Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to stand in this chamber and acknowledge Sorry Day. It is surprising how one little word—the word 'sorry'—in any context can heal the hurt and re-establish a relationship of trust and respect. An individual's psyche changes from one of pain to one of being valued. Sorry Day is an opportunity to celebrate the apology delivered by then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on 13 February 2008, when he finally uttered the words that many across this great nation of ours had waited for. Before I cite his words, let me say that it was probably one of the defining speeches in the Australian parliament. It was a speech that transcended the politics of a party and in fact represented the views of the members of the House—whilst there were some who dissented. It conveyed to all Australians the genuine sense that Australia had reached a watershed level of acknowledging an aspect of our history. To that extent, the importance of the member for Griffith's speech on that day will, I think, be etched in the minds of many Australians—both Indigenous and non-Indigenous—and will not be forgotten. The Prime Minister said:

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

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

The work of the healing of this nation has taken a leap forward, but it is far from over and there is still much to be done. When you consider the context of the speech and what was derived from that speech, the passion and the drive of an individual within the parliament in a leadership role probably shifted Australia's psyche considerably to one of compassion, to one of understanding and to one of finally recognising that there is a duality. In a sense we have a duality: a British heritage from the colonisation of the country and also an Indigenous heritage from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who have existed on this land for 40,000 years. We as a nation have never really acknowledged the fact of the duality of both cultures, and yet we seem to separate them at times and look at one as prevailing over the other, depending on which group you belong to. But nevertheless it is about a nation—and Australia is a great nation.

Tom Calma, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, also highlighted the fact that the apology was only just the beginning when he responded to the then Prime Minister's speech. He said:

This is not about black armbands and guilt. It never was.

It is about belonging …

That devastation cannot be addressed unless the whole community listens with an open heart and mind to the stories of what has happened in the past and, having listened and understood, commits itself to reconciliation.

For today is not just about the Stolen Generations—it is about every Australian.

Sorry Day is a time to celebrate, a time to honour the memory of those who were affected and a time for all of us to commit to working together to change the future. A pivotal foundation stone of the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's speech is:

The truth is, a business as usual approach towards Indigenous Australians is not working. Most old approaches are not working. We need a new beginning—a new beginning which contains real measures of policy success or policy failure; a new beginning, a new partnership, on closing the gap with sufficient flexibility not to insist on a one-size-fits-all approach for each of the hundreds of remote and regional Indigenous communities across the country but instead allowing flexible, tailored, local approaches to achieve commonly agreed national objectives that lie at the core of our proposed new partnership; a new beginning that draws intelligently on the experiences of new policy settings across the nation.

The intent of the 42nd Parliament to set a destination for the nation, to have a clear point to guide our policy, our programs and our purpose, was meritorious and the work has been progressed, but not as far as I would have expected.

I think when we look across the work that was undertaken under his leadership, the COAG reforms with respect to Indigenous affairs focused on some very key and critical areas: health, in terms of life expectancy and infant mortality; education, in academic attainment and pathways that would allow children to acquire literacy and numeracy skills commensurate with those of any child within Australia; and employment, with employment opportunities where Indigenous Australians would take their place in the workforce alongside any other Australian. In the early years, the focus of that work was to look at the first eight years of a life but also to look at mothers in pregnancy to ensure that the birth of a child and birth weight were of a quality that meant that the child born had a good foundational start to life. That intent was committed to and put into place and it came in under the title of Closing the Gap. It contains significant merit within its construct, but the bilateral agreements that impinge on the Closing the Gap strategies that are part of those key planks are also affected by the relationship and the commitment of various jurisdictions.

But I think the other thing that is more challenging is that Closing the Gap and the strategies around it are not universal. One would think that in a country where there are 800,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who reside in all jurisdictions, we would and should be able to case manage families whose experiences leave them challenged in the context of both social deprivation and the underlying social determinants in life. We should be far more effective in the implementation. I want to put this proposition. If we had 800,000, we would have to take one quarter of those 800,000. That top quartile will be those employed in good positions, would be part of the Australian workforce and would have the same success rates and achievements across the continuum of life that gives benefit to quality of life, good health, good education, good employment and career path opportunities.

But the other side to that is that the other three quartiles, 600,000, require degrees of intervention, and I use the word 'intervention' in terms of support, in order to bring them to a point where their place within Australian society would in the decade reach a point where they are commensurate or very close to that of any other Australian. One of the challenges in the Close the Gap strategy is that they are targeted. I know that in my own home state when I was involved in the process five targeted communities formed the basis of the early years initiatives, which meant that all those outside those communities did not get the same intensity of support and the preventive measures that were identified within those strategic approaches. It means we also have the challenge of people living within capital cities and large urban settings not having access to the services that we sometimes assume they have. One of the sad facts that still prevails is that racism is an issue we have not fully grappled with in this country, and this parliament has had a debate on the issue in recent times.

There is also a sense that, when you do not have the level of education, you do not have not so much the strength of character but the confidence to challenge those who are far more articulate in language than somebody who does not purport to be. The classic example of this is that when any of us go to a doctor and a doctor prescribes and tells us what our symptoms are then we accept in absolute terms that description of our illness. In Australian society we make an assumption that standard Australian English is equally understood by every Australian. But it is an assumption that we should not make, because the levels of acquisition of literacy vary substantially. If we look at the NAPLAN results and look at what is on the My School website, we can see the variations demographically, and we can certainly see them by socio-economic status. So there are some challenges in how we use the foundation stone of the apology to still lever the changes that are required in this country.

I think the other part is that we have to change the way in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people become proactive participants in the partnerships with governments and their instrumentalities, that is the agencies, and not be passive recipients. When we sit in committees or in organisations then we come to those tables with an equal understanding to a high degree. We have an understanding of those who sit opposite us so that when we renegotiate we have got some common understanding. We have access to information that makes it very easy to accept the way in which we negotiate. We also know that if we have outcomes then we want to work to win-win situations, not win-lose or win-plus versus win-minus. So those negotiations are absolutely critical. When I was working in Sydney I spoke to a colleague in the private sector and said, 'If you are doing a takeover of a company or you are making a major change in the relationship with another group that is a competitor, how do you go about it?' What he described to me was that whole notion of having equalness in understanding of the parameters in which the negotiations occur, having equalness in terms of the information that you have. And you have the right people at the table. And you make sure that it is a reflection of the corporate companies that are at the table, no different to the way in which we operate within the committee structure of this House. I want to suggest seven simple steps to real engagement for sustainable change based on the work of an author whose book I read on a flight between Sydney and Perth. What I liked about the book was the fact that he talked about human relationships. He also said that if we negotiate then why not share information equally and allow a decision to be arrived at by mutual agreement based on all of the information because you get a better result, you get sustainability and you get the acceptance of responsibility.

When we did the COAG work we worked as jurisdictions. Normally it is the Commonwealth versus the states and territories, but on the Indigenous health one we transcended our jurisdictions, we said, 'Let's identify the responsibilities.' So we identified what the Commonwealth responsibilities would be—and it was not just funding; it was around the way in which Commonwealth agencies that had resources would support the directions we were seeking. Then we identified what the states and territories were responsible for and then we looked at the joint responsibilities. That process enabled us to set a course for the reforms that are occurring—albeit limited by nature of the regions and areas they have selected.

The following are the seven steps that I would suggest, because I think these would make a difference and the Alice Springs setting and context would not be problematic. The first step is in terms of the client. I will use the word 'client' in the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We need to understand the community and the problem. We need to understand the problem or the reason that we want change but, equally, we need to ask: what is the implication if we do nothing? In the context of the cornerstone of the member for Griffith's key words, we cannot afford to leave the status quo nor operate within the way of the old.

The second point I would make in the seven-stage process is to clarify and find out what is really going on—what is the reason for the current situation and how do you ensure a community voice is heard in that context? I would equally challenge any member of this parliament, both senators and House of Representatives members, as to how much they really know about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities within their electorates. Indigenous Australians are our constituents but how often do we in this House as individuals engage in order to address the gaps that exist? I think that is something that members of this House, leadership within this country and the agencies involved should do.

