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

I acknowledge the Ngunawal, the traditional owners of the land on which we meet. I pay respect to their elders, their culture and their law. This always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land. I also wish to acknowledge the people who have come to Canberra this week from all over this country as this issue is being discussed in parliament. That includes people from the Kimberleys, Alice Springs, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Queensland.

To the new Rudd government, I say thank you for this day. It has been so important to so many people. I was very pleased to finally hear an Australian Prime Minister say sorry on behalf of the parliament and his government. It means a great deal to many, many Australians. I would also like to say thank you for the opening of the 42nd Parliament yesterday with the magnificent welcome to country ceremony.

I am sure every member of the House of Representatives and the Senate today saw all the people streaming up to this place to bear witness and look at and take part in the ceremony either on the lawns or in the Great Hall or who went to all the places around Australia where the apology was being televised. In my home state of Western Australia I understand that at seven o’clock this morning there were nearly 2,000 people on the foreshore of the Swan River listening to the apology. I understand that the feeling there was just as it was here. If you were standing in the Great Hall you share in this moment with the stolen generations. I do not think there has ever been a greater moment for me to actually hear that apology and be with the people feeling the emotion of that apology.

It is significant that the apology is seen to be the very first action of this new government, but we will be watching to see that after that first step of apology and acknowledgement the government continues to take the second, third, fourth and fifth steps that are needed to address the health, education, housing, representation and opportunities of life of the Aboriginal people of Australia. We welcome the commitment of the new government to close the gap on life expectancy, community health, education and economic opportunity. We also welcome the government’s stated commitment to evidence based policy, and I will come to that again later.

We are very hopeful that they will assess and respond to the evidence about the problems with the intervention in the Northern Territory by maintaining or increasing the commitment of resources, but also by making sure that those resources are being used properly, constructively and effectively. Unfortunately, the evidence that we are seeing come in is not reflecting that. The Greens again reiterate our support for a full, sincere and unreserved apology for stolen land, stolen children, stolen wages, stolen rights and stolen opportunities. We are sorry for the appalling way that we, non-Indigenous Australians, have treated the first peoples of this land. We are sorry for the way that the removal of children has ripped the hearts out of families and created a legacy of intergenerational suffering and trauma and contributed to the wider exclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from the social, cultural and economic life of the nation. We desperately hope that this will be a new beginning.

The Bringing them home report, the report on the national inquiry into the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, was brought down on 26 May 1997. The Greens, through Senator Bob Brown, gave our heartfelt and unreserved apology in the Senate in 1997. My very first action as a new senator was to speak on this very issue. In my first words to the Senate, I acknowledged the traditional owners of this country, the Ngunawal. I also went on to say sorry to our Indigenous peoples. I said that I looked forward to a day ‘when we will acknowledge their voices and do them justice by enabling their true representation in the governance of this country’. I also felt that it was to our shame that we were the only developed nation which has failed to achieve this and that the plight of our Indigenous peoples continued to worsen. The Greens believe that there is a need for a full audit of the Bringing them home report and its 54 recommendations. We need to measure the progress that has been made on these recommendations and to identify targets and timelines, and monetary resources, to deliver on each and every one of them. To date, our audit indicates that most have in fact not been implemented.

I also want to acknowledge, remember and pay my respects to Rob Riley, who kicked off the very first inquiry into the removal of children in Western Australia, which then went on to become a model for the national inquiry. I have told Rob’s story in this place before—in fact, on Sorry Day in 2006. Rob was a pillar of strength for the local Nyungah community in Perth. For many years, he headed up the Aboriginal Legal Service. But he was also one who night after night went down to the lockup when one of the Nyungah street kids was taken down there and needed help. When Rob released the first WA report, he came out and told the story of being taken from his mother at the age of 18 months, of being brought up being told that his mother was dead and of not learning any different until it was too late and she had passed on. Rob, unfortunately, took his own life when it got too much for him.

Rob’s story gives us a very clear example of the way that removal has very stark impacts on the health and wellbeing of both the children removed and their families. These ongoing, tangible impacts are the reason that a heartfelt apology on behalf of the nation, backed up by a commitment to address the wrongs of the past, is so important. This clearly includes reparations, which are so clearly and strongly recommended in the Bringing them home report.

For concrete evidence for, and an understanding of, the intergenerational impacts of removal on the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal Australians and the stolen generations, I draw your attention to the Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey and remind you of the speech given by then Australian of the Year Dr Fiona Stanley in parliament in May 2005. I also acknowledge the work of Dr Helen Milroy and others on this issue. This survey quantified the relationship between the removal of parents and grandparents who are now the carers of the current generations of Aboriginal kids and the health and wellbeing of those children. One in six Aboriginal children in WA were surveyed—that is over 5,000 kids, the biggest and most comprehensive survey of this kind. Of those zero- to 17-year olds, nearly 13 per cent had carers who had been removed. Those carers who had been removed as children had higher rates of alcohol consumption, were more likely to have been arrested or charged and were half as likely to have someone with whom they felt they could share their problems. They were also more likely to have contact with mental health services. The children for whom they cared were twice as likely to have behavioural and emotional problems, twice as likely to have a high risk of hyperactivity and emotional conduct disorders and twice as likely to be already abusing drugs and alcohol. As you can see, there are very clear links between the stolen generations and the impact on the children of the current generation.

Children growing up hearing the stories of officially sanctioned mistreatment of their parents, their mothers and their grandmothers in an environment in which these injustices are not acknowledged, or are even denied, can easily be led to despair, particularly when they are growing up in disadvantage, experiencing firsthand the impacts of social exclusion and living in a community with a high rate of unemployment and in which they face an uncertain future. This is why a full and unconditional apology from the government to the stolen generations on behalf of the parliament is important to not just the children who were removed but also their children and grandchildren. The health and wellbeing burden carried by Aboriginal Australia and Aboriginal communities is huge. But, compared to the population, their numbers are relatively small. So how can we justify not being able to address their social exclusion and their disadvantage? How can we justify not being able to fix the 17-year gap in life expectancy?

It was very disappointing to hear that the issue of reparations and compensation was dismissed out of hand when the delivery of the apology was being discussed. We believe that this business will not be resolved or finished until the stolen generations are properly compensated and have full reparation. We Greens are absolutely committed to following that issue and ensuring that the stolen generations are fully compensated and that just reparation is delivered.