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

Yesterday in this place, members of the Australian parliament joined together to offer an apology to the stolen generations. We said sorry for the pain and suffering that flowed from the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. We said sorry to them, their families left behind and their descendants. We said sorry for the indignity and degradation inflicted on a proud people and their proud culture. We reflected on the mistreatment of Indigenous Australians and apologised for the laws and policies of successive governments which brought profound grief and loss to these, our fellow Australians, and we promised that such injustices would never happen again.

We asked that our apology be received in the spirit in which it was offered, as part of the healing of the nation. We acknowledged the past and laid claim to a new future of shared opportunity for all Australians. We did it to go some way towards righting past wrongs, to complete this unfinished business. We did it to build a new relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians based on respect, cooperation and mutual responsibility. With our apology comes our pledge for new approaches and fresh ideas to solve the enduring inequalities in health, education and employment.

Yesterday was a day that many Indigenous Australians feared they would never live to see. It was far too long coming, and for that I am sorry too. I will never forget the mixed and raw emotions so clear on the faces of those seated on the floor of Parliament House, those in the galleries and those outside on the lawns: deep sorrow and grief, of course, but also the healing emotions—relief, joy and a great and deserved pride in the Indigenous peoples of Australia. It has been a very long journey to get to this day, a long and sometimes fraught journey that has tested the will and courage of so many people. There is no denying that along the way there has been disillusionment and disappointment, but now truth and good sense have prevailed.

This journey began when brave men and women stood up and demanded justice and recognition and acknowledgement of past oppression and injustice. For too long they were ignored and disparaged, but they refused to be silenced and slowly others started listening. Over the years the momentum of reconciliation has ebbed and flowed. At times there was frustration, anger, and even despair that the road to reconciliation could be so tortuous. But the course was set. There would be no giving up. Slowly, over the decades, more and more Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, heard and understood and spoke out.

Today, as the minister responsible for Indigenous affairs, I want to acknowledge the work and commitment of all those people. It is totally impossible to name them all, but I do want to name a few: the wonderful leadership shown by the late Sir Ronald Wilson and Mick Dodson in their leadership of the inquiry that resulted in the Bringing them home report; Tom Calma, the Social Justice Commissioner of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission; Lowitja O’Donoghue, an extraordinary woman; Sir William Deane and Fred Chaney, who have persisted against great obstacles along the path of reconciliation; and our previous prime ministers Malcolm Fraser, who has joined Lowitja O’Donoghue as a patron of the Stolen Generations Alliance, Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. All of these previous prime ministers have shown such great leadership. Also, I do particularly want to mention a previous Indigenous affairs minister, Robert Tickner, who was the minister at the time when the Bringing them home inquiry began.

I want to extend my very special thanks to those who have given me such wise counsel in the consultations leading up to today, and particularly all of those members of the Stolen Generations Alliance and the National Sorry Day Committee. I will name just two people—so many gave me so much. In particular, I want to say thank you to Christine King and Helen Moran, who gave me not only wise advice but so much of themselves as well.

In my own office I want to say a very special thankyou to Rita Markwell and Helen Hambling, who made yesterday such an extraordinary experience for so many Australians, and my department, who put together all the arrangements to bring people here to Canberra, to make sure that the day could be the special day that it was. I want to add my particular thanks to everyone at Reconciliation Australia, who for so long have done so much but who, in the last couple of months, have really helped many, many Australians—Indigenous and non-Indigenous—to come to the heart of what we were trying to do in the very special celebrations that we had in the country.

In 1996, the then Governor-General Sir William Deane delivered the inaugural Lingiari lecture in Darwin. He recounted the story of Vincent Lingiari, who in 1966 defied the bosses and led members of the Gurindji tribe off Wave Hill station, where they worked for a pittance as stockmen. At nearby Wattie Creek they established a settlement called Daguragu. This unprecedented strike began as a protest against appalling working and living conditions but crystallised into a demand for the return of the Gurindji’s traditional lands. In fact, when the Gurindji were later offered money to return to work, Vincent Lingiari replied: ‘You can keep your gold; we just want our land back.’ The Wave Hill strike lasted seven years. It became a potent national symbol of the struggle for Aboriginal land rights. To this day it continues to be a powerful symbol.

What happened at Daguragu and the subsequent ceremonial return of the land by the then Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, was a turning point in Indigenous and non-Indigenous history. Who can forget the image of Gough spilling a handful of Daguragu soil into Vincent Lingiari’s outstretched hand—the symbolic gesture marking the coming home of country? Who would deny the significance of that simple symbolic gesture—Gough, known to the Gurindji as ‘that big man’, handing back Daguragu soil to the Gurindji people and their children forever? It is a symbol as quintessentially Australian and as much part of our national story as the poetry of Banjo Paterson and the paintings of Emily Kngwarreye.

Much has been said and written in the past few weeks about symbolism and its significance. Some people have argued that this symbolic act of saying sorry will somehow undermine or even replace the practical, on-the-ground reforms needed to fix up the huge gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. I believe the exact opposite is true. Saying sorry gives us the impetus to move on. It means we can get on with the huge job of closing the gap. Yes, it is a symbolic gesture, but one that I certainly passionately believe will allow us all to tackle the substance of the issue—that is, to remove the crippling inequalities that exist between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. True reconciliation can never be achieved without Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians recognising and dealing with the wrongs of the past, the dispossession, the oppression and the degradation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This has been the common thread running through the hundreds of conversations I have had with Aboriginal people over the last few months.

Another underlying sentiment has been their extraordinarily generous willingness to accept the apology in the spirit in which it has been offered. For me this has been probably the most inspiring and humbling thing about the occasion—the dignity and humanity of their assurance as they said to me, ‘As you say sorry, we forgive.’ Our apology is not about imposing guilt or shame on this generation of Australians; it is not about attributing personal blame. Rather, it is an expression of sorrow for the cruel injustices of the past. It is an understanding that the past cannot be denied or set aside. We spent decades dismissing or ignoring the past and now we have had the courage to face up to it. Having done that, we can learn from it and never make the same mistakes again. We can become an Australia that knows and profoundly understands the complexities of the past—the good and the bad—an Australia that admits that past government policies damaged Indigenous families, that comprehends the pain and devastation of the children who were removed and the relentless grief of their parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles. We want to be a nation which, having failed to enter into their hearts and minds, now feels and shares that loss and grief.

For the stolen generations, the past is a constant and painful presence that never leaves them. For all of us who have read the pages of the Bringing them home report, which documents the systematic removal of up to 100,000 Indigenous children from their families, these harrowing stories are revealed. It contains just some of the stories of the children forcibly removed in the 60 years between 1910 and 1970. Children were taken from their mothers and fathers on the basis of their race under laws that allowed this practice. Their stories have a common theme of hurt, loss, grief and a common lament that they are forever visited by this sad and troubled past. It was so live and painful yesterday for so many people. For them, the past can never be a distant country.

The past shapes our national character and identity. As a nation we are just as much defined by past wrongs and injustices as we are by past acts of courage and heroism. As Sir William Deane so eloquently puts it: the basic fact is that national shame as well as national pride can and should exist in relation to past acts and omissions, at least when done in the name of the community or with the authority of government. Where there is no room for national pride or national shame about the past, there can be no national soul.

What happened here in Parliament House yesterday marked the beginning of a new partnership between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, a partnership of mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility. Through this partnership we can drive reforms to close the gap that divides us. The responsibility for a just and equitable future for Indigenous Australians falls on all of our shoulders. We know that despite the ambitions of the 1967 referendum, the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians remains dramatically worse than the rest of the community. Many still endure inadequate health services, overcrowded and substandard housing, poor access to education and barriers to getting a job. Alcohol and drugs are crippling Indigenous communities, there are entrenched health problems—and so the list goes on.

We know that it is our task together to address these problems. The government does fully comprehend the enormity of closing this gap on life expectancy, educational achievement and employment opportunities, and we know that it can only be done by working with Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia, all of us working together. Clearly the old approaches have failed, and that is a responsibility we all have to shoulder. What we need is a new era of cooperation and responsibility and a new way of doing things. That is why we have set ourselves concrete targets to make sure that the fundamentals of decent life—good health, nutrition, a safe and comfortable, high-quality education, an opportunity to share in the dividends of the economy through work—are shared by Indigenous Australians.

Within a decade we have pledged to halve the gap in mortality rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children under the age of five. In the same period we have pledged to halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy through the comprehensive package focusing on early childhood development. (Time expired)

Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, congratulations on your elevation to this spot. It is good to see a woman like you in this position; thank you.

Where do I start? There are some in my electorate who want me to stand here and apologise on their behalf for a period in our history we have coined ‘the stolen generations’. There are others who are equally emphatic that there is nothing to apologise for. There are some who say an apology is a personal thing and that I do not have the moral authority to be so presumptuous as to apologise on their behalf. There are some who simply do not care one way or another—and then there are those who expect to see the words before we go to parliament. Somewhere in that continuum rests the ideal solution.

So, after giving it much thought, I decided that I could only speak for myself, and those who agree with me or disagree with me are entitled to their thoughts. I have had a long association with local Aboriginal communities, especially through their elders, and I want to especially thank Auntie Nola Roberts for her mentoring, advice and friendship.

When my own daughter was born in the hospital some 46 years ago I was asked if I would breastfeed another baby, a beautiful Aboriginal child who I desperately wanted to adopt and who is now a well respected member of the community and a mother in her own right. During the time of the reconciliation walk I, Joanna Gash, did apologise for those inhumane acts perpetrated on Aboriginal families through government policy prevailing at that time. However, I do not recall anyone at the time saying: thanks, Jo, that really meant something. In fact, the apology imperative had become so ritualised by that time that any sincerity expressed took a back seat.

Today as we stand here uttering sorry, I wonder how many of us are doing so because we really feel it—or we are just doing it as a grand gesture? I come from Europe, Holland, where Anne Frank, a Jewess, suffered through oppression of her race. She suffered vilification, hatred, was hunted down, captured and eventually exterminated. Europe has a long history of ethnic oppression and vilification, and so too do Africa, Asia, the Americas and every other continent and landmass in the world, with the exception perhaps of the Antarctic. It is an inherent human trait to dominate each other but it is also an inherently human trait to learn and to change.

As we grow older and learn from our experiences, our views change. Our evolving individual maturity is no different to the society that we share. We grow, we learn, we evolve and part of that evolutionary process is to recognise that some of the things that we did in our past were not right and that they caused harm. Over time our society, like every other society throughout mankind, has matured and will continue to do so.

