Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I, and also on behalf of Senator Bartlett, move the motion:

That the Senate—

(a)

notes that:

(i)

26 May 2007 is the 10th anniversary of the tabling in the Senate of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission report, Bringing them home: National inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, and

(ii)

as recommended in the report, the Senate recognises that 26 May is National Sorry Day, a day of remembrance each year to commemorate the history of forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and its effects on individuals, families and communities;

(b)

acknowledges the efforts to implement the report’s recommendations on support for services to reunite Indigenous family members, such as Link-Up’s counselling support and tracing services, while recognising that the unmet need for these services is still unacceptably large; and

(c)

notes:

(i)

the release yesterday of the Urbis Keys Young Bringing them home evaluation report, which documents the outstanding work being done by Link-Up services and bringing them home counsellors, and highlights their positive outcomes and high rates of client satisfaction along with their inordinately heavy case loads and high rates of burnout, and

(ii)

there remains a need for full implementation of the report’s recommendations in order to provide healing and make reparations to Indigenous people removed from their families.

Question put.