My partner had a phone call from Canberra where she was asked about the tri-state region of Western Australia, and it was to do with an aged-care facility. The Commonwealth voice on the phone said to her, 'We want you to do a surprise visit,' and she said, 'Okay; tell me how we are going to do a surprise visit, because we will have to charter a plane and fly over the community and somebody will have to come and pick us up.' The Commonwealth officer said, 'Just get a Budget hire car. When you land, take the Budget hire car or hire car and drive into the community to the nursing home and do a spot check.' It is the reality that communities face, and we have to close that gap.

I think the next step is to make it happen. Is the change negotiated and agreed to by and acceptable to both parties and who will have the necessary power to make the decisions? I do not envy ministers and shadow ministers for Aboriginal affairs, because they carry an extraordinary burden on their shoulders to try to be responsible for the resolution of very complex situations. But they often operate without major portfolio agencies and they have to negotiate with each agency to deliver the types of services within Aboriginal communities. That in itself is challenging, particularly if your colleagues are not walking with you. It is easy to agree to things within a party context or within cabinet but, when it comes to the implementation stage or to make it happen, you then say, 'The minister for Aboriginal affairs can do that; that is part of their portfolio.' We have to change that.

The next step is to confirm: make sure that what we have talked about and what we were going to deliver happens. What processes will be established to have open dialogue on the measures, outcomes and sustainability of achievements? In order to do that we are going to have to make sure that that occurs. Next there is continue: make the change stick. What can be done jointly and singularly to ensure change is achieved and sustaining?

If we combine all of those steps then we should achieve all of those facets and the key elements of the COAG reforms that the previous Prime Minister put into place with his cabinet. We should be seeing achievable gains. Skills development and economic participation are absolutely vital. It should not be left just to the mining or resources sectors. There has to be encouragement across the board, and certainly there is much more to do.

One of the things people on the ground say to me is that they do not want touchy-feely, feel-good approaches, because they never deliver and they continue to fail. We have to make some hard choices, but we also have to be upfront. I reaffirm that all members of this Australian parliament, regardless of their political affiliation, need to genuinely identify the gaps in Aboriginal communities and organisations within their electorates if we are serious as a parliament to the commitment that was made in the 42nd Parliament. Unless we do that we will never know the true extent of the problem. But I also want them to identify the jewels in the crown, because there are things that are working and working well. I believe we should identify those and celebrate them. Remember that it is not the exclusive responsibility of the minister for Indigenous affairs or a shadow minister; it is our collective responsibility.

I again reaffirm that I am extremely grateful for the work of the previous Prime Minister, because he has charted a course that enables all parties in this House and all governments, regardless of who is in power, to take a leadership role, to make a difference and, in two decades, to close not just the gaps but to celebrate the bicultural element of this nation: to acknowledge the British heritage alongside that of the first nations people, who have been here for some considerable time. To that end, I thank the previous Prime Minister for the apology, and certainly I thank the parliament for acknowledging Sorry Day in the parliament last week.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land we are gathered on and thank them for their continuing stewardship. While I do so, I am going to make a political statement, and that is to condemn the Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu for deciding to make it an option for his ministers to give that traditional acknowledgement when they speak at public events. Has so big a man ever been so small? I think that is such a small-minded gesture. To balance out that condemnation of the Liberal Premier of Victoria I would like to commend the member for Hasluck for his contribution on the Sorry Day motion and generally for the contribution he has made to harmony and the entire spirit of reconciliation since he came to the parliament. I commend him for that contribution. I just want to give a little bit of background information before I touch on the event that we acknowledged in the parliament last week—I would not say celebrated, but in a way we do celebrate it. I am going to go back to 10 December 1992, and to an inner suburb of Sydney called Redfern, where the new Prime Minister of Australia, Paul Keating, made the following comment in his now famous Redfern speech. It was on the eve of the International Year for the World's Indigenous People, which was the context of the speech. I do not know what went on in former Prime Minister Keating's head at the time, but he made the speech not in the Northern Territory, or North Queensland, or Western Australia, or the Kimberley or somewhere like that, where he could have had Uluru or Kakadu or something like that in the background. He did not go there to make a speech on the eve of the International Year for the World's Indigenous People, instead he went to Redfern—an inner-city location that was a much more significant choice in a way, because that is the reality for so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They are not in Kakadu or the Kimberley, they are actually in an urban environment and coping with different sorts of challenges. This does not diminish the challenges that come with living in a remote community where, as the member for Hasluck says, there is not a Budget hire car and some of the things that we associate with urban environments.

It was also in the context of the Mabo decision having been made on 3 June 1992; this was 10 December 1992, not that long after. And whilst we now accept native title as a fact of life, back then it was a major challenge to be accepted by the hierarchy, I guess you could say—the accepted history and judicial fabrication that this land was developed on. But to the words of Paul Keating:

It will be a year of great significance for Australia.

It comes at a time when we have committed ourselves to succeeding in the test which so far we have always failed.

Because, in truth, we cannot confidently say that we have succeeded as we would like to have succeeded if we have not managed to extend opportunity and care, dignity and hope to the Indigenous people of Australia—the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people.

That speech in 1992 was a great framing process for what happened afterwards. You can go on YouTube and see the speech. You can see different versions of the speech: there is one where it is set to music. It is a great piece of oratory and I think it does work as a bit of poetry as well as oratory. But when you actually see the raw footage, a fair swag of people were heckling him; there was a lot of tension and a lot of people were ignoring him. It was typical of a politician at an event in the park: most people were down the back just having fun with the kids and doing what you do in Australia. You are not really interested in politicians, whoever they are, even if they are a brand-new politician with a vision.

Nevertheless, the words certainly live on and, as I said, they framed an approach to a number of things. There had been a lot of work going on in the few years surrounding that. Prime Minister Keating then commissioned the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families. I think the Attorney-General was a Queenslander at the time, Michael Lavarch, and he established it on 11 May 1995. I would also specially mention the then Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Robert Tickner, now the head of the Red Cross, who also was a significant player in that process. So we think of that flow of events, from the Redfern speech through to commissioning the national inquiry, and they are quite significant. That inquiry was primarily conducted by Sir Ronald Wilson, the then President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, and Mick Dodson, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. But I am also going to take this opportunity to mention the co-commissioners: Annette Peardon, Marjorie Thorpe, Dr Maryanne Bin Salik, Sadie Canning, Olive Knight, Kathy Mills, Anne Louis, Laurel Williams, Jackie Huggins—a great Queenslander and one of my constituents—Josephine Ptero-David and Professor Marcia Langton. The inquiry also benefited from the appointment of an Indigenous advisory council, and there are some names in here that people would recognise: Annette Peardon, Brian Butler, Yami Lester, Irene Stainton, Floyd Chermside, Barabara Cummings, Grant Dradge, Carol Kendall, Lola McNaughton, Isabel Coe, Peter Rotimah, Nigel d'Souza, Maureen Abbott, Margaret Ah Kee, Bill Lowah, Matilda House and Jim Wright—and I will come back to Matilda House later. Seven hundred and seventy-seven submissions were received, and hearings took place in all of the territories. Basically, the commissioners and the co-commissioners went all over Australia to receive evidence.

From there, we flowed to the report actually being presented to the Howard government, as it then was, on 26 May. Since then, we have held National Sorry Day every year on the anniversary of the tabling of the Bringing them home report in parliament. In between times, some other great things have occurred. We have the Stolen Generations Testimonies Foundation, with its 40 oral history testimonies from members of the stolen generations. Apparently, that will be available online from July. We have the National Library of Australia's Bringing Them Home oral history project, an online collection of 191 oral history interviews with people who were involved in or affected by the removal of Indigenous children from their families.

But one of the most significant things to occur was on 13 February 2008. I said earlier that I would return to Matilda House, one of the Indigenous Council Advisory members. I will start with her on 13 February 2008, which was my first day on the job in this House, and the member for Deakin's as well. Before we actually started, we had a welcome to country, performed by Matilda House. I remember it was raining and Parliament House was leaking, in all sorts of ways, and she made a very good joke about that. From there, we moved into the House of Representatives chamber, where then Prime Minister Rudd began the very first order of business of the 42nd Parliament, reading out his own handwritten apology to the forgotten Australians. I want to quote from that apology on 13 February 2008, at 9 am Eastern Standard Time, when Mr Rudd tabled the apology as the first order of business on the opening of Australia's 42nd Parliament. I will not read the entire apology, because it is well known to most of us and also respected as a great piece of literature and oratory at the time—famous throughout the world, in fact—but just some parts:

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

That was certainly very well received by both sides of the parliament—I would almost say unanimously. It was supported unanimously. There might have been a few hiccups in the chamber in the process, but in the spirit of the goodwill of this day I would say it was passed unanimously, which was a significant thing. I note that in his response to Prime Minister's National Sorry Day statement, the Hon. Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, said:

I should also acknowledge former Prime Minister Rudd for having the vision to say sorry on behalf of our nation. That was an historic day and we all pay tribute to him for that act of statesmanship.