At the time, the stolen generation intervention may have been seemed appropriate to the larger white population. To those that were subject to the intervention, it was an entirely different matter and remains so today. In fact, we can draw similar parallels with what is happening in some of our homes today where the government decrees that a child must be removed from dysfunctional and harmful households, ostensibly for the good of the child. Who is right and who is wrong? Only time will tell. But I can guarantee this: the authorities today, like those of 50 years ago or more, thought they had right on their side and acted within their consciences. I have no doubt that there were genuine cases at the time, warranting this type of intervention, and there were other cases that were totally unwarranted, unnecessary and counterproductive. I suspect that many Aboriginal children, removed from their families by the state, were removed arbitrarily almost as a form of process and procedure rather than through any perception of threat to their individual welfare. Simply put, it appears the state wanted to raise them as ‘whites’. Was it fair? Was it justified? Was it beneficial? In the fullness of time, the prevailing mood is that we need to move on, but, until we apologise to those genuinely aggrieved, we will be held back by the lack of it.

I note that the state governments have all apologised in their own right and that leaves only the Commonwealth. But, I would like to emphasise the need for this gesture to be seen as genuine and not contrived. If I am part of a parliament making this apology, in all its sincerity, then I do not want it to be exploited for another agenda. My apology is offered in good faith so that we can all grow together undivided with forgiveness from the beneficiaries of our apology. Until there is a full moral reconciliation, the era of the stolen generations will remain like a millstone around our collective necks. So, to those that were unjustifiably and immorally taken from their families, I am sorry for the injustices that you have suffered. I am sorry that we as a nation are not mature enough to see that we were misguided.

I call upon those aggrieved victims to find it in their hearts to forgive and to have the maturity and courage to acknowledge that those not involved should not be punished for the sins of their fathers. It is time for the wounds to heal and I want to be part of the healing process. It is now time for leadership. We want to know, after this apology, what next? How will the circumstances change? What changes will be made by the Rudd government? I was very pleased to see the bipartisan support for that committee, not just in words but in constructive actions and positive results, so we as Australians can walk the same path together. It makes me feel ashamed when I hear of the reports of abuse and that I can do nothing about it. I apologise to Joyce Donovan of the victim support group in the Illawarra and thank her and her supporters for the excellent work they do. I apologise that I have still not achieved the safe house for women.

The question I ask is: will this apology stop drug and alcohol abuse, stop child abuse, resolve the homeless problem, stop domestic violence, stop the high rate of infant mortality, stop all those things that have plagued the Indigenous community so long that even their leaders are saying, enough is enough? This is a question that is equally directed at both the government and the Aboriginal community. What can we do to stop all this?

In conclusion, can I mention that the Bomaderry Mission, in my electorate of Gilmore, will be 100 years old in May and they were not invited to the parliament for the apology. They were very upset about that.

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

by leave—I thank honourable members opposite for their generosity in allowing me to continue my remarks on the apology to the stolen generations. To do this we must recognise that what works in the Pitjantjatjara lands will not automatically work in Redfern. What is needed is a flexible, innovative approach that factors in the specific circumstances of each Indigenous community to achieve our national objectives. We have already started. We are providing comprehensive funding for child and maternal health services, early development and parenting support, and literacy and numeracy in the early years. Health services are being improved and expanded. This includes upgrading remote health clinics and extending sexual assault counselling and renal dialysis services. We are prioritising the expansion of alcohol detoxification and rehabilitation services across the Northern Territory to deliver more detox beds and more health workers to treat people who have alcohol addiction. We are also expanding sobering-up shelters in Katherine and Tennant Creek so that alcohol abusers can be accommodated in a safe environment. Over the next five years we will make sure that every Indigenous four-year-old has access to early childhood education with proper pre-literacy and pre-numeracy programs. Giving Indigenous children the best chance for a bright future requires a sound foundation of education and training. Literacy and numeracy are the building blocks, but currently the performance of Indigenous children often falls behind. To improve attendance rates at school we are funding 200 additional teachers in the Northern Territory and working with all state and territory governments to boost attendance and to make sure there are enough classrooms. We know the practical challenges are immense. It is a big job; but we must, and I am convinced we can, get it right.

Yesterday also signalled what I truly hope will be a new era of bipartisan support for Indigenous issues. This is too important to be politicised. We must all rise above politics. As the Prime Minister said, we should ‘elevate this one core area of national responsibility to a rare position beyond the partisan divide’. As a sign of our commitment to a fresh, bipartisan approach, we are proposing a joint policy commission to be chaired by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. Our first task is to develop and implement an effective housing strategy for remote communities over the next five years. Housing is vital to closing the gap. You cannot improve people’s health or give Indigenous kids a good education or expect them to be part of the workforce if they do not have a decent roof over their heads—proper housing so that children can sleep safely at night, so they can do their homework when they get home from school, where mums and dads can raise their kids without the pressures of the severe overcrowding that currently exists.

As I said at the outset, this has been a very long time coming. It has not been an easy journey. At times it seemed that we would not make it and the fact is that, when we did, we gave testimony to the strength, courage and determination of many, many people. The same strength, courage and determination will be needed for the tough task ahead. I have no illusions about the extent and complexity of the challenge that lies before us, but neither do I doubt that it has to be done. And no-one should ever doubt the government’s resolve to get that job done.

It is our passion to build a fair and just Australia so that we have a nation where a child growing up in Sydney or a child growing up in the Kimberley can look forward to the same future, where it does not matter, it does not make any difference, whether you were born in the bush or in the city; a nation where good health and a decent education do not depend on geography or race and where opportunity stretches right across this huge country of ours, from Bidyadanga to Wreck Bay; a nation where all our children can look back at the past with honesty and pride and understand that on 13 February 2008 Australia was big enough to squarely face the wrongs of the past, to say sorry and to move on; a nation where all of our children recognise the significance of that day in the desert when the ‘big man’ gave back the ancient Gurindji land and the sand trickled through Vincent Lingiari’s fingers; and a nation where all of us can go forward together as true friends and equals.

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I add my congratulations to those already extended to you. Colleagues, yesterday was a momentous day for all Australians and for this parliament. This House was the scene of a long-overdue but ultimately powerful bipartisan resolve to express our nation’s collective sorrow to the stolen generations, and I fully endorse that motion. I am sure this House was deeply moved, as I was, by the rapt attention with which that scene was viewed yesterday by the whole nation. To understand the depth of hurt and suffering felt by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people requires each of us to open our hearts and to ask ourselves this question: how would we feel if our children or our grandchildren were taken from us because of the colour of our skin or our cultural background? In making that empathetic leap, we discover true sympathy.

The narrative that led to the forcible removal of the children of Indigenous Australians is complex and deeply disturbing. Having been dispossessed of the land, they were then remorselessly driven from every landscape that offered potential benefit to the white man, even from those reservations grudgingly allotted to them by government. No homeland was sacrosanct to the black man if it was capable of supporting agriculture or yielding up precious metals. Gone was hunting, gone was gathering, gone was country and therefore gone were the elements that gave expression to Aboriginal culture. In their place came fringe dwelling, destitution, disease and dependency and, worst of all, a deep and abiding depression of the spirit.

But it must not be assumed, as it is commonly assumed, that Aboriginal subjection and collapse happened overnight. There is evidence in abundance of Aboriginal efforts to participate in the economy of the time. In Western Australia—for I am more familiar with the historical narrative in my own state—not a few took up seasonal work on farms and participated in the arduous clearing and fencing of land for agriculture; otherwise they were left to eke out a meagre living from stripping bark and hunting possums, but not for long. Successive waves of immigration led to increasing demands for lands and, in turn, further marginalisation of Aboriginal communities. Inevitably, tensions with white settlers increased and the relationship became hostage to downturns in the economy.

By 1913 the Western Australian government succumbed to political pressure with a demand ‘to segregate all Aborigines onto state-owned farms and total abolition of private employment of Aborigines.’ Even bark stripping and possum hunting became subject to government sanctions. Deteriorations of relations led to massacres, kidnapping and the selling of Aboriginals, including women and children, into what was tantamount to slavery. Mrs Mary Bennett, publisher of The Australian Aboriginal as a human being report to the Australian Board of Missions, was quoted in the West Australian newspaper:

I have just returned from a year’s investigations in the Kimberley where, as in other parts of Western Australia and the Federal Territory—where women have neither human rights nor protection if they are native or half-castes—slavery is in operation and there is white slave traffic in black women.

Mary Bennett went on to criticise severely the failure of government policy, saying:

…it pays the white man to dispossess the natives of their land wholesale. The compulsion is dispossession and starvation reinforced by violence …

Inevitably relationships between black women and non-Aboriginal men led to increasing numbers of half-caste children, who were left fatherless by state laws which prohibited interracial cohabitation. The quality of the relationship was not considered material. Administrators like AO Neville fervently believed that these children were better off being taken from their mothers and placed in state-run institutions.

Much has been written of government policies administered in Western Australia by Mr AO Neville and subsequently reprised in other states and territories. Though driven in part by the Victorian prejudices and mores of his time and his interest in miscegenation, Neville fought fervently with his superiors for the establishment and retention of state-run institutions and for the proper funding of staffing, supplies, maintenance, education and training opportunities. Not only did his pleas to government fall on deaf ears; they led to flat rejection. Nevertheless he continued to plead successfully for proper funding of his wretched department throughout his long career. In a report to government in 1930, Neville wrote:

… many of the old people were unable to withstand the privations due to hard times and sickness. The loss of child life was greater than ever. Epidemic diseases are bound to cause numerous deaths amongst a people compelled to live under conditions such as those under which our natives exist.

His biographer, Pat Jacobs, in her landmark account gives graphic descriptions of conditions prevailing in state institutions, with inadequate food and unduly harsh punishment, sometimes of very young children. The so-called protectors were anything but.

Throughout the history of tragic events there were many heroes, black and white, who fought for justice and worked in practical ways with Aboriginal communities, writing to ministers and giving evidence before royal commissions. The history of the stolen generation was forensically documented in our time in the Bringing them home report in 1997 by Sir Ronald Wilson, former High Court judge and president of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Who, on reading that report, could not be deeply moved by the harrowing accounts of those who gave evidence? Almost a decade after, we are only now beginning to discern the full extent of the tragedy that has overtaken the Indigenous culture. We are beginning to appreciate that the symbolism of an apology in no way excludes the implementation of practical reconciliation policies. Rather, it facilitates them—yes, indeed, it facilitates them.

