Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak to the national apology which was moved on behalf of the Australian parliament earlier today. I will be honest and say that it is hard to apologise for a series of wrongs carried out under various acts of parliament many years ago. The people who carried out these wrongs obviously thought that they were doing the best for Indigenous children at that time but, as we learn more about the problems which occurred then, we are all horrified that something like this could happen in our country. But I also concur with my colleagues who have spoken earlier today that this apology is the first step forward into the future. As we have heard this morning, this future is to be based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.

I must say at this stage that I was very disappointed, as a senator, that we were not invited to go into the other place to hear the words of the apology. Looking around the chamber here, I felt that we were all alone and we could not actually hear the Prime Minister deliver that apology at 9 am. I do not know the reason but, as our chamber did not commence until 9.30 am, perhaps we should have been invited there. However, that is in hindsight.

I have read what was said, and I would like to say at this stage that developments in the Australian states and territories towards an apology certainly happened after the Bringing them home report was tabled. To date all state and territory parliaments have passed motions expressing regret for past actions with respect to Aboriginal families, and most of the motions included an explicit apology for the forced separation of children. New South Wales did this on 18 June 1997, South Australia on 28 May 1997, Queensland on 3 June 1997, Western Australia on 27 and 28 May 1997, the Australian Capital Territory on 17 June 1997, Victoria on 17 September 1997 and Tasmania on 13 August 1997.

As a senator from Western Australia, I would just like to read the Western Australian contribution on 27 May 1997, which was tabled as Aborigines and family separation. The Premier, Mr Court, said:

It is appropriate that this House show respect for Aboriginal families that have been forcibly separated as a consequence of government policy in the past, by observing a period of silence.

Members at that time stood for one minute’s silence.

The next day, on 28 May 1997, speaking to the report Aborigines and family separation, Dr Gallop, Leader of the Opposition, said:

I move that this House apologises to the Aboriginal people on behalf of all Western Australians for the past policies under which Aboriginal children were removed from their families and expresses deep regret at the hurt and distress that this caused.

This was the start. As we have heard from many speakers, the Howard government earlier on also passed a motion of respect for what had happened, but this was not an apology. Today has certainly changed the lives, I hope, of those people who have felt that deep hurt. As it was a unanimous decision from both the government and the alternative government, I do hope that this is going to go some way towards helping in the future, and there are ways we can do this.

Perhaps I will just pause to say that unfortunately in Western Australia—and possibly Western Australians have had more contact with their Aboriginal counterparts; we have had a number of problems—headlines in the West Australian say, ‘WA voters reject Rudd’s apology.’ Then we have from Gerry Warber, a member of the stolen generation—he is a 75-year-old who was brought up at Sister Kate’s Home—saying, ‘An apology will not change the past.’ ‘Sorry just another word’ is another headline in the West Australian as well, on 2 February. Mr Warber said:

Saying sorry is only a matter of rhetoric, because some people are demanding it. It opens the floodgates for compensation.

Compensation is something that worries me as well. I will discuss that later. Mr Warber and a number of other older Aboriginals who grew up at Sister Kate’s have been working very hard trying to raise $9 million, which is close to fruition. This will enable two groups of former Sister Kate children to build an aged-care home and a healing centre on the site so they can spend their later years in the company of some of the only family many of them have known. I think this is a great initiative and I do hope, whether it is the federal government or the state government, that this can be done. That is a positive.

I want to move to the future. The past has been well discussed today. I think we have to go forward and the way to go forward is with something like this: showing that we can do something to help these people, who are family, even though they were not related. That would be a wonderful gesture. I do hope for success for Mr Warber, at 75, and his colleagues—and one of these was Sue Gordon, who we all know has been very involved as the chair of the federal government’s task force and also in the Indigenous council, which unfortunately has now been disbanded. We are hoping that something will come up in its place.

But I would like to advise the Senate that Western Australia has quite a long way to go. Unfortunately, crime has become quite difficult in Western Australia, and unfortunately most of those involved have been young Aboriginal children. I am a little worried about how we get them on track. We had a very nasty incident in Geraldton about three weeks ago with a pastoralist playing beach cricket with his family. Unfortunately, some Aboriginal youth decided to try to steal their wine and he was hit over the head with a baseball bat and died. Last Thursday week I attended a funeral in Perth of a past member for Geraldton, Mr Bob Bloffwitch. There were about 800 people at that funeral. I was overwhelmed by people coming to me saying, ‘Enough is enough. Don’t you go and apologise on my behalf.’ These are the sorts of issues we have in our state. There are also bag snatches from elderly people, who are being knocked over in the street.

Western Australia does have a lot to do, including up in the Kimberley area at Halls Creek, Fitzroy Crossing and Balgo. I have visited all of these communities with the petrol-sniffing inquiry. As a member of the community affairs committee I have been able to travel to a lot of these places. I was a nurse and a midwife. I worked in all of these areas delivering babies for Aboriginal women, sitting with them through the labour and hearing stories about what we have been discussing in the last day.

I have something I would like to promote here. We have an Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program, and this year, within the choices that my fellow members of parliament have, there is an opportunity to spend a week with NORFORCE members and to travel around through these communities. I would suggest that this might be a way that we can all learn how we can go forward. This is of course part of the Northern Territory intervention plan. It is an opportunity we can take up and I think it would be great to see a number of us take that up.