Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister said at a press conference on 12 June:

In Australia, we know we have had problems in our past. We have acknowledged those and, indeed, in our Federal Parliament we have acknowledged those. I've always said we need to look at our history. The comments I was referring to was to how the New South Wales settlement was first established and the views that were communicated at the time, informing the New South Wales colony, and if you go back to people like William Wilberforce and others, they were very involved in that first fleet expedition and one of the principles was to be that Australia or in that case, New South Wales, was not to have lawful slavery. And that was indeed the case. There was not the laws that have ever approved of slavery in this country.

So I don't intend to get into the history wars, my comments were not intended to give offence and if they did I deeply regret that and apologise for that. This is not about getting into the history wars. I was simply trying to make the point that Australia, yes, we have had issues in our history. We have acknowledged them. I have acknowledged them. And we need to address them and, particularly those who I work closely with in this area, would know that, personally, I have been heavily invested in these issues.