It was never a reasonable or fair argument, in my view, to deny an apology for fear of consequences. Justice must be done to our Indigenous peoples, and if consequences follow then they must be faced up to. This is fundamental to our system of law. The proposed bipartisan commission announced by the Prime Minister, the Hon. Kevin Rudd, yesterday is a welcome development to which I give my enthusiastic endorsement. I congratulate the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, who has now left the chamber, for the dignified way in which the proceedings have been undertaken in this House over the last two days.

My enthusiasm I owe in no small part to my distinguished predecessor in the seat of Pearce, the Hon. Fred Chaney, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, 1978-80. Fred Chaney has dedicated all of his adult life to engaging with Aboriginal people and speaking out for them on matters of social justice. I was pleased to see his presence in this great parliament over the last few days, for this House has produced no more fervent advocate of Indigenous rights than Fred Chaney. It is a privilege to be able to recall his service on this profound occasion.

Author and journalist Stuart Rintoul recalls that in 1909 the Aboriginal travelling protector James Isdell wrote in official correspondence:

I would not hesitate for one moment to separate any half-caste from its aboriginal mother, no matter how frantic her momentary grief might be at the time. They soon forget their offspring.

Mr Deputy Speaker, and to my colleagues in this place, through you: how could they forget? Yesterday was atonement by all of us who have been guilty of forgetting, denying and delaying. Can anyone imagine, having witnessed the outpouring of emotion by our Indigenous brothers and sisters, that they could ever erase from their memories the cruel and intolerable circumstances, all of them legally sanctioned, that were visited upon them? In such circumstances, would we have forgotten?

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, congratulations on taking up this onerous and very responsible task.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the member for Pearce and her contribution, which I thought was insightful and heartfelt, and also the member for Jagajaga and her contribution this morning. I think we have seen a great deal of strong leadership being shown on both sides of the parliament in the last 24 hours. One wonders why it took so long. A simple operation yesterday, really, just to say sorry—not difficult, not hard, a very simple exercise when it all comes down to it.

Yesterday we began in the 42nd Parliament a tradition; we had an event which is certain to become a tradition. We showed respect to the Aboriginal owners of the country on which this place sits and we acknowledged their ownership. The Prime Minister described the welcome to country as significant and, indeed, it is. But it was superseded by the monumental significance of the apology made yesterday to the stolen generations. It is significant for each and every one of those individuals affected by these past practices and those beyond them, but it is also significant for all of us, for all Australians, and it is profoundly significant for me.

Past policy in this area was wrong and people suffered. The words spoken in apology by the Prime Minister and others have been moving, respectful, as the member for Pearce has just demonstrated, and even noble. I want to support what has been said eloquently and evocatively by many speakers in the last 24 hours and to add some of my own reflections, far more personal in nature—personal because they derive from my 30-plus years of mixing with families in the Northern Territory affected by the assimilationist and racist policies of past governments. I have shared their range of emotions, from their happiness as adults reminiscing about shared childhood times to their sadness at the loss, the hurt, the loneliness, the confusion and the anger that they sometimes feel—and paradoxically, illogically, but no less genuinely, their guilt.

What is yet to be fully recognised is that many stolen generation members share what other victims of wrongdoing often feel or are made to feel—that they are somehow to blame for what has happened. Even more painful for some is the doubt and guilt they can feel as they attempt to build their own family life. The people institutionalised were denied learning about families and later in life they have no experience to draw on as partners and parents. Often, as we know, they themselves were subject to abuse. People I have come to know well over the years speak of the anxieties and, perversely, their guilt in having to guess how to deal with the difficulties of parenthood.

By saying sorry, the government is finally helping the victims—the children, the parents, the brothers, the sisters, the aunties, the uncles—to move on, to leave behind the dark clouds of doubt or guilt that they may have burdened their lives with for so long. In saying sorry to these people, the parliament has performed that duty. Our nation’s apology is significant and meaningful. Sorry: simple to say, complex in its significance.

The Bringing them home report documented the many personal stories of people removed and of the mothers and families who suffered from the removal of their children. The stories are from throughout Australia, but I am very familiar with many of the stories of those from the Northern Territory. There is one person whose life and times have mirrored the story of the stolen generations in the Territory, and that is Alec Kruger. Alec was on the floor of the chamber yesterday. His recently published book, Alone on the Soaks—The Life and Times of Alec Kruger, which was co-authored with Gerard Waterford, reveals a great deal about how the removal of children happened in the Northern Territory and its effect on the lives of so many, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike. I was taken by Alec’s words early in his book. When commenting on his reaction to the premiere of Rabbit-Proof Fence, that very excellent film, Alec writes:

I was nervous that people around us would think less of us. That it would feed the idea it was somehow our fault and we could have done something about it.

I have spoken earlier about how the burden of unjustified guilt can be destructive. I believe that yesterday, the parliament saying sorry, giving a united voice to that word, went a long way to eradicating that crushing burden. Yes, finally, the burden has come back to rest on government and government policy.

Any fair-minded person reading any of the available evidence is shocked and repelled by what was done not in the name of welfare but in the name of assimilation. As historian Dr Peter Read, from the ANU, noted when studying the New South Wales Aborigines Protection Act 1909:

White children too were removed from their parents. But white single mothers could apply for a pension to look after their own children.

Children could be committed to a suitable relative and they could be returned after a period of good behaviour.

Institutionalised children could be returned home for holidays.

No such provisions existed under the Aborigines Protection Act 1909 NSW, for its intention was to separate children from their parents (and their race) permanently.

It is only in recent times that we as a nation have realised what happened to many people—people alive today, people many of us know, people who have been here in Canberra this week.

When in 1990 Barbara Cummings, from the Northern Territory, completed her research into the removal of children and their institutionalisation, with its publication as Take this Child, many of us realised how little we knew of that part of our history. We realised how little we knew of the extensive attempts to destroy Aboriginal family life and traditions. Many people in the Northern Territory were shocked to learn of the systematic way in which a separation was undertaken.

Boys from Central Australia, people I know, adult men of my own age, were institutionalised in the Top End, often on Croker Island or at Garden Point in the Tiwi Islands. Michael Long is an example. Michael Long’s father came from Ti-Tree and was taken to Croker Island and eventually to the Tiwi Islands. Boys from the Top End were sent to ‘the bungalow’ in Alice Springs, thereby ensuring complete absence of any family contact. The now infamous removal of children en masse from Phillip Creek, outside of Tennant Creek, and the journey to Darwin, over 1,000 kilometres in the back of an open truck on dirt roads, in those days, shows the lengths that the authorities went to to ensure permanent separation. Regrettably, and sadly, they were successful in many instances.

Even now, people in their 50s and 60s and even older are finding their family and family members for the first time since they were forcibly separated. For some the reunion is too hard; the damage is permanent. For others many years of no contact, of being told, ‘Your mother wanted nothing to do with you. She didn’t love you and she didn’t care,’ evoked anger and confusion in the stolen offspring rather than the desire for reunion. Reunion that has occurred was often slow, tenuous, fragile. For many others adopted or fostered interstate, often into uncaring and abusive situations, linking back up with the family was never an available option. To all of them, the parliament has said sorry.

Alec Kruger’s account of his first reunion with his mother is interesting. Alec was taken perhaps as a three-year-old in 1927. Fifteen years later, more or less by accident, he met his mother for the first time since his separation. He was then wearing an army uniform. He ended up in Katherine and was directed to the Aboriginal compound on the outskirts of the town. Alec writes:

It had been more than fifteen years since I had been snatched and taken away by the police. For my mother to have me back standing in front of her must have been a tremendous shock.

... I didn’t have a lot of experience dealing with strong emotions. Institutions, stockwork and then the army had toughened me up to shut down anything too hard. It had been such a long time since I had felt my mother’s hug or any family affection, not since I was too young to remember.

Hugs and affection were not to be the inheritance of many Aboriginal people from the Territory and from many other parts of Australia.

I think it is difficult for us to understand this—those of us who are parents, who have children, who come from families where love is part of existence and the absolute bedrock on which we base our lives. Yet these young people, Alec Kruger among them, were taken, separated forever effectively. To finally gain that acquaintance again, to come in contact with the family, how difficult it must be. I know of the heartfelt work of many who are involved in linking families together and eventually the positive rewards, the emotion that occurs as a result of that work.

We know how the arts have become a place for people to talk, to demonstrate their feeling about these things. Musicians—among them Bobby Randall, who was on the floor here yesterday, and Archie Roach—have given us hauntingly sorrowful, emotional songs about these experiences. They have played their very important part in the national recognition of what happened and what needed to be done. Now let that apology, that sorry, ring around the nation.

It is very difficult in my circumstances to actually convey the depth of feeling that exists within me, within my family and within many people that I work and live with about how important yesterday was. That is why, when I saw the emotion in the media last night of people actually joyfully crying, one wonders why we could not do it before. What is it that prevented us doing it? Happily, though, it has been done.

And now we have the challenges before us. We have said more than sorry. I have been working in and out of this place for 20 years, and for all of those years I have talked about Indigenous poverty. For all of those years I have talked about Indigenous education, health and housing. At last there is a beacon, a beacon which was lit by the Prime Minister yesterday, a commitment in the form of this commission which will involve the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister himself to unify and find a way to deal with the intransigence that exists with many of these policies.

Mr Deputy Speaker, unfortunately my time has run out, but I have to say to you that I am immensely proud to have been here yesterday. I am immensely proud to be part of a Rudd Labor government which is forging this new pathway ahead. It will be difficult. We should not underestimate the task in front of us. I would just say to you, and I say to the parliament and anyone else who might be listening, that we cannot do it on our own. We can only do it in partnership. We can only do it if we show respect to the Indigenous people of this country and work with them. We should not treat them as third-party objects; they should be treated as partners in the process. Too often in the past they have been the subject of policy, the objects of policy, and the stolen generations are but one example. I reaffirm again my commitment to the task that is before us and my support for that great deed that was done in this parliament yesterday.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am the member for the Victorian seat of McMillan—and I am sorry. McMillan is geographically beautiful but has the same history of the destruction of Indigenous culture and community as much of this great southern part of the land of Australia. I am sorry for what has happened. The Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs said only a few minutes ago that one of the responses to her yesterday was: ‘As you say sorry, we forgive. Forgiveness is freedom, a licence to move forward.’ Those are my words, not hers. In fact, the sentiment of forgiveness being freedom and a licence to move forward is a glimpse of a better tomorrow for many people, particularly for Indigenous people but also, of course, for non-Indigenous people. Freedom abounded yesterday in this House.