Those are fine words indeed. I do not say that very often about the Hon. Tony Abbott, but on this occasion I can say that. On that note, I recognise that there is work yet to be done and that, until we actually close the gap, apologies and fine words are only part of the job. There is still a lot to be done before we actually have a nation that is truly reconciled with the strange circumstances that formed it. With that, I commend the statement on Sorry Day to the House.

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to lend my support to this motion and to express my sorrow for what has happened to our Indigenous population in the past. I think it is very befitting that we have the opportunity to continue to reflect on things that occurred in the past, but I think we should also use this opportunity to reflect on where we are today and where we hope to find ourselves in the future. I started to reflect on that, given that I have one of Australia's largest Indigenous populations in my electorate of Leichhardt. I have the home of the Torres Strait people, one of our two Indigenous populations. I also have a very significant, large and diverse Aboriginal population, particularly in Cape York, many of them still living in their own homelands. Sorry Day of course was very significant to these people, as it was to so many other Australians.

I look at Sorry Day and I hear other slogans, such as Closing the Gap, that reaffirm a commitment to our Indigenous people and I think to myself that, if we are going to use this sort of terminology and these sorts of slogans, we seriously have to start to evaluate the outcomes we have set so that it is not just a matter of using hollow words or of standing here in a suit in this place and expressing a particular view by repeating these slogans. We need to look seriously at what we have actually achieved.

I have been very specific and looked at my own electorate. I will start with Cape York. Madam Deputy Speaker, I am sure you are aware of the debate we have had on wild rivers in recent times. I was living in Cape York when Indigenous people began to recover some of their own country, to get back some of the cattle properties that they either were born on or had a close association with. It has taken a couple of decades, but they have achieved that. They are now one of the largest holders of pastoral leases in Cape York. They are very excited by this fact. A lot of hard work and effort has gone into achieving this. Then they come across governments beholden to rabid green movements who decide that they are going to take away the rights of these landholders and deny them the right of economic development. So there has been a campaign by the overwhelming majority of Cape York Indigenous people to get control of their own land. Unfortunately, governments are so beholden to the Greens and dependent on them for votes that they have walked away from the needs and aspirations of these Indigenous landholders. They are effectively taking away their right to do anything at all on their land.

Mr Craig Thomson interjecting—

It is all right for these people in metropolitan areas who go up there for five minutes and blow their wind in Cape York—they have no understanding of the area. Most of the information they are provided with, as we see from the member for Dobell, would have been provided by the Wilderness Society. He would not have spoken to some of those landholders like Alan Creek, who recently got his country near Coen back, who are very concerned about the impact that that is going to have. The overwhelming majority of Indigenous leaders up there are vehemently opposed to what is occurring at the moment and what is being imposed on them.

I am sorry that they have to continue their battle with government and with bureaucracy as they attempt to have some say in what they can or cannot do on their own land. I am also sorry for the traditional owners and the landholders at the Sherga Air Force base, because this is where the government decided to put a detention centre, and they did not even have the courtesy to talk to these freehold landholders to seek their advice or approval to put a detention centre there. The traditional landholders found out about it in the media—the same as others—even though questions had been asked of the government and of the bureaucracy, and in each case no answers were given. As recently as last week, I got communiques from representatives of the traditional owners, who continue to express their frustration, disappointment and anger at the fact that the government and the bureaucracy continue to make decisions in relation to their land without any consultation whatsoever.

There are other issues that are having a significant impact on the lives of our Indigenous people, and we should be saying sorry for that. There is an organisation called EyeFlight which operates in Northern Australia under the Visiting Optometrists Scheme. Funding for this scheme has been provided in recognition of the fact that eye disease in our Indigenous population is six times more prevalent than in the mainstream population. You would think that this is something we would get behind, support and fund to a point where we could guarantee that we would get outcomes. Two million dollars has been made available to this scheme to cover 32,000 patients per year. You can see that figure is not great in relation to the amount of money that is provided for a very significant service.

Recently, I was talking to the providers of EyeFlight, which operates through the Visiting Optometrists Scheme throughout the Torres Strait and the Northern Peninsula Area. They only go there twice a year. At the moment the organisation receives $88,000 to do two flights per year into the area. At this stage, they are funding from their own resources a shortfall of over $50,000. We are talking about an eye disease that is six times more prevalent in our Indigenous population, and for the sake of a relatively small sum of money we cannot even make sure they have the resources to provide appropriate treatment. I am sorry that we are not able to do that. I have written to the minister and I have asked that he reconsider that.

If we are going to make commitments to programs like the Visiting Optometrists Scheme then we need to acknowledge the fact that we have a very significant problem with eye disease. Surely to goodness, the measure of the success of this program is to reduce that six to one figure to something significantly less than that. Even if it takes additional resources, I believe that it is absolutely appropriate that we do this. There are other issues in the Torres Strait that I would like to raise as well. For example, there are renal units that have been mothballed for many years. There is a high incidence of diabetes throughout our Indigenous population. When I was the member some years ago, I was able to secure funding to build renal units in Weipa, Bamaga and Cooktown to accommodate the need that was there. Unfortunately, after they were built the state government saw fit to close those units down because they did not want to provide the nursing staff necessary to assist. They have relocated families that are reliant on this into Cairns, and some of them have been living in Cairns for up to six years. Lency Stephens is one such person. She has been living in a cheap motel in Cairns for six years while waiting for the perfectly functional renal unit in Bamaga to get a nursing sister there to assist with her dialysis. Late last year Queensland Health committed to reopening the unit by Christmas and the family arranged to go back there. It is now the beginning of June and unfortunately they are no closer to opening that unit. I find that very disappointing, and I think we should be saying sorry to the Cape York communities for not finding the resources to open that unit.

If you go to the hospital on Thursday Island you could describe it as Third World at best. There are some serious infectious diseases in the Torres Strait. In the last 12 months there were outbreaks in our northern neighbour Papua New Guinea, which is only a couple of kilometres away from the islands of Saibai and Boigu. We have seen cholera, encephalitis, tuberculosis and malaria, and yet we do not even have an isolation ward in the Thursday Island hospital to protect our local residents. I think we should be saying sorry about that as well. We should be saying sorry for the fact that a hospital that was built to last 10 years has been there for 13 years and is starting to fall down around their ankles. There is not even appropriate accommodation for the nursing staff to provide necessary services. I think we should be not only saying sorry but also providing the resources to ensure that the health of our Indigenous people, particularly of those in the NPA and Torres Strait community, is protected.

Another good example up there which we need to say sorry for is in relation to how we deal with those who are deceased. In the clinics it has built right throughout the Torres Strait Islands, Queensland Health has provided rooms that can be used as temporary mortuaries. Unfortunately, through budget restraints, it has not been able to equip them with the necessary refrigeration to make them work. So for a whole series of islands across the Torres Strait there is only one functional mortuary, which is on Darnley Island. There is another standalone one on Badu Island which does not meet any of the standards and is not likely to remain open. This means that any deceased person from any of the outer islands has to be brought back to Thursday Island to be prepared for burial and taken back. For these low-income families it costs $12,500 to $13,000 to have their deceased loved one ferried back to Thursday Island for preparation. The Thursday Island mortuary is in the process of being closed down and they are going to replace it with a refrigerated shipping container. Quite frankly, I do not think this is the sort of respect that we should be showing for those loved ones who have passed away in these areas. I believe this is another area where, rather than saying sorry, I would suggest very strongly that we do something to make sure that this is addressed. Another thing we should be apologising for is the fact that we have taken away the Navy presence from up there. They have pulled out the immigration boats and the Customs boats and they have recently pulled out the Navy boats and actually taken the Navy people away. We are a seafaring people, and this is one of the only international borders, and they have shut this facility down, leaving our borders up there totally exposed. This is another area where we should be not only saying sorry but looking at recommissioning it.

