notion of a ‘stolen generation’ is the reluctance to remove today’s Indigenous children from living in situations that place them in extreme danger. There have been many reports about violence, sexual abuse and neglect in Aboriginal communities. We all know it exists. There have been a lot of well documented cases and much political discussion.

I myself raised this issue during a grievance debate in 1988. Back then I quoted Courier-Mail journalist Laurie Kavanagh, who at the time had said:

... the community compassion [about this issue] is exactly the same as that which drove past governments to save the lives of mixed-race children, the so-called ‘stolen generation’. I find that ironic and hope any action taken to stop the bashing of innocent Aboriginal women and children today will be seen by future generations for what it is ... community action to protect the innocent.

Unfortunately, I do not believe enough action has been taken in the past nine years since to stop the violence and the abuse in Aboriginal communities. Motions like this one that we are debating continue to dwell on perceived past injustices rather than address the concerns of today’s Indigenous women and children. The fact is there has been much injustice meted out in the past—and not just in Indigenous communities. In the same time period that the stolen generation was alleged to have taken place, we had boatloads of young English children separated from the only life that they had ever known and sent to Australia. We had a society where the adopting out of babies was forced on unmarried women. These were very different times and society had a very different approach to a whole range of matters. Unfortunately what occurred in Aboriginal communities last century has been viewed this century through a moral prism that assumes the motives of those involved in it were racist. I believe that is plain wrong.

Furthermore, the focus has been on the disadvantage that these people suffered by being separated from their families. But there has been little or no focus on the advantages they gained by being removed from what in many cases were very unhealthy and dangerous situations. It is certainly not the claimed members of the stolen generation whose children and grandchildren are the most disadvantaged Indigenous Australians at present; it is those living in remote settlements, not those in cities and regional areas. A report by the Australian Institute of Family Studies found that in 2002-03 the rates of substantiated reports of child maltreatment in Indigenous communities were, on average, 4.3 times higher than those for non-Indigenous children. In the Northern Territory it was 5.5 times higher. In South Australia it was 6.6 times higher. These are only the substantiated reports. Studies show that, especially in Indigenous communities, the majority of incidences of violence go unreported. This is the issue we should be focusing on—that and the fact that the life expectancy for Indigenous Australians is about 17 years less than for the rest of us. That is an appalling figure, and one we have to collectively work together to address.

I know how hard the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough, is working to address Aboriginal disadvantage. I think he is doing a great job. The government largely had its hands tied in the past, with ATSIC being responsible for these matters. It was a strong decision and the right decision to abolish ATSIC three years ago, and the progress that has been made since is significant. I know the minister is devoting a huge amount of time and resources and taking a holistic approach to addressing issues like housing, health, employment opportunities and changing the culture of violence. He is doing it on a community-by-community basis because he knows that a ‘one size fits all’ approach will not work. He is working closely with the state and territory governments because issues like enforcing law and order and providing educational opportunities are largely the responsibility of the states and territories. This is a constructive approach that focuses on genuine assistance—not symbolic gestures or just throwing more money at the problem. Real reconciliation will not be found in saying sorry for something done long ago by well-meaning people. Real reconciliation will not come by providing more services, as this motion calls for, to feed a guilt industry that does not actually help the most disadvantaged Indigenous people. I respectfully suggest to the member for Jagajaga that there are more serious, more pressing and more important issues today when it comes to addressing Aboriginal disadvantage than dwelling on the past—as she does with this motion. Indeed, continuing to do so actually holds back real progress in the Aboriginal community.

Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Page 48 of the Bringing them home report states:

Because [my mother] wasn’t educated, the white people were allowed to come in and do whatever they wanted to do—all she did was sign papers. Quite possibly, she didn’t even know what she signed ... The biggest hurt, I think, was having my mum chase the welfare car—I’ll always remember it—we were looking out the window and mum was running behind us and singing out for us. They locked us in the police cell up here and mum was walking up and down outside the police station and crying and screaming out for us. There was 10 of us.

It is with a mixture of both great sorrow and frustration that I rise to speak today on the motion moved by the member for Jagajaga commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Bringing them home report. I commend her for moving this motion. I would also like to commend the remarks made by the member for Calare earlier in this debate. My sorrow is caused by the fact that we as a nation had such dreadfully destructive policies, destroying the families and lives of Indigenous Australians, and impacting on the victims of forced removal. My frustration is at the lack of progress made in the decade since this report was completed. This report brought some promise to those stolen generations. They believed the heart-wrenching stories in this report would help us all to understand.