I have been completely taken aback by the experience of yesterday—and I do not come to this matter newly born. The member for Pearce mentioned former senator and member of the House of Representatives Fred Chaney. Fred Chaney was a close friend of Barry Simon, the former member for McMillan. I was taken by the scruff of the neck by both men early on in my political activity and addressed this issue, because I came from a community in small town country Victoria where seldom would we come across an Indigenous person or have to address these issues. The issue did not come before me to be confronted, and now we have been confronted with this issue. The nation was confronted with this issue, and the people of the nation responded in a way that we can only be proud of. The momentum that grew over the 10-day or two-week period culminated in yesterday. As Greg Combet, the member for Charlton, and I walked out of the building in procession to the Senate, I said to him: ‘You can come to this House and stay for 23 years and you may never experience another day like today. You may never experience this, and it is an honour to be in this House at this time.’

I have been taken aback by the responses not only from those who have spoken on the issue, such as the Prime Minister—and I applaud him—and the Leader of the Opposition. I note the magnanimous and magnificent way in which the Prime Minister stretched out his hand in a bipartisan manner and then walked in unity with the Leader of the Opposition across to the Indigenous elders. It was a moment to behold, one recognised by the nation. The speech I wrote five days ago was a speech to draw my colleagues, whether they be Liberal, Labor, Independent, Demcrat or Green, together to take to the table for yesterday’s sitting. But that happened as a consequence of yesterday and there was no need for that speech because so many, in unity, came to a place in their hearts and their minds where they saw this nation’s heart crying out for a decision of intent, a decision in unity and a decision for both the individual parliamentarian and the corporate being of the parliament. They came in bipartisan concern over an issue that has been gurgling around in this nation for too long. In a symbolic way it was dealt with yesterday as the Prime Minister of this nation spoke the initial words of the apology. But the words of the scribes in our newspapers have really grabbed my attention. Tony Wright, writing in his column today, says:

Never, perhaps, has a deeper silence descended upon a prime ministerial speech in the House of Representatives.

In the crowded galleries above the gathered representatives, a handkerchief fluttered here, a hand moved to brush away a tear there. An old woman laid a comforting arm around the shoulders of—who knows, her daughter? Eyes were drawn to each of these small stirrings because all else was still, as if the whole place was holding its breath.

“For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

“To the mothers and fathers, the brothers and sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.”

Here was the word, used twice in two quick sentences by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, that everybody in those ranked, packed galleries had come to hear. There was, quite audibly, the exhalation of breath.

That same release—the hope of an expulsion, really, of a national burden—could be felt across the country, in public gatherings before giant screens in places such as Melbourne’s Federation Square and Sydney’s Martin Place, to clubs and parks in small towns and school classrooms ...

In Inverloch 40 people gathered on the beach at the time that the Prime Minister and the opposition leader were making their address. Forty people from my electorate were on that beach in Inverloch: a mixed group of people, one that would not be joined on any other issue, the idea, driven out of the Uniting Church grabbed hold of by the thought of reconciliation of the nation. Forty people were standing on a beach and they were equally as important as the thousands who were out the front of this building. How many other 40s were around Tasmania? How many were around New South Wales, Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia? We know of many.

How many souls were simply on their own celebrating the moment? How many who were on their own stopped and said, ‘Thank God for that; thank God we’ve done that’? They probably did not have a badge. They would not have had a T-shirt. They would not have had friends to hug. But I bet there were more than a million who stopped on their own and said: ‘This nation has moved. This nation has done something.’ A friend—a good friend—of mine rang me the other day and said, ‘Don’t apologise for me.’ He does not identify, and I do not think any of us can. We can have empathy, we can have concern and we can talk about the issue, but we cannot know the loss of a child or the removal of a child. My only experience of that is seeing a whole family completely disintegrate after a car accident, which I was in, when my friend was lost. There was complete disintegration. They had all the support and money that they needed, but the family disintegrated. What would it be like if you had none of that support? I do not pretend that I know how that would feel. It is like saying to a mum with a disabled child, ‘I know what you’re going through.’ You do not. You do not live it 24 hours a day.

I wanted something, and then I ran across the sports pages of the Age and the story of Syd Jackson was there. I can identify with Syd Jackson. He is one of the greatest footballers I have ever seen pull on a boot, along with Barry Cable and others mentioned in this article. But when you read it, you can identify:

‘A lot of my friends passed away early because they’d had a pretty tough life, and even now, I’m forever going to funerals in connection with people I knew at a young age,’ Jackson said.

‘I always wonder where I’d be without football ...’

But also:

... six decades after he was taken from his mother’s back at the age of three in Leonora in central WA—Jackson will welcome the long-awaited apology to his people from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as a chance for the nation to truly embrace reconciliation.

But he also will feel for his cultural brothers and sisters, including his own two siblings, who were never given a chance like him to also have a meaningful identity.

‘People win cases after being wrongly put in jail and are given compensation, while we’ve had the same thing for generations,’ Jackson said yesterday.

‘I was lucky because I got some support, but there are many faceless people without identities who did not have access to the social benefits this so-called lucky country had to offer. They just disappeared from the community.

‘They had police problems, no jobs and just couldn’t get on in life and they should be compensated. But I don’t know what adequate is and it will never be enough because they lost their family, their language and their culture and have been discriminated against all their lives in terms of those social benefits.’

It is an article that you really have to grab hold of and read. The report continues, and this is the piece that really grabbed hold of me:

But he now believes the message of apology will help ease the pain.

‘People look at me walking around in my suit and doing my work and wouldn’t get close to understanding the grief I carry around in my head every day,’ he said.

The grief he carries around in his head every day. I have to refer to Mike Steketee’s article. He says:

Research quoted in the 1997 Bringing Them Home report by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission gives the lie to those who argue that most children were rescued rather than stolen. Some, particularly those placed with families rather than in institutions, did receive greater opportunities than otherwise. But that did not necessarily make up for losing their parents. The studies found that indigenous people removed as children were less likely to be in a stable relationship with a partner, twice as likely to report having been arrested and convicted, three times as likely to have been in jail and twice as likely to report drug use. Their health was worse and they were disproportionately represented in Aboriginal deaths in custody.

There is much evidence to support all of that.

As the member for McMillan, I said I was sorry. As a member of this great House, I was proud to be a participant yesterday. But I believe this is a first step. It is unburdening for me and this nation to put yesterday behind us, and we can engage the day with a view to a brighter future, a future with hope for many. However, that deserves the response not only of the bipartisan commission that has been outlined but also of this parliament as we address the issues that have been raised by others this day. As Sir William Deane said, we will not have achieved our goals until such time as a black baby has the equal opportunity of a white baby in Australia.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Many words have been said on this motion and many more will be said before it passes this chamber. I do not profess that there is anything I can say that will add to that debate. I do not profess that there is anything I can say that will be more eloquent than what was said by those who have come before me or those who will go after me, certainly not more eloquent than the Prime Minister yesterday. We just heard another eloquent contribution from the honourable member for McMillan.

Yesterday was a very emotional day. I was prouder yesterday than the day I was elected to this House; I was prouder yesterday than the day I was sworn in as a minister in this government—proud to be associated with the Prime Minister and with a government which has taken this action and proud to be a member of the chamber, which stood as one on that moment. It would be a matter of some regret for me if, after I left this House, I were to say to somebody that I was there for the apology motion but I did not speak, and I am not going to let that happen. Even though I do not propose to detain the House for very long, I do want to speak on this motion and add my apology, my personal apology, to that which the Prime Minister gave on my behalf and on behalf of all members.

Between 1910 and 1970, between one in 10 and one in three young Aboriginal children were removed from their families. Some went to a loving environment and were nurtured in their new homes; most were not. None of them were removed for any other reason than their colour and their race, and that means that the motives of those who did the removing, at the end of the day, are in some senses irrelevant. The fact that they were removed from their families, their loving families, because of their race is something that we need to be sorry for and something that we are sorry for as a parliament and as a government.

On 22 February 1933, JA Carrodus, who was Secretary of the Department of Interior of the Commonwealth, said: ‘The policy of mixing half-castes with whites for the purpose of breeding out their colour is that adopted by the Commonwealth government.’ It is appropriate that this parliament apologise for that offensive, stomach-turning policy which was carried out in our name as a nation. No parent who has not experienced it can begin to imagine the heartache and the gut-wrenching, stomach-turning sense of loss of the parents who watched their children being removed or came back to find their children gone; nor can we begin to imagine the psychological impact on children who had this done to them.

Those affected do not have to imagine it; they live it every day, still. They will live it every day that they are on this planet. We are therefore forced to imagine it if we can even begin to. As former Prime Minister Keating said, ‘It seems to me that if we can imagine the injustice then we can imagine its opposite.’ We can have justice. It will require imagination and goodwill. The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition yesterday invited us to imagine it with them and, as the member for McMillan said, the Prime Minister extended the hand of friendship to the Leader of the Opposition and asked him to come with us on that journey.

The state is a continuum: members change, members come and go, ministers come and go. As a member of that continuing entity—the state, the government and the parliament—I apologise. As a parent who cannot begin to imagine what the parents went through, I am sorry.

We hear a lot today about early childhood, about the importance of the first years of life and about how somebody’s chances in life are determined by the time they are three. Can we begin to imagine what we did to the chances of those people who were ripped from their families at very early ages? If it happened today, the eyes of the world would be upon us. If it happened today, we would be regarded as a pariah. There would be sanctions, we would be cut off from the world community—rightly so. But it happened at a different time. The fact that it was a different time does not excuse it. There were people who argued at the time that this was wrong. There were people, white and black, who said, ‘This cannot be allowed to continue.’ There were people who, despite the norms of the time, said, ‘This is offensive.’ They were not listened to. They were right.

But now we must build on this apology and move on. We must tackle the issues of child mortality, life expectancy, education, health—the list is endless. There have been governments of both persuasions who have tried over the years and who have had varying degrees of success, but nowhere near enough. Now we recommit ourselves as a parliament to doing that.