I could go on. There are a lot of issues which I believe that, rather than saying sorry, we should be looking to fix. Some $22 million is needed to repair the seawalls in the outer islands of the Torres Strait. I was up there just before Christmas. It was gut-wrenching to walk with the community down to their cemetery and find that half of it had been washed out into the ocean. It is a $22 million project to do the seawalls on six islands. It is very doable, and the proposal has been around for a long time, but the only solution we have had so far is $400,000 to continue to measure the tidal surge. That does not help the families of those whose tombstones and deceased relatives have already washed out to sea. I think this is an absolute disgrace and needs to be addressed.

So if we are going to start talking about sorry—and it is something I absolutely believe in and am totally committed to—we need to match it with action rather than just words. I say sorry for all of the things that we have not done that are impacting on the lives of Indigenous people today. This is only a very small example of what is out there. By all means let us have a National Sorry Day and be sorry for the past, but what about our treatment of Indigenous people and what we are doing today and tomorrow? Rather than rhetoric, let us measure our real commitment to our Indigenous people by actions and outcomes.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry Day provides opportunities for us all to reflect upon the past and connect with those who suffered as a result of previous government policies. When I say previous government policies, these are governments of all political persuasions, not just one. Last Thursday I was fortunate to share some time with members of the stolen generation, and their friends, who were in Canberra—Matilda House, Sally Fitzpatrick, Margaret Evans, Maryanne Allan, Siani Jones, Helen Moran, Trish Smith, Ruth Bell, Lester Maher, Peter Beal, Steve Ridgeway, Rebecca Curtis, Sandra Kitchen, Julie Shelley, Aunty Martha, Janet Milera, Lyn Jones, Peter Hawkins, Jenny Carty, Jilpia Jones and Jenny Smith. I asked them a very simple question. I asked them what their experiences have been since the apology was delivered three years ago. Have things improved? What are the challenges they now face? What can be done to continue to improve the lives of our Indigenous brothers and sisters? They told me that the apology was not only for the surviving members of the stolen generations but also for those no longer with us—the mothers whose children were ripped from their arms; the brothers and sisters who never knew of each other; the children who grew up without ever knowing their land, their totem, their skin, their people.

These humble souls spoke quietly at first, telling me of the hurt and suffering they still struggle with every day. They spoke of the loss of family, of closeness, of community and of culture. Their stories began when they were small children, taken from their families, sometimes in the middle of the night, and forced into a strange new world that lasted a lifetime. They were taken from communities across the country and forced into homes thousands of kilometres away from their land. In fact, many of them said to me that, when the whitefellas came, they said this: 'Now we are taking you on a holiday.' The absolute devastation of being 'taken on a holiday' never to see your mother again is something that those of us who are non-Indigenous Australians can barely understand—the depth of the hurt, the pain and the scarring which occurs to such people. They were taken from their communities across the country, forced into homes thousands of kilometres away from their land. Through their tears they shared the challenges that we as a nation face in making things right and the importance of supporting the work of healing services offered through Link Up, the Healing Foundation and the many other terrific organisations at work out there in the Indigenous communities of Australia. They spoke of the urgency with which we must act to ensure that the work of these fantastic organisations can continue. They expressed the need for understanding and compassion for members of the stolen generations and their families. They said that what happened must never be forgotten, that we must always remember the hurt and suffering that was inflicted upon these First Australians.

Their decision to share with me their stories was their way of making sure that I could walk away from our gathering with a better sense of where to go from here and that as a whitefella I could begin to understand the importance of what lies ahead and that, while the apology has invoked a tremendous healing process, the journey towards reconciliation has only just begun. But it has begun. They also spoke of their vision for the future—one in which we all can come together to honour our differences, share our struggles and celebrate our successes.

Joining me for this special Sorry Day event was the Koori Mail. The Koori Mail is proudly 100 per cent Indigenous owned and funded and is a true Aboriginal success story. With more than 90,000 readers every fortnight, it is regarded as the voice of Indigenous Australia. The Koori Mail is one of the most important sources for Indigenous people to share their stories, connect with their communities and bridge the gap between what we see in the mainstream media and what is really happening in our communities. I thank the Koori Mail for attending the event and am sure that, like me, they recognise that closing the gap is the beginning of this very long journey.

Fourteen years ago the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's report, Bringing them home, was tabled in this parliament, providing a blueprint for this journey. Dr McKendrick assisted in the writing of the report and found that:

… when Aboriginal people (who were removed) come to have their own children, they've really got no idea how to parent in either the conventional Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal way … so their children are very often removed from them (by welfare agencies) which sets up this terrible cycle which goes on for generations.

The findings showed that much needed to be done to repair the damage caused to Indigenous Australians since settlement and that, if the intergenerational psychological scarring inflicted on the stolen generations was ignored, the cycle of disadvantage would continue. A healing process therefore needed to begin.

One of the key recommendations of the Bringing them home report was for an official apology to be given by the governments of Australia. Every state and territory leader delivered a formal apology in the late 1990s. But a gap remained. As the late and great Rick Farley argued, 'Until the community has a common understanding of what has occurred in the past, there is no foundation for moving ahead together.' There needed to be an acceptance by the wider community that Indigenous Australians were the traditional owners of the land, that the British came and colonised the continent, that atrocities such as those endured by the stolen generations took place and that Indigenous Australians still suffer severe levels of disadvantage.

The apology gave us the opportunity to do that. In the lead-up to the 2007 election, I promised that, if Labor were elected, I would apologise to the stolen generations. I said sorry on 13 February 2008. This was an important day for all of us. I am pleased that it was an important day in the lives of so many people around the country. Since then, the government has used the momentum of the apology to kick-start a comprehensive agenda to improve the lives of our nation's first people.

Closing the Gap is based on six targets and the Australian government has implemented programs to decrease the gaps that exist. The first target is closing the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation. Under the federal government, expenditure on Indigenous-specific health programs has increased by 87 per cent to almost $1.2 billion since 2007-08. Some $58.3 million has been allocated over four years to deliver a major increase in services to address trachoma with the expansion of the Visiting Optometrists Scheme. These changes to Aboriginal life expectancy must be measured into the future so that we can judge the extent to which we are succeeding or the extent to which we are not.

The second target is halving the gap in mortality rates for Indigenous children under the age of five by 2018. Between July 2008 and June 2010, children in remote Northern Territory communities and town camps received nearly 8,000 dental services, 4½ thousand audiology services and 3,000 ear, nose and throat services. The government will also be delivering new and expanded maternal and child health services and more access to antenatal care. Once again I sound a note of warning: let us wait for the figures to come in to see if these mortality rates for little children under the age of five across Indigenous Australia do in fact come down. This again must be the subject of rigorous measurement.

The third target is to ensure access to early childhood education for all Indigenous four-year-olds in remote communities by 2013, with $970 million being invested to reach this goal. Progress has been made, with enrolment rates for Indigenous children in New South Wales increasing from 79 per cent to 88 per cent in one year. That is not insignificant. That is an important step forward. The Australian government is investing $59.4 million to improve the quality of 140 early childhood services, including approximately 100 Indigenous services. Again, we need to see the measurements to ensure that we are in fact realising that gap concerning the provision of early childhood education for littlies under the age of four in Indigenous communities.

Target No. 4 is to halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievement for Indigenous children by 2018. The government is assisting schools to expand intensive literacy and numeracy approaches that have previously been successful with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, with $54.6 million over four years. Once again, we wait for the measurements to come in. The inputs are there. Let us measure the outcomes when they are there for the whole community to be seen.

The fifth target is to halve the gap for Indigenous students in year 12 or equivalent attainment rates by 2020. The government is providing $2.6 billion through the Smarter Schools National Partnerships. The government has invested record amounts in education and it is starting to pay off, with school attendance in Aurukun increasing from an average attendance rate of 37 per cent in July 2009 to 63 per cent in July 2010. Again, this is a good number. It reflects measureable progress. What we do need to see, however, is how this is reflected across Indigenous communities throughout the nation.

Finally, target No. 6 is to halve the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians by 2018. The government has implemented reforms to employment programs so that more Indigenous people can gain employment. Since 1 July 2009, more than 28,750 Indigenous Australians have been placed into employment by Job Services Australia.

