Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I am deeply and genuinely sorry for the way Indigenous Australians have been treated for many years. I apologise for the fact that in the time I have been in parliament we did not do enough to address many of the problems. I am also very sorry that some of the initiatives that we implemented for Indigenous people in the Northern Territory, the only jurisdiction over which we have control, have already been placed in doubt by the new government.

I am desperately sorry about the treatment of Aborigines even as we speak. Stories abound in my state of Queensland about sexual abuse of young Indigenous people and about worse than Third World health and education services provided by the state government. The state government seems incapable of or uninterested in addressing those issues. Daily in Queensland there are reports of tragic incidents.

All the talk, all the symbolism, all the hand wringing will not address the appalling situations that many Indigenous people still find themselves in.

The work that the Howard government started should be accelerated, but already the politically correct brigade are stalling that work. I mention just one instance—the actions of the Northern Territory and Commonwealth governments in reversing the opening up of communities to other Australians. It seems to be so essential to involve Indigenous Australians in the wider community and to let the wider community interact with Indigenous Australians. In this regard I share the concern of prominent Australians such as Mr Warren Mundine, the former President of the ALP, who has, as do I, concerns about bringing back the permit system.

Many of the actions implemented by Mr Brough should have been duplicated around Australia, but it served the purposes of Labor state governments not to accept those solutions. I am desperately sorry for the plight of many Indigenous people who find themselves in the revolving door of poverty, substance abuse and sexual abuse and parents who are simply incapable of bringing up their children.

The forcibly separated generation of Indigenous people was separated by well-meaning people decades and decades ago. I do not believe that I or other Australians can apologise for actions taken by former generations in different circumstances at a time of different attitudes, laws and Christian beliefs. I venture to say that all the missionaries, churches and state government officials did what they did believing it to be best for those involved—for the children they believed to be at risk, for the children they believed would never be able to enjoy what they believed to be a civilised way of life. In today’s thinking, that has all changed and would not be repeated. Having said that, though, one only has to look at the everyday occurrences in the non-Indigenous communities today, where young children seen to be at risk are forcibly taken from their parents because those parents are simply incapable of dealing with young children at a particular age. I know about this because I have family in this situation.

But, if apologies are to be given and compensation paid, I think it behoves the government to look wider than just the position of Indigenous people. I want to refer the government to the report of the Senate Community Affairs References Committee entitled Forgotten Australians, published in August 2004, which gives a damning account of young non-Indigenous Australians who were forcibly taken from their parents in the 1930s and 1940s. I am indebted to a Mr John Walsh from Roma in Queensland, who contacted me and alerted me to this report into the terrible situation in which he and many other young Australians found themselves in the last 70 years.

In many cases the father had volunteered to join the Australian Defence Force to go overseas in defence of our country and the empire. Their spouses, left with young children, when they asked for assistance from the government of the time, had their young children forcibly removed from them. Horrific stories abound of how these young people were molested by monsters, how they were transferred from one orphanage to another and, at an early age, made to work for their existence. If apologies are to be made and compensation paid to Indigenous people, they should, in my view, also be made to all those Australians, be they Indigenous or otherwise, who have suffered through the forcible removal of children from their parents in years gone by.

I am deeply sorry for what happened to those people, and I do believe that those who are still alive, who have suffered and continue to suffer, should be treated in the same way as those Indigenous people also forcibly removed. I would assume, again, that those who perpetrated the acts of separation in the 1930s and 1940s did so not out of malice but out of their belief at the time that it was the correct way to deal with the situation as they found it. We can look back today and say how inappropriate and in fact devastating those actions have been. But again I remain to be convinced of the worth of a formal apology by the Australian government for actions perpetrated by another government in another time.

Nothing will ever prevent me, having learnt of their plight, from being deeply sorry for them, as I am for those Indigenous people who were forcibly separated and suffered as a result. But a formal apology, I think, does not take the matter further. The day after the formal apology, life will move on for most Indigenous people. I want to see out of this whole debate a continuation of the good work started by the Howard government so that, in that way, we can really do something to address the problems that confront Indigenous people. Formal apologies have been offered by churches and state governments in the past, and what has been achieved? After all, actions speak louder than words. State governments have responsibility for safety, protection, education and health and have failed, and words will not fix these deficiencies. It needs real action.

I draw the Senate’s attention to the motion passed by parliament in 1999 where the parliament expressed ‘its deep and sincere regret that Indigenous Australians suffered injustices under the practices of past generations and for the hurt and trauma that many Indigenous people continue to feel as a consequence of those practices’. Those words from back in 1999 were followed by action which culminated in the Northern Territory intervention—the first real attempt to right the appalling conditions and circumstances of Australia’s Indigenous people. If the apology takes that any further, then I am very happy. I doubt that it will, however, and what we need to get from this government is not more rhetoric and hand-wringing but real action of the sort that Mr Brough introduced to try and build the situation of Indigenous people to what other Australians accept, rightly so, as a matter of right.

I also urge the government to look at the plight of the forgotten Australians and any other persons, Indigenous or otherwise, who have been forcibly separated from their parents by the authorities over the years. Whilst on the subject of actions of past generations which are unthinkable today, I wonder what the government has planned for those South Sea islanders taken not only from their families and loved ones but also from their own country. They were taken in what was then acceptable conduct according to the laws and norms of those days but through actions which today we find totally repugnant and abhorrent, not to mention unlawful. I am desperately sorry for what former generations did to these people but, with the benefit of hindsight, I do so from a much more enlightened era. In fact, I am desperately sorry for what former generations of governments, churches and welfare agencies did to Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and to South Sea islanders, to name but a few of the peoples of Australia who have every right to feel distraught and resentful.

I apologise for any hurt that I myself may have ever brought to the people of Indigenous Australia in my lifetime. I hope there is nothing that fits that description apart from my reluctance to pillory state governments and former Australian governments who have ignored the problems of Indigenous people. I am also sorry that we did not move with action like the Northern Territory intervention earlier than this. I am not in a position to apologise for the actions of other Australians in past generations who took actions which in most cases were well meaning. If symbolism and words do solve the hurt then, as I say, I will be very happy. If, however, they are just words of political expediency that mean little and have even less impact on the real solution, then I will not be happy.

I conclude, as we did in 1999, by again expressing the parliament’s deep and sincere regret that Indigenous Australians suffered injustices under the practices of past generations, and also apologise for the hurt and trauma that many Indigenous people continue to feel as a consequence of those practices. I conclude with the final paragraph of that 1999 motion—that the parliament:

… believes that we, having achieved so much as a nation, can now move forward together for the benefit of all Australians.