I remember as a relatively young man watching the then Leader of the Opposition Kim Beazley responding on the television when the report was first released. I think you might have been in the chamber at the time, Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom—no, you came just afterwards, my apologies. I remember the Leader of the Opposition losing control of his emotions during that speech. I remember wondering why. I remember thinking: what could be in that report? I went away and read it and understood immediately what had brought the then Leader of the Opposition Kim Beazley to that conclusion. Yesterday was perhaps an equally emotional day in a very different sense, a sense where we can now build on that and move on.

I do not speak for my electorate today; I speak for myself. I must say I have been just a little surprised about the strength of feeling in my electorate—the emails coming to my office are 10, 15 to one in favour of the apology. But I do not profess to speak for those who do not support the apology; I profess to speak for myself and, to the degree I can, for those who do. I speak as a member of the continuing state and say, on behalf of those who came before us, we are sorry. I speak for them. I speak for all those who wish to move on and build on that in a sense of friendship and achievement—I am sorry.

Petro Georgiou (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom, congratulations on your elevation. I would like to echo one sentiment expressed by the member for Prospect, and that is the sense of pride in being part of a body that could have a debate like this on both sides of the parliament. What the member for McMillan said, what the member for Pearce said, and what the minister on the other side said was very moving. It is very important. I wish to endorse what is a momentous apology of the parliament to members of the stolen generation, to their families and to their communities.

Let me first say how moving it was to have been in the House to hear the apologies given in the presence of those members of the stolen generation who were there in the House. The fact is that many thousands of Indigenous families across Australia have been affected by this tragedy and this injustice. Indigenous communities have lost their children and they have borne the burden of grief. We need to acknowledge the harm that was done and we also need to accept responsibility for the fact that our predecessors in this parliament played a major part in the removals. I do embrace this need both as a person and as a politician and I say unequivocally that I am sorry.

In 1997 the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Bringing them home report revealed that between 1910 and 1970 across Australia many thousands of Indigenous people had been forcibly removed from their families, as a matter of deliberate government policy. The report told the stories of hundreds of living witnesses. They told of grief and loss, tenacity and survival. The knowledge of what had occurred in our recent past shocked and deeply moved our nation. It was the impetus for a Sorry Day movement that saw hundreds and thousands of ordinary Australians take to the streets and express their desire for reconciliation.

Through the recommendations of the report, the members of the stolen generations called upon this parliament to acknowledge the truth and to formally acknowledge the harm that had been done. Let us be entirely clear: this parliament was directly involved in the practice of Indigenous child removal in this country. Our predecessors enacted the laws that sanctioned it. They armed the bureaucrats, the police and the welfare officers with the tools to administer it. This parliament directly oversaw Aboriginal administration in the Northern Territory for the 50 years in which it pursued a policy of removing so-called ‘half caste’ children from Aboriginal settlements.

An insight into the thinking that underpinned these policies and these actions is given by the resolution agreed to at a national meeting in Canberra in 1937. This meeting was one of Aboriginal administrators from Commonwealth and state levels on the future of mixed-race Aboriginals in Australia. That resolution stated:

... the destiny of the natives of aboriginal origin, but not of the full blood, lies in their ultimate absorption by the people of the Commonwealth—

and it urged that—

... all efforts be directed to that end.

The absorption policy was furthered by the involuntary removal of mixed-race children from their Aboriginal families. The circumstances of child removal varied across Australia. In some states, young children were separated from their families but remained in dormitories on the same reservation. In others, they were sent to institutions to prepare them for employment in their early teens. In the postwar era, the policy of child removals continued throughout the nation as a matter of furthering Aboriginal assimilation. The number of children removed increased in the 1950s and the 1960s. Children were removed on grounds of alleged neglect. They were forced to attend faraway schools. They were removed for medical treatment and they were adopted out at birth.

For as long as it existed, however—and I think this needs to be emphasised when we are reflecting on the mores of the time—the removal policy was strongly opposed by many Aboriginal and other Australians. The Chief Protector of Aborigines in the state of Queensland once described the ‘kidnapping of boys and girls’ as a ‘serious evil’. Some parliamentarians spoke passionately against passing laws that allowed the arbitrary removal of Aboriginal children. One said:

These people have the same parental feelings and have the same love for their children as have white people; we must take that into consideration.

Aboriginal parents frequently pleaded with local authorities to stop the removals. A letter sent to the ‘Protector Aboriginals’ in Alice Springs in April 1941 reads:

Will you please place this Protest, as we do not understand any forcible removal, of any of us, from this Central Australia, our birthright country.

The testimony of what was done does not just lie in historical records; it lies in the memories and the words of the members of the stolen generations themselves, and it is these testimonies of living witnesses that are truly compelling. They tell of the panic created by police raids on Aboriginal camps:

You can understand the terror that we lived in, the fright—not knowing when someone will come ...

They described the moment of separation:

We jumped on our mothers’ backs, crying, trying not to be left behind.

They speak of mothers—

... chasing the car, running and crying after us—

of parents fleeing with their children into the bush, darkening the skin of their half-white kids, and mums who ‘always made sure that everything was right in case welfare came around’. They spoke of ‘stolen years’ that have been lost forever. And they have asked for our apology.

One woman told the HREOC inquiry:

The Government has to explain why it happened.

…            …            …

... an apology is important to me because I’ve never been apologised to. My mother’s never been apologised to, not once, and I would like to be apologised to.

Through this motion, the Australian parliament is saying sorry to the members of the stolen generations and to their families and to their communities. This motion rightly calls us—all of us—to recognise what was done. We must heed the stories of those who suffered. The injustices of the past are many; the wounds are deep. This motion speaks of healing and of future resolve. It commits us to never allowing injustices against Indigenous people to be perpetrated or repeated.

I have received hundreds of communications from my constituents asking me to support an apology to the stolen generations. In its bipartisan support for this motion, the parliament gives expression to a profound and widely shared sentiment of the Australian people. This unity demonstrates our commitment to address injustices that have been unfinished business for far too long. This motion exemplifies a new national determination to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity. We need to move forward and do so with urgency. We need to do whatever it takes to address the causes of Indigenous disadvantage in Australia today. In apologising to the stolen generation, this parliament unites in a solemn recognition of the injustices of the past. We must use this united resolve to work together with Indigenous Australians to eradicate the injustices of the present.

I wish to place on record my gratitude to the Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who pursued the cause of an apology over the years when it seemed so difficult to attain. I support this motion wholeheartedly and without reservation. It has been too long in coming, and I share what I think is a widespread sense of relief that it is now done. As Sir William Deane—and I share the member for McMillan’s taste for the former Governor-General’s quotes—said:

This brings us back to the stage where we can really see and appreciate the importance of the spiritual as well as the practical aspects of reconciliation. We have again come to the stage where, spiritually, I think we are together. Now we can go on and start doing something.

I commend the motion to the House.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start my contribution by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which this parliament gathers, and I pay my respects to their elders. I also wish to pay my respects to the Wathaurong and the Dja Dja Wurung people, the traditional owners of the land in which the boundaries of the electorate of Ballarat fall. I also want to commend the member for Kooyong and the many members of the opposition who have spoken or will speak on this motion. It is truly wonderful that, as of yesterday, we have bipartisan support on the apology, and I think it is very important that we have had that.

Yesterday we had quite an extraordinary day, a day when we saw just what this country is capable of when we have compassion in our hearts. I want to add my voice to those of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in saying sorry to the stolen generations. I strongly support the motion of apology moved by the Prime Minister and respectfully offer my own apology. There are many things that I am sorry for. I am sorry that it has taken this parliament so long to formally acknowledge the harm done to you and successive generations of your family. I am sorry that the successive laws of parliaments and governments inflicted such pain, suffering and grief on you. I am sorry that these policies led to the shattering of families and to many of you never having known where you came from and not having the love of your families to guide you.

Yesterday the government honoured its commitment made not just during the election campaign but in successive ALP policy platforms to offer an unreserved apology to the stolen generations. I know that there are people in the community who do not quite understand why yesterday was so necessary if we are to move forward as a nation. I encourage everyone, if they get the opportunity, to read the Bringing them home report, which details what happened to the stolen generations. The key findings of this report—and this report is now 10 years old; 10 years ago this report came out—are that nationally between one in three and one in 10 Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families between 1910 and 1970. Indigenous children were placed in institutions and church missions, were adopted or fostered and were at risk of physical and sexual abuse. Many never received wages for their labour and welfare officers failed in their duty to protect Indigenous wards from abuse. This is in a report that is 10 years old. These children were removed from their families not on the basis that they were victims of abuse, although there may be some cases of that. They were removed from their families solely on the basis of their race. As the Prime Minister asked us to do yesterday: imagine if that were you. This is not some distant event that happened in the dim, dark past of Australia’s history. Children were being removed under various assimilation policies as late as 1970. It has occurred within living memory of this generation.

My own district played a part. The four children’s institutions in Ballarat—Nazareth babies home, Ballarat babies home, Ballarat Orphanage and St Josephs—were all recipients of stolen generation children, many of them coming from as far away as Gippsland. I am ashamed to say that, as a 20-year-old working in what was the Ballarat Orphanage, I did not know its part in the history of this generation of children and I would like to add an apology for my ignorance and my lack of curiosity about the history of the institution I worked in. Some of the stories of the stolen generation children who were placed in Ballarat Orphanage are contained in a local publication called Faded Footprints: Walking the Past, produced by the Ballarat and District Aboriginal Co-operative. The artwork on the cover of this terrific publication signifies all of the different communities from which people were taken—from across Victoria, to the centre, to Ballarat. The footprints in the illustration, which was done by fantastic local artist Marley Smith, slowly fade as they leave their communities and move in towards the Ballarat Orphanage to show that their culture was slowly fading as they moved into the orphanage because there was no teaching or training or acknowledgement of Indigenous culture once the children were placed within that institution. Many of the children—some of whom are now elderly; some of whom are now in their late 40s—say to this day that they are still learning about their culture and their heritage.

One of the children whose story is told in this wonderful publication was here in parliament yesterday. He is Murray Harrison, or Uncle Murray, as we know him at home. Murray has given me a copy of the book to present to the Prime Minister. Inside it he has inscribed, ‘On behalf of my sisters and myself please accept this gift.’ Murray’s story is like so many others. Murray was living with his uncle and aunt in Bruthen in Gippsland after his mother passed away, leaving his father to care for seven children. One day, when his Auntie Dora was out picking peas—she was a seasonal fruit picker—and his Uncle Stewart was working in the axe handle factory, some men came. As Uncle Murray says:

We really had no idea as to how to defend ourselves. The government agency just came and took us. We were not neglected. We were not uneducated. We were a family who understood what it was to be in society. When we got to the courthouse in Bruthen, we said, ‘No, we are not the people you want,’ and they just with the stroke of a pen said, ‘Well, we’ll change the name’—and that was it. By the time my auntie realised we were gone, we were in Melbourne.