The apology was a first step towards reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Much has been achieved since then, but there is still much to be done, including the recognition of Indigenous peoples in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia. It has instilled upon future generations an ongoing commitment to justice for Indigenous Australians. Specific, detailed reporting will hold the nation accountable for reaching our targets in the future. It will guide us as a nation as we continue to work together, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap.

As I met with these representatives of the stolen generations only a few days ago in this, the parliament of the Commonwealth, it was a moving experience listening, one by one, to each member of the stolen generations as to what had happened to them over the last three years. I wish I could stand here and say before the parliament that it has all worked really well. The truth is that it has not in all cases. That is the truth. Not one of them, however, said that the apology was not important to them; it was. Since that time it has opened up new possibilities and new hopes but has also created some new challenges.

Think of this for a moment, those of us who do not come from Indigenous Australia: if you have been physically removed from a member of your family for 20, 30 or 40 years and are reintroduced for the first time, how do you pick up the traces again? How do you really pick up the traces again? How do you really establish contact again? How do you really forge an emotional bond again? What has happened in those respective lives over that intervening 40-year period? One by one, I heard these stories about how difficult and painful that road has been. The other thing I heard very clearly was the importance of services like Link-Up being able to stay with these folk of the stolen generation into the future and to have the resources to support them once contact has been established. If you look across the sheer numbers and the physicality of those whom we call the stolen generation we are talking about tens of thousands of our Aboriginal brothers and sisters. And if you begin to think of the case management of this through Link-Up Australia, it is a phenomenal task—that is, for a case management officer to attach themselves to a member of the stolen generation, often with very few research tools, and then commit themselves to walking with that person through a very difficult evidentiary process to establish who the family was, where they have gone and often, worst of all, whether they have died in the meantime. This takes time, energy and resources. I know the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, is working hard on how to make sure that Link-Up is properly resourced into the future so it is able, first of all, to manage the caseload, the sheer numbers of people who still have not had the link re-established.

Then there is a second point. Think about this by putting yourselves into the circumstances of one such person. You are in Melbourne. You have discovered that you have a living relative—a brother, a sister, even a mother or a father—in Perth. You are flown to Perth, where the arrangements have been made to link up after 20, 30, 40 years or sometimes half a century. That occurs, and the difficulties and the joy, the mixture of both that I described before, all unfold; they all happen. What do you do then? It is pretty hard, because our Indigenous brothers and sisters are often living in pretty difficult financial circumstances. So how do you then sustain that contact into the future? What are the mechanisms to provide that ongoing support? If we as a nation have a genuine debt of responsibility towards these for whom successive parliaments—of all political persuasions, state and federal, over the generations—have acted in the people's name in removing the stolen generation, then what do we do at least to make sure that these bonds, once established and often fragile, are sustained? That is a second practical problem which the good folk at Link-Up are having to wrestle with.

I am not for a minute beginning to pretend that any of this is easy for that wonderful band of people at Link-Up who are doing the absolute best they can. But we are dealing with very damaged lives and very damaged souls. It is very important therefore that, in the spirit in which the apology was delivered, it is not just words, it is deeds; that we make sure that what we have committed to we then, in fact, do; and that we stay with these most wounded Australians until healing does occur for as many of them as is possible.

As we reflect on National Sorry Day and where we have come from, there are so many good things to talk about. There are so many things that we do not know because we cannot yet measure them. But for each of these lives, at a very personal and individual level, let us reflect on how hard each of those journeys is and on what we can still do as a civilised and caring community to support these, our brothers and sisters, on their path to healing.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too wish to rise to acknowledge Sorry Day, which was last week. I had the privilege of growing up in northern Victoria surrounded by the physical evidence of the traditional owners in that part of the world, the Dja Dja Wurrung. Unfortunately, there were no people left; just the kitchen middens, the scarred trees, some spearheads and so on. So I have to say that, growing up as a fifth-generation on that property, I was conscious of the original owners but knew nothing about them. I think that is pretty typical of a lot of people in Australia today. While 'sorry business' became part of the Australian lexicon, I believe a lot of people still do not understand and there is a lot of confusion. I also had the privilege of being on the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation for a number of years as we tried to bring forward a document that would encapsulate exactly what Australians needed to know and understand and how we were to be reconciled. That was a very important document and I do not think we refer to it enough today or look back at the words that were crafted at that time. I want to begin by talking about 1788, when the huge fleet of over 2,000 souls arrived in the Port Phillip-Botany Bay area under the guidance of Captain Phillip, an amazing man, who bore with him instructions from the British Admiralty. Those instructions said that he was to deal with the natives, as they were called at the time, in a way that was kind—the actual words were 'kindness and amity'. There was a bit of an undercurrent running through the instructions along the lines that, if they were dealt with kindly, they may be found to be of use to the new colony. Certainly they might be able to supply information which could be of great use in understanding what the resources of this new country were.

But you can imagine the impact the 2,000-plus British convicts, soldiers and a few free settlers had on the very small nation of owners of that country, only numbering several hundred, who very quickly saw their food supplies run down. Fish stocks were very quickly depleted by the use of the colonists' nets. The kangaroos were very quickly driven away. The birds, especially the water birds, were very quickly out of the reach of the traditional owners with their traditional hunting methods. Even access to the Tank Stream, which had been critical to the original owners, was severely restricted. There was no understanding at that first settlement that the Indigenous Australians, the local owners, could not simply fall back a little way towards the Blue Mountains and beyond once it became obvious there was not enough food to share with those hungry mouths, those starving new arrivals.

Then very quickly there was despair when the settlers saw so many of the traditional owners of the area falling sick and dying. There were a lot of early descriptions of the caves full of the dead and dying Aboriginal people with smallpox scars covering their bodies. It is a very sad thing to read those early documents. I spent several years researching these periods and producing a documentary history—which alarmed me because by the time I produced it I had already completed an anthropology degree specialising in traditional Australian culture, but I had not until then learned about how the transition occurred from traditional Australian culture to the time of fringe dwelling, extreme poverty, sickness and despair that is the lot of so many Aboriginal Australians today. I think every Australian, at the time of Sorry Day, should check their own knowledge of our Australian history.

We need to go back and understand that too many of the things that happened to Australia's original owners were the result of policies which were well meaning, were philanthropic in intent at the time, but which had the most dire consequences for the people. I will mention, for example, the protectorate system in Victoria. When the settlers in Victoria were pushing so hard into all of the pasture lands and the water supplies to settle their sheep and their beef cattle, which were protected by the convicts assigned to them, it became a case of frontier war with the local Aboriginal people. This was particularly so in Gippsland, where the forest cover made it very hard for the new settlers to win those skirmishes. They quickly found that, if an Aboriginal person was in heavily timbered country and the pursuers on horseback had to get off their horses, it became an equal fight. Too often the traditional owners won those skirmishes and that eventually led to the protectorate system—but before that, in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, it led to a native police system.

There were royal commissions that looked at the native police, particularly in Queensland in the 1830s, and what they found was that this was a force which was under white leadership, under white officer direction, but which was not to have written instructions. It was to respond to pastoralists who called for protection of their livestock due to depredations, incursions or attacks on that livestock from the local Aboriginal peoples. When someone had a few cattle speared or had a few sheep speared or just had livestock under threat—perhaps there were individuals involved in hand-to-hand combat—then the native police would be called up. They consisted of Aboriginal troopers. Many of those troopers had been in the prisons under charges of assault or even murder. They were put into a uniform and told that if they went out and joined the native police force, they would be free men—they would be given a rifle and a horse and the spoils of their activities would be theirs. They referred to the outcomes of those contacts with the traditional peoples charged with stealing livestock or worse as 'dispersal'. The official title of those activities was 'dispersals', typically carried out at dawn or dusk in the form of raids. According to the documentation at the time, those who survived the dispersals—and I mean that literally—moved themselves to towns or bigger regional centres in an effort to be safer and often to work in the abattoirs or the fishing industry or to get some other job. Those native police were very much a part of the settlement of Australia, but not many people understand why they were formed and how they worked. I have to say that we still need to address the curriculum in Australia to ensure the real Australian history is understood—not to be ashamed of it, not to say it is something that can never be remediated in Australia, but it is important to know the facts about Australian history.

