Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On indulgence, I wish to note that this is the first anniversary of the parliament's apology for forced adoptions. On 21 March last year the former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and I led the national apology into forced adoptions. It was a heartfelt occasion that meant much to many across our country. We rightly apologised to the women, the children and the families who were victims of forced adoption. For too long, too many had believed that they knew what was for the best for young unwed mothers and their babies. But the people who claimed it should have known better. If they had known better, terrible and avoidable pain that was inflicted on hundreds of thousands of people would have been avoided.

There is no stronger bond than between a mother and her child, and it should never have been presumed that these young women were incapable of raising their children. It was a tragedy for them and for our nation, and last year we did do our best to atone. We said that we were sorry for being hard-hearted and judgemental. We said we were sorry for turning what should have been the wonderful experience of new life into something filled with shame.

A year ago, as a nation, we accepted responsibility for the pain, the suffering and the grief. I want to assure all those who were hurt—the mothers, the children and the fathers—that you are not forgotten. Our hope last year was that the apology would be part of a healing process. My hope today is that the apology has played, and is playing, its part in transforming reproach into reassurance and anger into peace.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A year ago, the Australian parliament came together to face a hard truth to right an old wrong. I pay tribute to the leadership and compassion of Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who delivered the national apology on forced adoption. I acknowledge the words of the then opposition leader, now Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, too. It was an apology to thousands of young mothers who had their special, unique, beautiful, precious babies taken away from them. It did hurt fathers, too—largely women, but men, too, suffered. It was an apology to thousands of children who grew up deprived of their mothers' love. It was an apology for decades of indifference—callous indifference—from governments, bureaucracies, churches, charities and hospitals.

As Prime Minister Gillard did a year ago, I, too, now pay my tribute to the strength and bravery of the thousands of Australians who came forward to tell their stories and make their difficult submissions to the Senate committee—the mothers, the fathers, the sons and the daughters who found the courage to publicly draw upon their strength to tell their difficult personal stories; who found their strength to demand their identity and the respect for which they had been so long denied. It was this intensely individual, deeply personal determination that drew back a veil of shame and a veil of silence that has been cast over the lives of thousands of our fellow Australians.

Perhaps more inspiring still, they found it in themselves to accept the apology in the generous spirit that it was given. The 42nd and the 43rd parliaments delivered three national apologies—each one of them stands as a powerful reminder that there is nothing to fear or to lose in facing up to historical truth. Indeed, every time Australians come together to acknowledge the wrongs of our past, our country becomes a better and more decent place. Let all of us in this place recall that lesson again today. Let all of us in this place draw some inspiration from that well of the never-give-up spirit of those who were wrongly forcibly adopted. Let us all in this place declare that never again should any of our fellow Australians undergo pain and invisibility alone, as those affected by forced adoption endured.