Murray and his two sisters were then taken to Melbourne to the Royal Park children’s homes, where they were separated. Murray was put in what he describes as a cell. Murray says:

When you are 10 years old and you’ve never been shut in and you go into a dark room and the door is shut on you—well, 60 years later I can still hear that rotten door shutting.

I caught up briefly with Murray yesterday and I think it speaks so enormously of his incredible generosity that the first thing he said to me when he saw me yesterday was ‘thank you’. It was very humbling. It is us who should be thanking Uncle Murray for being so patient with our ignorance of what happened to him and many like him. I hope yesterday goes some way to silencing the echoes of that shutting door for Uncle Murray, but I know that words alone cannot change what happened to him. There are many other stories in Faded Footprints. Karen Atkinson, who was taken into care at a very early age, spent 10 years in the Ballarat Orphanage and at the age of 15 was sent out to work and fend for herself. Her mother died three weeks prior to her leaving the orphanage, so she never saw her again. She did have some contact with her father throughout the remainder of his life. And there is Ray Fernell, who says:

The first time I went there it was like being put into some other strange environment again, which was a bit scary because you have got different people and you weren’t sure what you can do and when you can do it.

There is Faye Thorpe’s story, Nancy Peart’s story and Lloyd Clarke’s story—many stories of Indigenous people who came from a long way away in Victoria to Ballarat Orphanage and who then ended up settling in Ballarat. Dianne Clarke describes:

So they bailed us up there and took the parents, like dragged them off, kicking and screaming, around to our window and they were fighting. Our parents were putting up a good fight. Our mum was real little but was fired up and was fighting for her kids and I remember seeing the police just giving it to her, just punching her on the ground.

You can imagine the desperation of these parents as their children were being taken. These stories are just a very small number of the stories of Indigenous people of stolen generations who ended up in Ballarat and in the Ballarat orphanages and institutions in my electorate. I wish to formally acknowledge them here today.

I was also moved yesterday by the many schools across my electorate that participated in some commemoration of the apology. Some flew the Aboriginal flag and some like St Patrick’s College dedicated their entire school assembly to talking about the stolen generations or, as in Edmund Rice School, welcomed strangers into their midst.

I hope that yesterday goes some way to bringing a greater understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians of what happened in our history and that we make sure that it never, ever happens again. I hope that it also means that we can move forward together, because there are many things as a nation we must do. One of those, which was acknowledged so strongly by the Prime Minister yesterday, is to close the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. I again support the motion of the Prime Minister, which was supported by the Leader of the Opposition so gracefully yesterday, in making an apology to the stolen generations. It is long overdue, but it is wonderful that it has been done and I think together we can move forward as a nation, non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians together.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have profound difficulties with the idea of an apology to the so-called stolen generation. Before I start, I would like to voice my dismay at the way in which the Prime Minister attempted to politicise this issue. Labor has been calling for an apology for months, and the Labor government has been in power for over two months, and yet it could only release the wording of this much vaunted apology to the opposition and the Australian people at 5.43 on the evening prior to the apology. Is that because, despite its assertions, it really does not care that much and only thought of it at the last minute? Or is it that it is playing this as wedge politics? Or is it that it had legal advice that this will make the Commonwealth liable for compensation and it did not want it to be made clear to either the opposition or the Australian people? Indeed, if it was hoping for bipartisan support, why did it not give the opposition access to the legal advice? This clearly indicates that, on the part of the Labor government, there was no goodwill associated with this issue.

One of the first things I would like to note is that the majority of my constituents do not support this apology, perhaps for reasons the government is not prepared to acknowledge or consider, but it is a fact that my constituents reflect the majority view that, at this time, it is not the right thing to do. As a representative of my electorate, it is obviously critical that I represent their views. A survey carried out by a Channel 7 news poll in Perth yesterday asked the question, ‘Do you agree with the government apology?’ More than 13,000 responded and 90 per cent voted that they did not support the apology.

There are numerous reasons why I have decided not to support the apology. It is very important that I put these views forward so that I am not misrepresented. First, to the specifics of precisely who this apology is being made to, many in the community seem to believe that the apology is to the Aboriginals in general or to be made for invading Australia in the first place. The fact is that the apology is made to Aboriginals who are of the so-called stolen generation. The stolen generation relates to people of Aboriginal descent who were removed from their parents based on their Aboriginality. In the case of the Commonwealth government, responsibility for these policies was only in the territories. With regard to the Northern Territory, there was a court case, Cubillo v Commonwealth, that examined these issues in great detail.

Cubillo v Commonwealth found that, specifically with regard to the Northern Territory, there never was a policy of removing Aboriginal children for race reasons. This result was upheld on appeal. Justice O’Loughlin found no policy of systematic forced removal. Where forced removal occurred, the government was motivated by ‘the twin forces of a sense of responsibility for the care of children and concern for their welfare as potentially unwelcome members of the Aboriginal community’. In relation to the breeding out allegations, O’Loughlin said ‘there is much that might be said about the presentation of such an allegation in the light of the total absence of evidence to support it’. So it would appear that, according to the courts, there never was a stolen generation in the Northern Territory. There certainly were children removed, but it was for reasons other than race. As such, with regard to the specifics of whom the policy is addressed to, there is actually not an apology to be made by the federal government.

What is tragic is that the issue of an apology is made out to be a huge step in the reconciliation process—one that will make a huge difference on its own. The problem with this argument is that one merely has to look at what has happened in my state of WA to see just how meaningless an apology is. In WA, the state government was responsible for its own apology. Although an apology was delivered by the state, in the parliament, in 2001, Aboriginal life expectancy in that state has decreased since that time. This is a travesty and demonstrates that mere rhetoric, for which Labor is renowned, is no substitute for policy designed to actually address the problem.

There is something very interesting in the PM’s record on this. He was the mandarin—an appropriate term here, I think—in charge of the Queensland bureaucracy during the Goss Labor government. What policies came out at that period on the plight of the Aboriginal people? Let us give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he has seen the light subsequent to becoming the member for Griffith and coming to this place. I searched ParlInfo for Rudd’s speeches in Hansard. Under the search term ‘Aboriginal’ I got two hits—one speech was about a local primary school and the other was about Howard’s Aboriginal initiative last year, which he supported. For ‘Aboriginals’ I got zero hits, for ‘ATSIC’ I got zero hits and for ‘native welfare’ I got zero hits. So much for his genuine concern at the plight of the Aboriginal people of Australia. It would seem that, in all his time in this place, it is only in the past few months that he has discovered their plight.

In my perception, we have got our priorities wrong. Samuel Johnson said, ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions.’ Unfortunately, this is the case here. For the last 40 years we have done all the wrong things for all the right reasons. We have given generously financially with scant regard for the effect of sit-down money on communities where there is no responsibility or accountability for the welfare. This is completely degrading, and I can only imagine the loss of self-esteem this engenders. Is this doing the right thing? I do not think so. Reverse racism is still racism, and there is something extremely paternalistic in handing out money in situations where other Australians would not qualify. What is that saying to the Aboriginal community—that they are not up to being responsible for themselves, so the government will look after them as if they are children? How can we continue supporting communities that are inherently unviable? Communities of around 20 or so people cannot be economically viable, and in supporting these unviable communities we condemn their inhabitants to a life of welfare dependency. This can never be acceptable.

Something that worries me is that at present you have social workers who are loath to remove Aboriginal children who are neglected or abused, because they are concerned with potential repercussions that might apply with removing these children. In fact, this extends further into Aboriginal communities. Dr Stephanie Jarrett, visiting research fellow, who did her PhD thesis on the pathology of violence inside one Aboriginal community, stated:

Lawyers use cultural rights to reduce penalties for domestic violence … Where does this leave Aboriginal women? Domestic violence is the major source of Australia’s internal refugees.

I apologise for the awful truths that are often buried under mountains of reports, excuses and bureaucratic activity. How can a mere apology even scratch the surface of the appalling figures that we have in terms of Aboriginal welfare?

The Australian Medical Association reported on the alarming rates of STD infection in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. Its report states:

In the six months to June this year, 41 children aged under 10 presented with gonorrhoea, 41 with chlamydia, five with syphilis and 40 with trichomoniasis.

Among them, one child under four was diagnosed with gonorrhoea and another in the same age bracket with chlamydia.

It concludes:

The Aboriginal population accounted for 66 per cent of all chlamydia cases and 92 per cent of syphilis cases within the six-month period.

That begs the question: if this were happening to white children, what would society expect from the law in dealing with these perpetrators? Once again, how woefully inadequate is the word ‘sorry’.

Consider in your hearts the truly indescribable suffering of a young Aurukun girl, 10 years old, who was raped by a group of juveniles. The attack left her with gonorrhoea. As Andrew Bolt wrote:

So why this monstrous leniency for the pack rape of an Aboriginal girl?

Because, said the judge in sentencing the juvenile rapists, “I accept that the girl ... probably agreed to have sex with all of you”.

A 10-year-old? What makes the story even more indefensible is that, after the first attack, she was moved to safety to a family in Cairns and yet was forced to return to Aurukun because a social worker believed that it was defensible on the grounds of her cultural, emotional and spiritual identity. This is the sort of warped logic that has resulted in so much of the trauma and probably irreparable damage done to so many children.

What must be done in order to give these communities a future and the young people hope? Stop trying to attain the moral high ground by simply throwing more and more money into programs that have palpably and comprehensively failed. Take the success stories and start reproducing them around the country, beginning with actions that will deliver the most basic need for all of these people: a safe place to live and then the other basics of life, such as a healthy environment, housing and a good education.

Late last year, the Western Australian state government tried its utmost to prevent the release of a report into its dysfunctional Department of Indigenous Affairs. For whatever reason—lack of resources or policy based on ideology instead of sensitive practicality—this department failed the very people it was meant to serve. How real or sincere was the apology from that government, given the evidence of its actions? Despite the Prime Minister talking about the righting of wrongs of the past, he appears to be ignorant of the fact that it is impossible to right wrongs of the past. It is only possible to improve the future and learn from mistakes of the past.