Ten years is a long time and it is a very long time for Indigenous Australians who suffered terribly at the hands of successive Australian governments who sadly perpetuated the policies of forcible removal of children from those families. It is easy for us to forget that real people are living this horrible part of Australia’s history every day. For them it is not just an anniversary that comes around every year; for them it is every hour of every day that they live with the consequences of the past. The quote that I read out a moment ago in my view demonstrates the depth of the sorrow, the depth of the trauma.

Ten years is also a long time to wait for an apology. The word ‘sorry’ costs nothing but is worth everything to those that have been wronged. A formal apology has been given by every other Australian government but not here in this place. I look forward to the not too distant future when a Labor Prime Minister will, hopefully, be in the position to deliver that long overdue apology—an apology we are dedicated to. I am very pleased that we have made that commitment. We need to draw that line in the sand to help those whose lives were ripped apart to move on and to begin healing. The victims of the stolen generation have been working very hard to overcome the problems that they inherited from this policy of forced removal. They are trying to get their lives in order to overcome additional levels of social disadvantage that the policy created.

When I was first elected to this place some 11 years ago, the inquiry that formed the basis of this report was still conducting hearings and taking evidence. As the inquiry process rolled on, it became very clear that this inquiry was long overdue for our nation as a whole, not just for the victims. Australians of all ethnic backgrounds needed to know the truth about what had happened up until the 1970s. This report dispelled the myth that these were practices from only our early days as a nation. Forced separation of Indigenous Australians from their families had been happening with the full support of governments at the time. This report shone a spotlight on one of the darkest times in our nation’s history and it gave non-Indigenous Australians some understanding of this shameful part of our history.

In my own experience, seven years ago this month, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs, of which I was member, tabled a report into Indigenous health in this chamber. Seven years later we are still seeing the same atrocious problems mentioned in the same newspaper headlines and the same poor health outcomes driven by the same lack of services and funding for Indigenous health.

We must move this debate forward. We must act to improve the lot of Indigenous Australians in health, education, employment and in their communities. We must address the generations of social disadvantage that the misguided policies of the past, including the forced removal of children, have created. We must stop the blame game. We must start providing solutions. As a parliament, we must break the cycle of our mistreatment of Indigenous Australians and work with them to move forward for the benefit of all Australians.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was chairman of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs when we got the reference for that inquiry, but I was no longer chairman by the time that inquiry reported to the parliament.

I was concerned that for a very long period successive governments in Australia were endeavouring to redress the ongoing issue of Indigenous disadvantage by throwing money at the problem. There was far too much emphasis on process rather than on outcomes. I share the concern of the honourable member for Canberra, who has just spoken, that, despite the fact that all sides of politics appreciate that it is simply unacceptable that Indigenous people do not have the same health outcomes or, for that matter, economic outcomes as other Australians, we continue to have this problem in 2007.

This government has focused on the issue of practical reconciliation. Our efforts on practical reconciliation have not always been greeted by support from members of the Indigenous community. In referring to the inappropriate process of removing Indigenous children from their homes, I think that we ought to recognise that many of those people who did what we now deem to be completely unacceptable did so for what they believed were the right reasons. We ought not to judge the actions of those people in those days by today’s standards. Having said that, what occurred was completely unacceptable.

This government does have a proud record in the area of Indigenous affairs. In my view, we have been getting many of the policy fundamentals correct. The honourable member for Canberra is correct when she says that, even though there seems to be the best will in the world, the outcomes that we have seen and continue to see are not what we would always want to achieve. When I was on that inquiry and the member for Canberra was an active participant, I became worried that what was happening so often was that, while huge amounts of money were being spent, we were not achieving the positive outcomes that everyone would want to occur. I am particularly mindful of a visit to Kintore in the Northern Territory. I think the member for Canberra was present at that time. What we saw was enough to make one’s hair stand on end.

We ought, however, to look at the positives and they are that there is an appreciation that we need more than money to redress Indigenous disadvantage. Indigenous disadvantage in 2007 is an unacceptable situation. But the government has been endeavouring, through the actions of the minister and the department, to improve the situation and I believe that there are some very bright spots on the horizon, some glimmers of hope. People like Noel Pearson, who has indicated great enthusiasm to work with governments generally, are people who have an important leadership role to play in the Indigenous community. I suspect my time is about to expire, but let me say that we must continue to do whatever we can—

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member is correct. It being 1.45 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member for Fisher will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed on a future day.