Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Tonight I'm continuing my very personal condolence motion about an amazing Australian and an amazing Tasmanian, Debra Hocking. As I've stated, I knew Deb for about 50 years, so I have lots of stories. I edited and edited my notes last week; I started this speech in Senators' statements last week and I digressed so much because memories just flooded back to me. As you can imagine, over 50 years there's lots of memories and I ran out of time, so I just want to continue today.

I just want to reiterate why I think Debra Hocking was such an amazing woman. She was a child of the Stolen Generations and suffered physical and sexual abuse by members of her foster family. She didn't tell us when we were at school about her horrible life outside school; she didn't tell us until we were adults. School was her safe place and she put, literally, a boundary around school and being safe, and didn't want to discuss it. But Deb had a strong sense of self-belief, forged as a child, and it give her great strength—an amazing strength.

I remember her talking to me one occasion about not believing in God. She was telling me this story: she had been slapped in the face a number of times by her foster mum because she refused to go to church. Correctly, she saw it as hypocritical because they went to church and then they came home and physically abused her. She was told, 'You have to believe in God.' She said, 'Well, I don't.' She was asked, 'What do you believe in?' When her response was that she believed in herself, she was slapped again. But she stuck by her self-belief. She would often proudly say she came from a long line of strong women—the Mouheneenner people, from south-east Tasmania.

She also spoke to me on many occasions about the extra perceived demand to prove her worth as Aboriginal, being she was fair skinned. As a younger person she thought maybe she shouldn't say anything about her Aboriginal heritage. It was a hard world for her to move into. Her response to people who said things to her like, 'You don't look Aboriginal'—well, she came up with a response to that, which would be, 'Well, haven't you been conditioned?' She would explain her Aboriginality as being 'a latte girl'. She used to do this at schools; she'd have half a cup of coffee in a clear container and she'd add milk to it and ask, 'What have I got here?' They'd say, 'A cup of coffee.' She'd add milk to it and say, 'What have I got here?' They'd say, 'It's still a cup of coffee.' She would use that as an example to explain how it didn't matter how much white you put into a cup of coffee; it was still a cup of coffee. She would often say: 'I'm the latte girl. Big deal. Deal with it.'

As I said the other night, Deb ran away at about 15 or 16 and lived on the street. She survived by scavenging in skip bins. Eventually she realised this was no way to live and wanted to change her life. So she got a job in a bank; they were the days when you could literally walk into the bank and do a math test, and if you passed you got a job. She actually became a head teller. She was pretty good at math. She could have easily turned to drugs or crime but she instead found that internal courage, that internal fortitude, that made her who she was. Deb achieved so much throughout her life. One of the greatest honours she received happened shortly before her death, when Charles Sturt University offered her an honorary professorship. She went from the kid that ran away and was scavenging in skips to being a professor. I'm pretty proud of you, Debra Hocking!

Deb believed in forgiveness. She never forgot—she didn't believe in forgetting—but she did believe in forgiving. She told me that once she came to that belief that changed her whole life. She studied Aboriginal health, which really gave her an insight into the disadvantage Aboriginal people suffered. She put her energy into helping and representing Aboriginal people, and was a driving force behind progress towards truth telling and Reconciliation Tasmania. She was an advocate and an activist.

Just some of her other major achievements include being chair of the Stolen Generations Alliance. She was the facilitator of the committee that organises Sorry Day events in Tasmania. She used to visit schools to explain to schoolchildren the importance and significance of Sorry Day, of saying sorry, and the importance of forgiveness. She was instrumental in former Tasmania Premier Paul Lennon delivering an apology to the stolen generation. Apparently when she went to meet with former Premier Lennon and had a chat to him, he said, 'It was going to be very hard.' She said: 'Well, I do hard. Let's do it.' And they did. She was instrumental in discussions about the wording of the national apology, working alongside Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. She took the lead role in organising the reconciliation walk in Tasmania, where one in 20 Tasmanians participated. She was coordinator of the University of Wollongong postgraduate Indigenous health program, and was chosen by Harvard University to be the local coordinator of the Australian version of a program that focuses on compounded trauma in Aboriginal people. The program is to train health practitioners in treating patients as survivors of trauma often across several generations and which gives rise to behavioural and physical symptoms. Deb believed that seeing Indigenous Australians through the prism of trauma could be the key to closing the gap.

Deb gave evidence to the inquiry into the stolen generation. I found her personal statement the other day, so I want to quickly read that:

In my experience, the sense of loss and grief from being removed as a baby has left a scar so deep, that recovery seemed almost impossible. We find forgiveness to allow our own healing to begin, but that should not give qualification or sanitisation of these wrong doings and injustice. My mum and dad I am sure would have loved me very much and the pain they must have had to endure is unimaginable. My strength of spirit has been challenged many times as has keeping the anger and frustration at bay. We share our stories so that others may understand what the legacy of child removals has left behind. It's not about blame or guilt now, as that takes us to a negative space which I consider produces destructive behaviour. It is about considering the ways we can make sure this never happens again. If we become forgetful, the injustices of the past could well be repeated. Listening to these stories which I consider so generously shared with all, may seem hard and confronting for some, but just remember, it has been even harder to live the journey.

I'm sorry that Deb, despite her incredible contribution, did not live to see the task of reconciliation achieved, because I know that she would have been delighted to see the election of a federal Labor government that's committed to implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full. While we still have a long way to go, I hope that, before she died, Deb was at peace with the knowledge that she had a key role in building the foundations for the progress Australians have made towards reconciliation, truth-telling and choosing the gap. I hope that we can honour her legacy, and the legacy of so many other people who have fought for the cause of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, by seeing future where there is genuine and lasting reconciliation—a future where the oldest continuing civilisation on Earth is embraced and celebrated, where the gap between the health and economic circumstances of Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians has been closed and where Australia has come to terms with the truth of our colonial past.

Rest well, Deb. Rest well, my dear, dear friend. You were my hero and you used to laugh every time I'd say it, but you truly were—and I don't have that many heroes, I've got to say. You fought an almighty good fight and you will always live in the hearts and minds of your old Ogilvy friends, the Oofs. Thank you.