Now I come to something that I am very sorry about. I am sorry that this parliament has lost a true champion of the Aboriginal people. Mal Brough was the previous minister for Indigenous affairs; he was someone determined to really make a difference to the Aboriginal people. He did not make a fuss about his own Aboriginal heritage but set about to try to break the cycle of poverty, despair, abuse and hopelessness. I sincerely hope that the new minister is as committed and as fearless as Mal Brough was to ensure that the conditions many Aboriginal communities find themselves in today are eliminated and consigned to the dustbin of history.

In conclusion, I would like to apologise to the Aboriginal people that, over the past 40 years, we have not initiated policies that have addressed the root causes of your people’s problems. I apologise for the terrible situation some of your children find themselves in, as we have not had the courage—until the Northern Territory intervention—to systemically address the problem. I am sorry that we have allowed you to live in non-viable communities, pretending that by giving you welfare we were solving the problem. I am sorry that, despite apologies given by the states that were supposed to start actions that would genuinely help Aboriginal problems, Aboriginal life expectancy and health outcomes are not improving. I worry that many in Australia will now think that the job is done, whereas the job has not even started.

My hope for the future is to see Aboriginal society fully participating in Australian society, sharing with all Australians and reaping the benefits of cooperation and participation while retaining its own very distinct culture and heritage, as with so many other communities within Australia. I will push for policies that are not paternalistic and demeaning but instead are central to those who are struggling to help themselves. I will fight to ensure that children live in conditions of safety where they can dream and aspire to whatever they desire. I want an Aboriginal society that sees limitless horizons, not the short-sighted view of squalid communities which crush the human spirit. That is what I will fight for. That is my pledge.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the very first instance I want to disassociate myself from the remarks of the member for Tangney and note that the parliament as a whole did something yesterday which reflected well on each and every member of the House who supported the motion of the Prime Minister. There can be no doubt whatsoever that the formal acceptance by the parliament of the need to apologise to the stolen generations is something which marks off an end point in what has been a difficult, at times contentious, but ultimately futile debate that we have had in this country about the necessity of an apology. So I rise to support the motion moved by the Prime Minister.

I offer to the people of the Eora or Euro nation an expression that I understand conveys the meaning of sorry: ngang doo ool—I am sorry. I offer it unreservedly as a member of parliament, a member of the Labor Party, as someone who has grown over the years to understand the depth of Aboriginal experience and the sorrow that people have felt not only as a consequence of the state-sanctioned actions of institutions in the past that saw people removed from their families but more generally for the history of our engagement with Aboriginal people which has carried so much heartbreak, so much cultural dislocation and is a burden that we all bear.

It is a truly significant moment when we as a nation finally put on record the simple act of recognition of a past wrong. It is a time when we lift ourselves up as a country, as a nation, and lay another part of a foundation for moving forward with Indigenous Australians, whose forbearance I acknowledge, whose lack of animosity, whose lack of rancour, whose generosity of spirit has characterised this debate and characterised the participation of all those communities that visited the parliament yesterday. But this apology still comes late. For many Australians, but particularly for members of the stolen generation, the disturbing history has been a kind of a cloud that has hung over our heads. The apology is a symbolic statement, but it lifts the cloud. It provides space and opportunity for a more genuine and a more connected relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. It promotes a steady footing to take on the important task of redressing disadvantage, of closing the gap that the Prime Minister spoke about in the parliament yesterday.

There was an expression used in the past: ‘white Australia has a black history’. I certainly feel that our engagement with this history is absolutely critical, not only in better understanding what has happened and trying to fathom some of the reasons for that but also, with that better understanding, working out clearly how we can concretely move to deal with those practical issues of disadvantage that Indigenous people still face across a range of factors.

I learnt most of what I know about the history of Aboriginal people from songs—from song makers in the desert, with their clap sticks—when I first visited the Western Desert and was privileged to sit with elders, hear their songs and receive the translation of their songs. Song makers of the modern era are Archie Roach and the Warumpi Band. There are the paintings of Harry Wedge and many other painters too numerous to mention here. This is the way in which that knowledge and that history have been transmitted to us Australians. There is a fantastic repository of music, art and writing by Aboriginal people that we can now draw on and that will infuse us with a better understanding of the sorts of journeys that we need to take in the future.

I did not learn much about it at school, although I am very pleased to say that that situation has changed. There is a much greater addressing of Indigenous history than previously and an acknowledgement of that history. The way in which schools and young Australians respond to this apology I think will tell us that these young Australians do very clearly understand that we are at the dawn of a new age. We do not in any way take away from the work, the efforts and the activities of those who have passed by before, but for young Australians surely an apology of this kind offers them every prospect for working much more closely and much better with one another and also with Indigenous people to address those difficult matters that lie ahead.

The import of the motion, as the House knows, stems from the recommendations of the inquiry by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission conducted by Sir Ronald Wilson into the issue of the forced removal by authorities of tens of thousands of Aboriginal children from their families and their subsequent placement in institutions such as orphanages, often run by the church, and also their adoption. The Bringing them home report, which followed, contained a number of first-person accounts from members of the stolen generations.

No-one could read those deeply moving and personal reflections and not be in some way moved or affected. Indeed, I think it is difficult even for us in this House, where we talk for a living, it sometimes seems, to find words to adequately respond to that situation. Those of us who have families—and most of us here do, I think—are able to gain some insight into and have some empathy for what people went through. They found themselves often taken without notice. They may have ended up as domestic help in a farm or in a region of which they had no knowledge whatsoever, where they had no family and no connections of any kind. Often they were prevented from speaking to their families and from receiving food parcels.

I have to say that I took some exception to the comments in the speech by the Leader of the Opposition, even though we welcome the apology, when he referred to current situations of sexual abuse that people in Indigenous communities face. Let us be very clear about this. When young girls were taken from their families and were part of the stolen generations, they too were subject to terrible sexual abuse, often at the hands of people in the churches. Those churches have apologised for that. They have focused on that. They have reflected on that. They deeply grieve about that happening. But that was the historical reality, and no amount of trying to strike some middle ground between the concerns of the backbench and a wider community can obscure that fact for the Leader of the Opposition.

Even when the removal was voluntary—and sometimes it was: a mother in some instances might have felt that she was in a difficult situation, and she was concerned for the wellbeing of her kids—the child was then faced with suddenly going into a completely unknown environment. There is an account by Anne which says:

... a dreadful feeling of emptiness like lightning striking from inside, crippled me with fear. Then for the first time I realised the reality of the situation, I was leaving our dear mother, my brothers and sisters … behind … I was leaving the only home I have ever known.

In this case there was a kind of consultation, but in many cases there was not. There was no preparation for this shock, this abrupt dislocation, and the ongoing psychological and emotional trauma that people felt was real. For that, we surely should be saying sorry.

There is another aspect to the situation and conditions that the stolen generations faced which I do not think has had enough emphasis in the accounts and recollections of that time. It has certainly been raised by members of the stolen generations themselves. It is to do with the way in which their lives were completely taken apart in terms of family connection. Because many members of families were literally dispersed to different institutions, sometimes ultimately to different states, they were not aware at all of the movements, the whereabouts or the life histories of their own relatives.

I read an account from one person who did not know until 1995 what his brothers and sisters had done or where they had ended up. That is when he finally learned the whereabouts of his brothers and sisters and what had happened to them. 1995 is not recent history; it is yesterday. These effects were being felt yesterday, are being felt today and will continue to be felt into the future.

For the record, we do know that children were taken at any age, and often they were very young. We do know that the policy of the time was to absorb them into white society. We do know that people were graded by the colour of their skin. The terms of reference proposed by former Labor Attorney-General Michael Lavarch followed a sustained campaign to examine this situation. Those things were known at the time and, as a consequence, the commission heard some 500 accounts and had access to another thousand or so written testimonies. After the inquiry had considered those tales, it made the recommendations, including, importantly, recommendation 3:

That, for the purposes of responding to the effects of forcible removals … reparation be made in recognition of the history of gross violations of human rights…

That recommendation included and identified acknowledgement and apology, measures of restitution, rehabilitation and compensation. On this occasion, the government has moved to address the first of these identified matters and it has made its position on issues of compensation clear. But it is my fervent hope that, in the future, the government, the opposition and the community will begin to consider how the remainder of these issues can be best approached and dealt with. The formal apology was step 1; the Rudd Labor government has moved and made that formal apology.

It needs to be noted that the Howard government’s response to the report at the time was swift. The then Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Senator Herron, wrote to Father Frank Brennan and said:

Such an apology could—

and I note that he said ‘could’—

imply that present generations are in some way responsible and accountable for the actions of earlier generations, actions that were sanctioned by the laws of the time and that were believed to be in the best interests of the children concerned.

There have been strong echoes of this argument recently from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, but I have heard others speak to this argument as well.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Tangney.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Tangney clearly went on at some length about it, I am advised. But here is an argument that is based on a false distinction and on a misunderstanding of what an apology is ultimately really about. It held little weight when it was first put by the former Prime Minister; it holds even less weight today.

But, regrettably, the matter remained unresolved. It was a disquieting reminder of a failure of moral leadership. Former Prime Minister Keating made the Redfern address. Former Prime Minister Whitlam spoke eloquently to Vincent Lingiari. But, for former Prime Minister Howard, the issue just did not present itself in those terms. I will make no further reflections on the former Prime Minister other than to say that this was one of the great deficiencies of his leadership of this country. Not only did the argument that was put ultimately fall by the way in the face of what was so necessary for the course of an apology, it frustrated and stalled the truly genuine and reconciled engagement which we need to have with Indigenous communities and Indigenous leadership on the raft of issues that many in their communities face.

The consequence of the refusal of the former government to countenance an apology was that it suddenly became off limits. There was an idea that you should simply acknowledge the past and agree in that acknowledgement to say something about it. The fact that that acknowledgement could not be made in the highest parliament of the land stayed with people. It frustrated people. It disappointed people. It made them very sad. What was the point of it in any event? There have been culture war discussions about history. Let us be really clear about that history. I am the member for Kingsford Smith. The south of my electorate includes the northern border of Botany Bay. This is where Cook landed. This is where two Indigenous people met Cook with raised spears. This is where one was shot.

