Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise with a great deal of pride to associate myself with this resolution, because resolutions like this are an example of what this parliament can do well. It reminds people that we are the national parliament, and it is only the national parliament that can take a proper stance on these issues. It is just a pity that it has taken us so long to get here. When I was thinking about the remarks that I would like to make today, I was drawn to some comments that my good friend the former Premier of Western Australia Dr Geoff Gallop made when he was discussing a similar motion that went through the Western Australian state parliament in 1997. He commenced his remarks by telling the story of a person who he called ‘Paul’—’Paul’ was not the real name of the person he was talking about. I was drawn to that story because Paul was separated from his mother in 1964 when he was a baby. That is one year before I was born, so these issues are very relevant to people of my generation. This is not necessarily an issue just to do with our more distant past. People are still living with this pain today.

Dr Gallop went on to talk about Paul’s separation from his mother. He said that it was done with a stroke of a pen and without his mother’s knowledge and that her subsequent efforts to find her son were treated with contempt by the department. Paul spent his growing up years in an appalling series of replacement homes. There were breakdowns, cold institutions and cruel foster homes. When he was formally discharged from wardship at the age of 18 in 1982, he was given his file, which contained some 368 pages of old letters, photographs and birthday cards. The last page of his file stated that he was a very intelligent, likeable boy who had made remarkable progress given the unfortunate treatment of his mother by the department during his childhood. Paul said that tears flowed when he read those words. They were tears from a mixture of relief at finally knowing about his past, and of guilt and anger about what had been done to him and his mother. It is important that we talk about stories like Paul’s. As Prime Minister Rudd has said, the challenge for those of us who are not Indigenous Australians is to ask one very simple question: what if that were me? What if I were Paul? How would I feel? That should be the test for how we feel at passing motions like the one before us today.

Political parties of all persuasions, particularly the major political parties in Australian politics, rightly acknowledge family as the cornerstone of our society. We make much of our laws and policies that are intended to strengthen and help families and keep them together. It is often an issue that we debate in this place. But the rights of the family have to be applied to all Australian families. For far too long, until more recent times and until motions like the one before us today is passed, Aboriginal families were torn apart by the very authorities that should have been there to protect them. They were torn apart for no other reason than because of the colour of people’s skins.

We in this place represent different interests and different states and those in the other place represent different geographic locations. Because of that role, we know how important identity is to people. We know how important it is to learn about our identity, the identity of our community, our historical connections and our relationships through history. That is what we do if we are truly human. The fundamental right people have to establish their identity, however, was, through an active policy throughout the states and territories and the Commonwealth of Australia, taken away from our Indigenous people. That policy was based upon the premise that Aboriginality had no role to play in the Australian community. By passing this motion today, we have the opportunity to tell Indigenous Australians that they are part of our society, part of our history and part of our community. We apologise to them for the attempts made by earlier governments to deny them that very basic right. Let us as a parliament come together and acknowledge the dignity of Indigenous Australians for their own history and its effect on our shared national history. Let us acknowledge the past forcible removal of Indigenous children and offer our deepest apologies for what happened in the past.