When the protectorates were set up in Victoria, the idea was, again, as the name implies, to give protection to the tribes who remained, but what they in fact did was bring together disparate tribes who spoke different languages and who were traditional tribal enemies. They were brought together and contained in, or confined to, small areas under the control of a person employed by the colonial government. They were not allowed to speak their own languages and their children were required to go to school. There was no employment for anybody. And, because the remnants of the different tribal groups were pushed together onto these protectorates, you can imagine how intertribal warfare accelerated, especially when the traditional tribal enemies obtained guns and used them against each other or when there was even more revenge killing than usual because of all the deaths. So the protectorates, far from giving protection to the remnants of the Aboriginal tribes in Victoria, hastened their demise and certainly destroyed the remnants of their cultures. I have to say that today it is a sad thing when the Aboriginal peoples in my area strive as hard as they do to try and find some parts of language remaining or to capture from their elders some of the last stories about those earlier periods, because very little was documented at the time for them. There were some photos but not much else survived.

We then get to the stage of the stolen children—that was called a miscegenation policy. The idea was to 'rescue' the children of mixed unions. The idea was that, given they had 'white blood', they 'deserved'—as the documents said at the time—an alternative upbringing and, ideally, could then be trained to work as unskilled labourers on pastoral stations or in laundries and so on, filling a much needed part of the workforce that Australia has always had difficulty filling. That might have worked too; but, unfortunately when you look at where the children were placed—so-called orphanages or compounds where they were supposedly to be educated and supported into this new life—again and again you see from the government records and the Hansards of the day, that those programs were underfunded and badly managed, with often the cruellest people left in charge. There were often triumphs too with very kindly souls, some missionaries, who did very good work. But, when you read time and time again the reports, the annual statements and the press releases, and look at the photos and the health reports of the children in places like the Telegraph Station at Alice Springs or in the Darwin compound in the 1940s, it is quite shocking to see what conditions had to be survived and particularly the lack of respect for the people of mixed descent who, at the time, were called names like octoroons, quadroons and half-castes. There were different policies proposed for those different so-called mixes of blood.

Australia has a very complex past in terms of our race relations. As I said a minute ago, often the policies were aimed at a good outcome for all but too often they were based on wrong assumptions about the dying-out of the traditional owners, and the expectation that Darwin was right and so they said, if you were of a darker colour or a so-called full-blooded Aboriginal, you were therefore one of the lowest orders of human evolution. We have come a very long way, to now be standing in parliament once a year and expressing our sorrow and the fact that we are sorry about that past. But I think that is only the beginning and it is not enough. We have to make sure that every government program, whether it is at the local, state or federal level, actually delivers great outcomes for Aboriginal peoples, is delivered in cooperation with those individuals and is in fact always led, as far as possible, by the Indigenous people themselves. After all, they are members of the longest continuous surviving culture on earth. We have to learn from the Aboriginal peoples now about environmental sustainability. We have to learn about how families in good circumstances can be supportive of one another. But we also have to understand the legacy of generations of oppression, poverty, disease and, more recently, alcohol and drug addiction.

One of the things I want to do most in this parliament now is to address foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or FASD. This is not just an Indigenous problem at all, but a lot of our Indigenous communities have great difficulty now with levels of alcohol consumption. Too often we have children being born with FASD, which leaves the child with permanent brain damage and a lifelong limitation on their opportunities and their chances to reach their full human potential. So there is still a lot of work for us to do in this parliament. It is work we must do with bipartisan support I am very pleased to stand up and support this 'Sorry' motion. I want to make sure that all that I do helps in the future, becauset I am an Australian and every Australian has a responsibility to make sure all Australians, of whatever background, have a fair go.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During National Reconciliation Week, I think it is appropriate to support this motion. We need to take every opportunity to acknowledge the important contribution that Indigenous Australians have made throughout the history of our country, to acknowledge the important history and the achievements of Indigenous Australians. I also want to take the opportunity to reflect on our history, to express contrition, to say sorry and to reaffirm our commitment to closing the gap—to making sure that we do everything we possibly can to give our brothers and sisters of Indigenous background the same opportunities that those of us not from that background enjoy in our country.

National Reconciliation Week is a very significant week in the life of our country. It is my honour to be the Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs. I will talk in a few minutes time about what we are doing in our inquiry into the incarceration of Indigenous juveniles and young adults.

When I was elected in November 2007, I came to this parliament on the first day, in February 2008, acknowledging that it was our party's policy to say sorry. I knew that was important. Ipswich, where I live, has a very large Indigenous community. In fact, in the whole Ipswich-Logan corridor there is a very large Indigenous community—and great workers. Indeed, the electorate of Blair is named after Harold Blair, an Indigenous opera singer, civil rights campaigner and former Labor candidate who grew up in the Purga Mission south of Ipswich. I pay tribute to the Purga elders who are still there doing good work and the great organisations in my electorate like the Kambu Medical Centre, which provides health services, dental services and a whole range of allied health services to the people of the western corridor and Ipswich. But I did not really realise the implications of saying sorry in my heart. I knew it in my head. I want to pay tribute to the former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, now our foreign minister, for expressing on behalf of our country that we are sorry. It was a brilliant and moving speech. I would have to say that, apart from that, the two greatest speeches that I have heard in my lifetime are the 'It's time' speech by Gough Whitlam back in 1972, when I was a young fellow—that was pretty good—and Paul Keating's Redfern speech, which was simply superb. Mr Rudd made his apology speech on 13 February 2008, and it was extraordinary. He acknowledged the mistreatment of the stolen generations, that blemished chapter in our nation's history, and the fact that it was time for our country to turn the page. He apologised for the laws and policies of successive governments which caused profound grief, loss and sorrow, especially the removal of Indigenous children from their mums and dads. He said acknowledgement was the first step towards reconciliation and a future in which the injustices of the past would never be repeated.

But there could not have been the sorry speech of former Prime Minister Rudd without the sorry speech, if I can put it like that, of Paul Keating. He talked of Australia as 'truly the land of the fair go and the better chance'. He gave that speech in Redfern, which was an appropriate place to do it, on the occasion of the Australian launch, on 10 December 1992, of the International Year of the World's Indigenous People in 1993. He wanted to recognise the plight of Aboriginal Australians, and he said these words, which I think bear repeating:

… the starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians.

It begins, I think, with the act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion.

It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask—how would I feel if this were done to me?

Mr Keating went on to say:

I think what we need to do is open our hearts a bit.

All of us.

You can see what a wonderful speech it was. And the speech of former Prime Minister Rudd could not have happened without that earlier speech.

We must never, ever again pursue policies of discrimination. We must redouble our efforts to close the gap. Two centuries of white settlement have brought great benefit to this country, and we embrace with pride and respect what we have done, but there has also been heartache. We have caused grief and despair and loss—the loss of language and the loss of loved ones stolen away. There are huge gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. There are areas of disadvantage: life expectancy and lifestyle, alcohol and abuse, family violence and foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, education and employment, health and home, and income and incarceration.

It is that last matter, incarceration, that I want to look at for a couple of minutes. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs is about to table a report that acknowledges, in the 20 years since the report by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the shameful history under all governments of our record with respect to the incarceration of Indigenous youth and young adults. Prisoner census data shows that, between 2000 and 2010, the number of Indigenous people incarcerated increased dramatically—Indigenous men by 55 per cent and Indigenous women by 47 per cent. It is a sorry state of affairs and, with Sorry Day just past, it is appropriate to acknowledge this shameful state of affairs and commit ourselves to working in partnership with our Indigenous brothers and sisters to close the gap.

I would like to acknowledge a couple of people who came forward to give evidence on the record in the inquiry. There were so many across about 110 submissions and 17 public hearings, including a roundtable in Redfern which was quite poignant and moving. Shane Phillips, from the Tribal Warrior Association in Sydney, is mentoring young men to be productive and strong leaders in their communities. Duncan Smith actually taught the committee a traditional song from his homeland to take to New Zealand when we engaged with the Maori leaders there. He runs an enterprising dance and culture business here in Canberra. But there are so many other notable people and organisations across the country, including in my home state of Queensland, up in Cape York, and in my electorate as well. People involved in mentoring programs, family support, maternal and child welfare and health services, and, I have to acknowledge, the Aboriginal Grannies—they are groups across our country who work at change at a local level. That is why it is so important—because Indigenous women are 35 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of spouse or partner violence than non-Indigenous women.