This is a community that has had visited upon it a range of difficult and confronting challenges over the years, including being a final refuge for members of the stolen generation. This is a community that still bears up to that history to this very day. Distinguished Aboriginal leader Mick Dodson identified a certain kind of deafness that seemed to permeate our response to the situation during the period of the former government. That certain kind of deafness has now become a listening to what people actually went through, an understanding of the great, great sorrow and hurt that they felt, and finally a recognition that this is about the soul of our country. Making this apology in this way breathes some life into, and shines some light on, our joined future. From this—it is more than a little thing—much bigger things will grow. It was a day of reckoning for the people of Australia and it is a matter of immense importance. I say with profound gratitude that I was a part of a government that was able to say, in the parliament, sorry. (Time expired)

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would not have missed attending the parliament yesterday morning. It was in fact a historic day. Over the last 12 years I have been privileged to take part in many important events in the parliament. Yesterday was as good as anything that I have seen in the last 12 years. I am not ashamed to say that tears were rolling down my cheeks—it was such an event. Unfortunately, I am disappointed to say that I think the day was spoiled. There was an opportunity to not have the day spoiled. The day was spoiled when a significant number of Indigenous Australians and others who were participating in the historic day refused to accept that both sides of the parliament offered a sincere and genuine apology. What they did was not gracious; it spoilt the day.

The activists, the do-gooders and the Howard-haters have done a great disservice, in my view, to Indigenous Australians. They clearly did not realise they were turning their backs on the ability of our nation to put the past behind us. They want division and confrontation to continue. As a nation, we do not want that. Yesterday was a day when all Australians, no matter what their views were, could put those views behind them and walk together into the future for the benefit of our Indigenous brothers and sisters. It now appears that the back-turning was coordinated at rallies around the country. That spoilt the day, and that is very sad indeed. It signals to me—this is my greatest fear realised—that there is now little hope that anything is really going to change. A big day in the parliament, enormous goodwill, and we are not going to see any change. That really concerns me.

Let me relate to the parliament now some information about another Indigenous community. Two weeks ago I spent a week with the Indigenous community in Vanuatu. Vanuatu is a Melanesian community. Let me tell the parliament what I found about that community and the contrast between them and our own Indigenous community. In Vanuatu, everyone owns their own piece of land—everyone. They have their little plot in the village, no matter where it is. If they want to sell it, they can sell it. If they want to deal in it, if they want to move to another village, they can go and buy another piece of land in that village. And because they own their own land, individually, they take great pride in it. Of course, that does not happen in Indigenous Australia. They all build their own homes. They do not rely on the government to build something; they build it themselves. And, again, because it is their labour and their place, they take great care of it—and there is a contrast there with Indigenous Australians. Moreover, the village is always clean and tidy; the homes are clean and tidy. The pride is evident.

In Vanuatu, everyone works. They may work in the village garden or their own garden, but they work and they contribute and they feed their families. There is no social security in Vanuatu. There is no welfare. There are no handouts. There is no demand, ‘Just send us money.’ They are self-reliant; they look after themselves. They look after themselves very well. And, because of that, their health is in good order. Their life expectancy is in good shape. Compare that with Indigenous Australians. There is no alcoholism. People do not drink themselves stupid. Yes, they have kava, but they use it in a responsible way. There is superb leadership in the communities. There is always a village chief and there is always respect for the village chief. The village chief calls the village together when important decisions are to be made, and they all participate in making the decision, and they all stick by the decision that is made by the village. It is quite a contrast.

Another compelling contrast is in education. In Vanuatu, the government does not provide free education. Everyone has to pay to go to school, and that includes primary school. Do you know what the indigenous in Vanuatu do? They scrimp and save and work hard, and they raise the money, because they are determined that every one of their children will go to school. And they go to school. What happens in Indigenous Australia where education is free? The kids do not go to school.

It is a chalk and cheese comparison. I am reminded of a visit that I made to the Federated States of Micronesia where, again, it is a Melanesian indigenous culture. But here is the difference: the United States just sends money, and that is how the Federated States work—they rely on the drip-feed from the United States. Do you know what that has caused for the indigenous people in that area? They have lost their farming skills. They just expect to have their food sent to them. Remind you of anything? It certainly reminds me of something, and great Aboriginal leaders like Noel Pearson have reflected on the same issue.

So what do we do about it? I have, for a long time, articulated that there are really three things that are needed in Indigenous communities before you will be able to fix the health problems and the education problems. Those three things are law, order and governance. Until Indigenous communities respect law and order and respect that governance has not got to be about nepotism and who you can favour, there will be no change. Until there is land ownership, there will be no change. And, of course, from land ownership come pride, economic prosperity and jobs. The final thing is leadership. Without strong leadership and without the will to follow that leadership in Indigenous communities, nothing will change. That is really sad.

So I grieve personally and I grieve on behalf of my community of 8,000 Indigenous Australians that, while things could be better, given the way we are going they are not going to be. It is a kind of fatalistic point of view, but I think we have to address the issues that I have indicated to the parliament today, and state governments have a responsibility to do so equal to that of the federal government. If we do not fix law and order, governance, landownership and leadership, in 100 years time someone will be standing in my place in this parliament saying, ‘Things are disgraceful in Indigenous communities’ as they will not have changed.

I want to leave the parliament this afternoon with a quote from comments made by the Reverend Shayne Blackman, who leads the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress and also Shalom Christian College in Townsville, which is in my electorate. Shayne makes this observation:

There can be no better expression of an apology for the mistakes of the past—

than—

a commitment to programs and policies that truly deliver on our lifelong hopes and dreams for the future.

That is an incisive comment from an Indigenous leader in North Queensland. I support Shayne Blackman’s comments, but I support very much fixing law and order and governance, landownership and leadership in Indigenous communities.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to start my contribution to this debate on the Prime Minister’s motion of apology to Australia’s Indigenous peoples by apologising to the Indigenous people of this land. I would like to apologise for the past injustices that have been done to the stolen generations and to give an undertaking to work to see that those injustices are made right in the future.

I am not the only member of this parliament—there is one other member on the opposition side—to have been a member of another parliament when such an apology was given, and to have witnessed an apology on two occasions. I sat in the state parliament of New South Wales about 10 years ago and was there when an apology was given to the Indigenous people of that state. It was a very moving experience on that occasion. But I would have to say, having been part of what happened in this House yesterday, that yesterday’s was probably the most inspirational, moving experience that I have had as a member of parliament. It was historic. It was a very emotional day and other members who have spoken before me have said how they had tears in their eyes. I felt exactly the same and saw all those people in the gallery feeling exactly the same way I felt. Those present were so committed to the making of that apology, receiving that apology and then moving forward into the future. I think it shows our maturity as a parliament and our maturity as a nation. The magnanimous nature of our Indigenous Australians was shown—as I heard the minister say earlier today—when the minister gave the apology and that apology was accepted. That is how it is. It is the start. It is the beginning. It is the first step forward for the future. While sitting in this chamber this morning, I have heard some of the most wonderful speeches I have heard in this parliament. This apology is very personal. Each of us views it in a different way and it means something different to all of us.

I grew up on the north coast of New South Wales. I lived next door to a hospital and from time to time young Aboriginal children would turn up in this hospital. They would be allowed to come and play with me and I thought it was wonderful and then they would go. I did not understand and did not have a clue what was happening. These were children who were ripped away from their parents, taken from families, put in the hospital and then farmed out into the community. When I was at high school, a large number of Indigenous students came to that school, in the town that I grew up in. There were basically two rules, two streams within that system. The school I attended was Macksville High School. The non-Indigenous population generally were streamed into the top classes; the Aboriginal kids were generally streamed into the lower classes. The expectation placed on those children was totally different from the expectation placed on me. Their treatment was very different from the treatment that I received.

There was one Aboriginal student by the name of Gary Foley. I think he now lives in Melbourne. When he did his school certificate year 10 he performed outstandingly. He came back in year 11, and I can remember it as if it were yesterday. The then principal of the school stood up and said, ‘Gary Foley, what are you doing back here?’ Gary Foley was not there the next day. These are the types of things that have been perpetuated through our education system, perpetuated through our health system, where those young Aboriginal children who used to turn up in the hospital next door to me then disappeared and throughout their life had totally different expectations placed upon them.

I see this apology as the beginning, a start to the future. Yesterday in parliament, when the Prime Minister stood up and made his speech, you could have heard a pin drop because it was perhaps one of the most significant speeches that a Prime Minister has ever made. Then I looked around and the way people jumped to their feet and clapped was spontaneous. That spontaneity happened because he had touched their hearts. He had built a bridge between this parliament and those Indigenous Australians who have suffered for so long. I welcome the fact that the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister are going to work together bipartisanly to move forward from that apology to try to address the dreadful educational and health outcomes that Indigenous Australians are faced with, those social determinants that affect their lives each and every day and the battles that they have to combat.

One might ask: why are we apologising? Some of those young people who were taken from their families have had successful lives. I believe that the member for Tangney made a contribution stating that he felt it was actually in the interests of those people who were taken from their parents, that his electorate proved it and that he believed that those children were better off taken away from their parents.

I will address it from the perspective of a mother. If anyone tried to drag my children from me, I know how I would feel. If, as a child, I had lived in an environment where I did not know who my parents were; where I was isolated, where I did not have the love and the nurturing that I did have, then I know I would be a different person from the person that I am today. It is not about wealth, it is not about all those ‘things’ that we can buy—it is about family, and family is so important in Indigenous communities. That is what we have denied the stolen generation.

One of those watershed experiences in my life was reading the Bringing them home report. I remember that I was sitting in a plane when I was reading this. I had tears running down my face as I read story after story; I could feel the hurt of those people. As a nation, for us to have sat back and let that happen—as I have already said, I lived right next door to a hospital where it was happening—means that we do have something to apologise to our fellow Australians for. Let us clean the slate and move forward; look to the future.

Yesterday’s experience was made even greater by the fact that some of our past prime ministers were present: Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. We also had a previous Governor-General present, Sir William Deane, whose work in this area has been monumental and whose contribution to this debate has been outstanding. Fred Chaney was also present and those people involved with Reconciliation Australia were present. This made the day historic, because it brought together those against whom the injustice had been done and those who recognised that there had been injustices. To right those injustices, the apology needed to be made so that we as a nation can become a whole nation, so that we can truly join hands with our fellow Australians—Indigenous Australians—and look to a future where we will be a united nation.

In my own electorate I am pleased and proud to have been able to join with the Bahtabah Aboriginal Land Council, Mr Michael Green of Bahtabah LALC and Mr Robert Coombs, the state member for Swansea, in celebrating this historic occasion with a local community function, held yesterday. I have recorded my commitment on a plaque that, with the member for Swansea, I have presented to the Bahtabah people.

Debate (on motion by Mr Hayes) adjourned.