Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It is a fantastic day today. I was riding my bike to parliament this morning and there were hoards of people walking towards Parliament House, wanting to be here at the front of Parliament House and watching on the big screen. In the Great Hall people were streaming out the back just to be present on such a historic and really important day. It is just fantastic to know that that was occurring, and not just here in Canberra. We have heard the reports today about people who filed into Federation Square in Melbourne and into Martin Place in the rain in Sydney. People gathered at Bourke High School to watch on the big screen there and to hear from local Indigenous leaders about what this apology means to them. Close to my house at the Block in Redfern, many people gathered as well and watched the apology that occurred here. So it is a fantastic day for all of us to be here and participate in.

Having an apology in the name of the parliament today feels really special to us, but it is really meant for the people who make up the stolen generation. I really hope that today is an opportunity for them to start the process of healing. We have all acknowledged that it is just the first step; it is the beginning of a long process of healing. I hope that the activities here in parliament today can contribute to and assist in the process of trying to start the healing process. Much damage has been done and it is really only when we acknowledge that damage and work together that we can start to forge a better future for this country.

Three young schoolgirls were at the Block this morning in Redfern. They were on their way to school and they came because they really wanted to be there. I heard them on the radio just earlier today. They were asked about what the apology means to them and they said, ‘Well, we know one thing: it has been a long time coming.’ I thought that if those schoolgirls can understand that, perhaps that is some insight into the sense of frustration that many people have. It really has been a long time coming. It is over 200 years ago that this country was first invaded and occupied by colonisers. A lot of recognition needs to occur. It is not just about saying sorry to the stolen generation; it is about saying sorry for the colonisation of this country, for so many things that have happened, all the way up to the most recent Northern Territory intervention.

Yesterday we had the fantastic opening of parliament, with a long-overdue welcome to country ceremony. That was really pleasing to see. We also had a tremendous gathering of people at the front of Parliament House who were talking about the negative impact that the Northern Territory intervention is having. I think that the history of black and white relations in this country shows that, if you can learn one thing from it, it does not work to impose things on Aboriginal Australians. That is why we are here now, with the parliament saying sorry. It may have been well-intentioned government policy, but look at the heartache it has created.

On the day when the former Prime Minister made the announcement about the Northern Territory intervention, I was in Rachel Siewert’s office—our Green senator from Western Australia—with a group of women from the Northern Territory. They were in Canberra because they own the land where the former government wanted to put nuclear waste dump sites in the Northern Territory. The women were lobbying here about that issue and it happened to be the day when the former Prime Minister made the announcement about the Northern Territory intervention. As I was leaving Rachel’s office, one of them turned to me and said, ‘I’m from the stolen generation.’ It was a real look of ‘I’ve seen this before’. It just made me think: ‘I don’t want us to be here; I don’t want us or political leaders, decision makers, to be here in 10, 15 or 20 years time saying sorry for well-meaning decisions made by the former government and supported by the Labor Party.’ People were trying to do things and feeling that they were doing their best for the children, and yet that is what happened with the stolen generation—and more damage was done. If what is going on in the Northern Territory is not done in cooperation with Indigenous Australians, the same thing will occur. When you impose things, it does not work. When you give Indigenous people the opportunity to drive their own future and create their own opportunities, that is what works. There are so many positive examples of that.

In New South Wales, I visited schools in Aboriginal communities run entirely by Indigenous staff who do fantastic work in engendering in young people a sense of cultural importance, with dance and activities they can be involved in. There are so many success stories. There is the state condom program, for example, that is happening in parts of Victoria. Indigenous people are running their own programs about the importance of safe sex. These are the programs that work, and they are the programs we should be supporting. We cannot have an intervention which is exempt from the Race Discrimination Act so it can be racist—imposed on a group of people in the Northern Territory. It has to be a cooperative action, and that is why I support so much the demands of the protest that happened out the front of Parliament House yesterday about the Northern Territory intervention. We have to work together in order to achieve things. That has been the history and the legacy of so much of the black-white relations in this country. If we are going to turn a new page, if we are going to start over, it is about working together.

People have done a whole lot of studies and research. People in here know the figures about the disadvantage—about the 17-year gap in life expectancy and the experiences that Indigenous Australians have had. We need to look at the work that has been done. There was the Bringing them home report. We need to implement all of the recommendations, not just an apology but fair and just compensation—reparation for Indigenous Australians. We need to go down the path of implementing all of those recommendations—reparation in not just a monetary sense but also a health, education and housing sense. We need to be holistic about the way in which we make reparation work so that as a country we can forge the new future that we all want to be a part of.

There are so many things that need to be done in this area: recognising sovereignty, putting in place negotiations around a treaty and the land rights movement that has been so important for this country. We need to look at these issues again and ensure that this is done in a way where Indigenous Australians are leading the way. So much needs to be done and this is just the first stage. We need to see, as I said, all of those recommendations of the Bringing them home report implemented. There are recommendations outstanding from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody which also need to be implemented.

There are far too many Indigenous Australians in prisons right across this country, and we need to look at working with Indigenous communities to ensure that those people are given the opportunities that mean they can have a really positive life that allows them to contribute to our society rather than find themselves in prison. We need to ensure not only that those recommendations from the black deaths in custody report are taken up but also that we do not have such a horrendous representation of Indigenous communities in our prisons as we currently have. So many things need to occur. These are issues that the Greens and people from other parties in this chamber have worked on for many years, but we need to continue all of this work.

I just want to take a couple of moments to share with the Senate the story of a young woman. I think she would be aged 41 this year. She is a woman by the name of Charmaine Clarke. She ran as a Green candidate for a Senate seat in the federal election of 1998. I met her a couple of years beforehand. As I said, Charmaine is quite young—a couple of years older than me. She was a member of the stolen generation. At the age of three she was taken into care—along with four of her brothers and sisters—by social workers when she was being looked after by an aunt while her mother and father were out looking for work. When she was 14, Charmaine ran away from that care to rejoin her mother. Much of her family history is still missing. It is many years ago that Charmaine told me about her experiences and the experiences of other members of her family. Charmaine is just one of many people who have had a hurtful experience because of the actions of the Australian government, and I hope that today’s apology can be part of the healing and repair for them and for this country so that we can forge a bright future together—and ‘together’ is the most important part.