Our inquiry heard some pretty shameful statistics about the rates of detention and incarceration. But we heard some inspirational stories as well: people from Indigenous and non-Indigenous backgrounds who are focusing on the future, yet facing the past and trying to move on. We will focus on prevention and early intervention; we will identify strategies to reduce the alarming detention and incarceration rates across the country. Two statistics are most stark to me—the detention rate for Indigenous juveniles is currently 28 times higher than the rate for non-Indigenous juveniles, and for Indigenous adults of 17 to 24 years of age it is 15 times the rate. What a tragedy.

Our inquiry brought together magistrates, state police, NGOs, academics, social researchers, drug and alcohol counsellors, justice organisations and so many others involved in diversion and intervention. The problems surrounding juvenile justice, incarceration and alternative strategies to divert people away from incarceration are very complex and longstanding. But we must harness the knowledge and commitment of all of us, particularly those who work in the field, to bring real change and opportunities for the future.

We in the federal Labor government are committed to finding solutions to reverse the trend of increasing numbers of juveniles and young adults of Indigenous background being entrapped in the criminal justice systems across the country. I am thoroughly offended when I hear law and order campaigns perpetrated and perpetuated by political leaders and parties, particularly at a state level, when they want to simply whip up hysteria in their campaign for votes. This has often resulted in more young people and young adults becoming involved in the criminal justice systems in this country.

We are committed to breaking the cycle of Indigenous disadvantage, intergenerational poverty and the cycle of offending and recidivism. We are committed to increasing educational retention and expanding employment opportunities. We need to provide better homes and better health for Indigenous people across the country, to provide accommodation options for Indigenous young people at risk and after release, and to ensure rehabilitation and appropriate health care.

It is very easy to say sorry. I was not planning to make any political points in this speech but when I heard the member for Leichhardt ranting and raving in his criticism of us, and of the Queensland state Labor government, I have to say that the former Prime Minister John Howard never seemed to be able to say he was sorry. Those words never seemed to pass his lips as he floundered and fumbled on Indigenous issues and affairs. I am proud to say that we did, as the first act that we could undertake legislatively, in February 2008, simply say 'sorry'.

The tears, the pain and the anguish we saw that day was mingled with joy and happiness, relief and elation, not just here but back in our schools, our communities, our business places and our homes. That is a start, and only a start, as we tackle these Indigenous issues. It is appropriate we redouble our efforts to ensure that we do close the gap. It is not just rhetoric. It becomes reality.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight in support of the Prime Minister's statements on National Sorry Day. In doing so I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we are meeting on, the Ngunawal people. I also wish to acknowledge and pay my respects to their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of this city, this region and my electorate. The 26th of May is a very important day for Australia and marks the day when we as a country recognise the wrongs that have been committed to our Indigenous people. It is the day that the Bringing them home report was tabled in this parliament, a report that detailed quite clearly what had occurred to the stolen generation and acknowledged the forced separation of Indigenous children from their families. It was a report that caused more than a few tears to be shed, both in this chamber and across Australia, amongst both the Indigenous community and the non-Indigenous community.

National Sorry Day is about more than simply admitting any personal fault. National Sorry Day is about sending a powerful message that you care about and recognise the hurt that has been caused, irrespective of whether or not you were personally responsible for it. It is a very important symbolic gesture and it occurs at the beginning of National Reconciliation Week, a week that recognises two events: the day when 90 per cent of Australians voted in a referendum to recognise Indigenous Australians as citizens and Mabo Day, which is a day honouring the man who gave a name and a face to the important issue of land rights and recognised the historical and cultural significance this continent has for Indigenous people.

However, it goes beyond just symbolism to have practical and tangible effects on the community. To this end I was very fortunate to be invited to attend a special assembly last Friday to honour National Reconciliation Week at Richardson Primary School in my electorate. Richardson Primary School has students from all backgrounds, from many diverse communities. It is also a school with a very large Indigenous community. I have been fortunate enough to visit Richardson Primary School on a number of occasions and each time I have been impressed by the inclusive community and the real commitment to learning and to developing and growing the students. This shone through particularly well at this special assembly. I was especially impressed with the work the students had put into message sticks they displayed at the assembly. They were quite large message sticks and they each had little motifs on them of particular cultural significance to the students. The sticks honoured the Indigenous culture and history of the people around Canberra and also the people around Australia.

The students worked on these sticks not just as part of a class activity but also during their lunch hours, which shows true commitment to the importance of reconciliation. They were really into them and they were very proud of them afterwards. The students, already at this young age, had understood that this week is about bringing together Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to share our stories and most importantly to understand each other. It is about recognising the importance of those stories and what each of us individually contributes to our country. Our stories are unique and important, whether we are Indigenous or not. It is particularly important to point out the need for language to continue, because language is essentially what keeps cultures alive. So it is very important that we keep the many Indigenous languages throughout Australia alive and being spoken. As soon as the communities stop speaking them, essentially that little part of the community, that culture, dies. It is very important that we not only keep these stories alive but also keep the language that tells them alive. Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week are more than just symbolic. They are also about ensuring that we as a parliament and a country are bridging the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. I would therefore like to use this opportunity to honour the work being done in my electorate by the Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service. Winnunga Nimmityjah was founded in 1988 and has grown into a significant and important Indigenous health provider. It is located in a mad old 1960s or 1970s building in Narrabundah that I think was gifted to the community by the Whitlam government. I have been very fortunate to have visited Winnunga on a number of occasions. One occasion was with Warren Snowdon and Tom Calma to launch a health day for Indigenous communities throughout Australia.

Winnunga have played a very pivotal role in ensuring Indigenous health in Canberra and the region for many years. In fact, they service not only the community here in Canberra but also around 25 per cent of the region. People come from far and wide to use the services at Winnunga. The services are many and varied. There are dental health services. There are a number of doctors who work there part time, often on a pro bono basis, to help the Indigenous community. They do basic medical checks—such as blood pressure checks and cholesterol checks—and a whole range of things. They also provide diabetes checks, which are particularly important given the incidence of diabetes in the Indigenous community, and they offer physio services. What I was particularly heartened by was the fact that they also offer infant welfare services. Infant welfare services are not structured in the same way that they used to be when my mother used to take my sisters and me to get our needles and have health checks in the 1960s and 1970s. So it was great to see that these services are there to help new mums, particularly new young mums, with advice on infant welfare and to support the mothers in breastfeeding and on a range of other issues.

Speaking about Winnunga, I would also like to acknowledge Dr Peter Sharp. He worked at Winnunga and I just heard last week that he has been diagnosed with cancer and the diagnosis does not look that good. I just want to acknowledge and honour the work he has done for the Indigenous community in Canberra, particularly at Winnunga. He has dedicated his life to helping to improve the health of the Indigenous community. It was tragic news for everyone in Canberra, particularly the Indigenous community and those at Winnunga, to hear that Dr Sharp was suffering from cancer. We wish him well and we wish him a recovery from the illness. It was a deep blow to hear that news last week.

In closing, I would like to say on behalf of the people in Canberra that, when we said sorry, everyone here was absolutely elated. We were very proud of the fact that a Labor government had done it. I think that Canberrans are deeply committed to improving the health, welfare, education and prosperity of the Indigenous community not only here in Canberra but also throughout Australia. It was a great day for all Canberrans. It is also a great honour to be able to acknowledge that day today and speak during National Reconciliation Week.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking to the Prime Minister's statement on National Sorry Day, I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners. I also acknowledge that this week is National Reconciliation Week, as is always the case between 27 May and 3 June. Both dates are significant in our calendar, with 27 May being the date of the 1967 referendum where 90 per cent of Australians voted to give the Commonwealth the power to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and to recognise them in the national census and 3 June 1992 being the date the High Court delivered its landmark Mabo decision about Aboriginal land rights. National Sorry Day, as other members have said, occurs each year on 26 May. That is the date on which the Bringing them home report, also known as the stolen generations report, co-authored by the late Sir Ronald Wilson and Mick Dodson, was presented to parliament. I had the privilege of inviting Sir Ronald Wilson to the city of Salisbury when I was the Mayor of Salisbury. As part of our Reconciliation Week events, I invited Sir Ronald Wilson to come and address the local community about his report. In fact, I think it was the first public address he made with respect to it after having presented it to parliament. I well recall him describing the emotions he went through and the feelings he had as he was taking evidence from people from around Australia in the preparation of that report. I know how strongly he felt about the issue and the recommendations that he prepared for the parliament.

