Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is the national apology remembrance. In 2008 the Stolen Generations received a national apology for the wrongs done to them by previous governments. As a nation we learned a lot when the Bringing them home report was released in 1997, and we have continued to learn in the years since. That report revealed the tragedies of many of those children, who were often terribly abused, neglected and unloved. The apology affirmed our nation's agreement that we should never accept or condone the removal of children from their families based on race. But today, as I stand in this place, I am deeply saddened by the knowledge that we have much more to be sorry for around our treatment of Indigenous Australians.

Unlike many of the most vocal urban Aboriginal activists, I have visited remote Aboriginal communities throughout Queensland, the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia. I've seen for myself how governments turn a blind eye to at-risk Aboriginal children. I have sat with elders and learned firsthand what they need and what they want in order to rid their communities of the evils of violence, abuse, alcohol and drugs. And I've seen how children are repeatedly returned to parents who persistently abuse or neglect them, parents who demonstrate a complete inability to deliver the care and attention those children so desperately need. We're talking about abuse and neglect that would make your toes curl: rampant alcohol and drug abuse; interfamily and domestic violence, some of the worst you will ever see; the starvation and malnutrition of children; the denial of education because too many Aboriginal parents refuse to send their children to school; and, worst of all, prostitution and paedophilia involving, reportedly, children as young as two—and all this in 21st century Australia, in one of the most economically and socially advanced countries on the planet.

Why do governments of today refuse to remove at-risk children from these households? Why are they afraid to treat at-risk Indigenous children the same way they treat non-Indigenous children every day of the week, to protect children in any city or town in Australia? Why do they shame us all as a nation by not reaching out effectively and saving the lives and futures of these children and their communities? Like many Australians, I believe both sides of politics are all too afraid of being labelled as creators of a second stolen generation, as false as that accusation would be. They lack the courage and the will to act, in the face of the cancel culture, on behalf of these children and the families who desperately cry out for rapid and empowering solutions.

So my apology is to today's Indigenous victims, the ones who live with and suffer from the horrors of child molesters; they are the ones who today, as we gather here, are breaking into people's homes to steal food from fridges. Today I'm saying sorry to all the Aboriginal children who should be spending their first few weeks in prep or primary school, but their parents simply don't care enough to get them there. I'm sorry for the children of parents who have told me they feel ashamed of their own lack of education and, tragically, can't support a world where their kids will earn more than them. I'm sorry for the sit-down money that we're paying a growing number of Aboriginal parents who have no inspiration to improve their own lives, let alone their children's, through meaningful employment. I'm also sorry for those Indigenous kids who have never been tucked into bed by loving parents but are instead ignored by those who are too busy drinking to worry where their kids are late at night.

Of course, self-styled Aboriginal elites like Senator Thorpe would prefer we continue working, as she does, to create permanent victims out of First Nations people. Senator Thorpe—

Senator Waters interjecting—