The report talked about the forced removal of Indigenous people in this country in the period 1909 to 1969. Of course, we know that forced removal of Indigenous people occurred both before and after those dates. Interestingly there were 777 submissions made and, of those, 500 were confidential. The reason they were confidential was that the people who made submissions did not want to talk openly about their experience. They just felt so emotional about it that they were only prepared to make those submissions in confidence to Sir Ronald and those that were with him as part of the inquiry. I remember him making a very strong point about that.

His final report had some 54 recommendations, which included three key ones that I want to briefly touch on: firstly, that funding should be provided to ensure that the stories and the records of those people were in fact compiled; secondly, that reparations should be made with respect to those people that had been forcibly removed as children; and, thirdly, that the Australian government should issue an apology. As we have heard from other speakers, that was done on 13 February 2008 by the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. Again as other speakers have mentioned, I think it was a historic day for this nation. I felt very proud to be a member of this House and of the government that provided that apology. It is certainly one of the memorable events in my time since having been elected to this place.

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was conducted by Justice Elliott Johnston and concluded in 1991. It is notable that 50 per cent of the deaths investigated by the royal commission related to people who had been removed from their homes. That is an interesting correlation between the two reports. Justice Johnston addressed a community forum in my community on that very topic, and I can recall his personal insight into the inquiry that he conducted.

The issues of both Aboriginal deaths in custody and reparations bring me to the issue of legal aid for Indigenous people in this country. Aboriginal legal rights services commenced throughout Australia in the early 1970s. The Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement of South Australia commenced on 21 January 1973. These services were essentially established to provide legal support and advice to Aboriginal people for mainstream legal matters—typical civil and criminal matters—but also to provide legal aid for members of the stolen generations. With respect to the need for legal aid assistance to Indigenous people I want to quote a report entitled Issues of equity and access by Professor Chris Cunneen and Melanie Schwartz. The report says:

The difficulties experienced by Indigenous people in their interactions with the criminal justice system have been well documented and are regularly reported upon through the Review of Government Service Provision (Productivity Commission) process. The extent of over-representation of Indigenous prisoners has deepened since the landmark Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991, and, as the recent 2007 Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage Report noted, "Indigenous people's involvement with the criminal justice system continued to deteriorate". Some relevant headline statistics—

and these are critical—

and I realise that these dates are now a few years old, but I suspect that little has changed—

Indigenous prisoners represented 24% of the total national prisoner population, the highest proportion since 1996. The actual number of Indigenous prisoners at 30 June 2006 was 6,090—a dramatic increase from 3,275 10 years earlier.

There are other matters within that report that I would love to quote, but time will not allow me tonight.

The point I would make about that is that the need for Aboriginal legal aid is clearly evident when you look at those statistics and the court presentations that would flow from them. The issue in respect of the legal assistance to members of the stolen generations was also highlighted on 1 August 2007 when in the South Australian Supreme Court Justice Thomas Gray awarded $775,000 to a person who had been taken from his family. Regrettably, that person, less than a year later, passed away.

I just want to finish on this point, because I note that the member for Lingiari is here and also wants to make a contribution to this debate before our time expires. Both the CEO of the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, Neil Gillespie, and chairperson of that movement, Frank Lampard, have raised with the government their concerns about the adequacy of Indigenous legal aid funding and have also raised the question of responsibility for that funding between the federal government and the states. It seems to be an ongoing issue as to who should be responsible.

They have also highlighted that Aboriginal people will not access mainstream legal aid services for various reasons. Again, I could go into that if I had the time, but I will not. But the fact is that they will not access mainstream legal aid services. The Aboriginal legal rights services around this country are losing experienced lawyers because of the shortfall in funding. These are important matters and, since they are related to the Sorry Day statement that we are debating tonight, I bring them to the government's attention. I am pleased to be able to support the government's statement with those remarks.

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

I thank my colleague who has just spoken for his contribution and all those other people who have involved themselves in this debate on National Sorry Day—the members for Hasluck, Moreton, Leichhardt, Griffith, Murray, Blair and Canberra. I firstly acknowledge the Ngunawal traditional owners of this country on which we are meeting. It is my own birthplace, by the way. Ngunawal country is something I must say I did not know a lot about as a kid, but I have learnt a lot about it since.

Last week we celebrated National Sorry Day, a day that meant so much to all Australians. Its significance is recognised each year and the momentum is building to better the lives of members of the stolen generations, their families and their communities. We remember the apology, initiated by the member for Griffith when Prime Minister, to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It was delivered on 13 February 2008. In the years that I have been in the parliament, and there have been a lot of them, I cannot think of a prouder day than the day that we issued that national apology, and I want to thank the member for Griffith for that initiative and for the way in which he delivered what was a very fine speech. I think the sentiments in it epitomised the feelings of all the people in the parliament and I am very pleased to have been there that day. I have many friends from the stolen generations who were also present and I know what it meant to them.

On National Sorry Day last year, the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Ms Macklin, and I launched the Stolen generations working partnership. This seeks to harness the efforts of government and non-government organisations in supporting members of the stolen generations to heal the grief of past practices of forcible removal. While much has already been done towards achieving the priorities outlined in the document, there is still much to do.

The Australian government acknowledges the importance of ongoing advocacy of the stolen generations. Part of demonstrating this is the acknowledgement of the recently released National Sorry Day Committee scorecard. The scorecard is a measure of progress in the first 12 months of operation of the Stolen generations working partnership. I am pleased to commit to ongoing dialogue with the stolen generations. We welcome their engagement in the planning and implementation of future activities. I know a lot of people who are members of the stolen generations and their families. Their stories, as we all know from what was said in the parliament the day that the Prime Minister gave the apology, are heart wrenching. People were taken away from their parents. In the case of people from Central Australia, many were taken to Croker Island, off the coast of the Northern Territory, never to return. Or they were taken to other places, Bathurst and Melville Island and other parts of the Northern Territory, never to return. When they have returned in later years as adults, often their parents are no longer there, and the sadness of that and what it means for all families should be obvious to all of us.

The 2011-12 budget recognises that members of the stolen generations need ongoing support for their journey of healing. The government announced the expanded investment of $54.4 million over five years to continue counselling, family tracing and reunion services for members of the stolen generations, currently provided under the Bringing Them Home and Link Up programs. In addition, the national mental health reform package provides expanded access to allied psychological services with a particular focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Some $10 million will go towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander specific suicide prevention and mental health services under the ATAPS program over the next five years. The expansion of this program will involve funding of support services to 18,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Sorry Day is a national day of commemoration and remembrance in the Australian calendar. We recognise and acknowledge the stolen generations and all that they have endured as a result of the forced removal policies of the past. We will continue to work together to improve on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage. As the Minister for Indigenous Health, I have great pleasure in talking to Aboriginal people across this country on a regular basis about how we can empower them to have greater control over their lives—in this case, through the delivery of health services. We fund nationally around 152 community controlled health organisations, and they are very fine examples of comprehensive primary health care being delivered for and by Aboriginal community controlled organisations. They have much to be proud of. But there is more to do; there is a great deal more to do. My friend here has just spoken about legal aid and the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that are before the courts and in the jail system and the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who do not get a good education and who are worried about what their next meal might be. They are the things we need to think about in this country. We need to understand that the original inhabitants, the longest-surviving culture on this planet, deserve a great deal better than they have. We need to be working with them. I say to those members of the stolen generations who have been the subject of these silly policies of the past that it is a sad indictment of the policymakers of the era that they were ever put in place in the first instance. The national apology, I hope, has helped heal some of the hurt. It will never replace family relationships. As a parent, I cannot imagine what it must feel like to have a child taken away. So I am very pleased to be able to contribute to this debate, although, as I have said on an earlier occasion today, this is not a debate; this is speaking to a motion across the parliament, and it is good to see the cross-party support the motion has been given.

Debate adjourned.