Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be the final speaker from the Democrats on this motion. All Democrat senators have spoken to it in noting the very significant motion of apology that was passed by this Senate chamber without dissent—as well as, of course, in the House of Representatives—earlier today. It is a very welcome motion. Like all motions that are drafted by others, you could always pick a word or two where you think, ‘I would have expressed it differently,’ but, as the Prime Minister himself has said, this motion is not about politicians; it is about the stolen generations themselves. This motion has clearly been drafted with a lot of consultation with Indigenous people—who all, of course, have their own individual views about this, as with every other issue—and was put forward in a way that seeks to receive unanimity to give it maximum strength and maximum significance. I think it has clearly been put forward in the right spirit. It is a very strong and powerful motion, and it is one that I am very pleased to give support to.

It has often been said that words are not sufficient. Of course, that is true, but words are very important. We would be in a bit of trouble here in this chamber if words did not have importance, because that is about all we do here—speak. We speak of important things, we put important things on the record, we pass laws that are made of words and we, as with all human beings, conduct a large part of our communication using words in various forms. These words are very powerful and they are very important. I know that the words of the motion that the Senate has passed will provide real meaning, real comfort and a real and positive sense of relief and thankfulness about the clear recognition that is provided in them. I would also suggest that, whilst of course passing a motion, any motion, does not in itself provide health care, resources, better education, or the concrete assistance that is needed by so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, I do think it is misleading to say that a motion in itself does not have any practical effect or positive benefit, because it clearly does.

There is no doubt that a significant part of the difficulties faced by so many Indigenous Australians today results in part—not all, but in part—from the unresolved emotional and spiritual trauma which they and so many of their families, of their peoples, have suffered over so many years. There is a real problem with mental health issues and with spiritual health for many Indigenous Australians, in part because that trauma is not acknowledged, has not been fully recognised, has been continually downplayed or dismissed. So it does have a direct positive effect for some people—not for everybody—to adopt resolutions like this if the resolutions are made in the right spirit and with genuine intent. I believe that has happened today.

There is no doubt that for some people this will be a significant part of healing. Healing is not imaginary. Just because it is in the heart, in the soul or in the mind does not mean it is imaginary. This does provide direct positive benefit for some individuals and that should not be dismissed. Of course, more needs to be done, as the resolution itself says when it says the time has come for righting the wrongs of the past. This motion, at least as I read it, does not say, ‘Okay, we’ve passed it; all the wrongs are now righted.’ This is part of turning that page. This resolution goes not just to the stolen generations but to the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments and, I would say also, the views of so many in the general community.

Actions across the board—not just stolen generations practice—have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on Indigenous Australians. That is also acknowledged in general, if not specifically, in this resolution, but it is not sufficient. That is why I also welcome the fact that the Prime Minister took the opportunity in speaking to this resolution not just to support the words in it but also to set goals of commitments for his government and for this parliament, and I would hope for the wider Australian community, to seek to bridge or remove those gaps and those inequalities. This provides a platform for that. It is up to all of us to make sure we take advantage of that platform. It does not matter which words you put in here; the task is still before us to make sure that we take advantage of the opportunity provided.

I would have to say that one of those tasks is the need to address the significant level of antagonism towards Indigenous Australians which clearly still exists among a significant proportion of the Australian community. You only have to look at letters to the editor and at comments on websites, or listen to talkback radio—quite clearly a significant number of Australians are still very antagonistic towards any sort of recognition of the unique role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I am not saying that everybody who has a problem with a formal apology is antagonistic to Indigenous people—I am not saying that at all—but I am saying that it is quite clear from specific comments, from the bigoted and prejudiced comments made by a number of Australians since this issue has been raised, that there is still a serious problem. It is not un-Australian and it is not unpatriotic to raise that. I think it is actually unpatriotic to continue to ignore it. That means there is a job for all of us as community leaders, not just in the parliament but across the board, to address that antagonism, not just by saying that everybody who does not agree is a bigot or a racist. You need to acknowledge that bigotry exists and to tackle head-on the clear falsehoods put forward by some people to justify that bigotry and to address some of the ignorance that still lies out there in the general community, and the ignorance that still exists in so many of us.

One of the statements of the former Prime Minister which I often agreed with was his comment that we needed to learn more about Australian history. One area where so many of us are woefully ignorant is the reality of the history of Indigenous Australians before British arrival. Before British arrival, other Europeans arrived here and before that others from Asia arrived here. There is history even prior to that. And even more so there is the history since colonisation. There is still a lot of ignorance about that. Of course there are a lot of positives but there are some absolutely appalling atrocities, which we simply refuse to acknowledge. I wish to take the opportunity to repeat my longstanding view, and the Democrats’ longstanding view, that there is still a need to revisit the other recommendations of the Bringing them home report, particularly with regard to compensation. This resolution of an apology is a stand-alone thing, as it should be. I do not believe it should have addressed the issue of compensation. It does not, in itself, open up compensation. There is no doubt about that, despite some of the furphies put around. I believe there is still a linked need to address the issue of compensation. If you go back to the rationale for the apology in recommendation 3 on page 282 of the Bringing them home report, you see that it makes clear, in coming to the rationale of that recommendation, that it is a package. An acknowledgement—an apology—goes hand in hand with guarantees against repetition, measures of restitution, measures of rehabilitation and monetary compensation. That is based upon longstanding, international principles regarding reparation and acknowledgement, known as the van Boven principles, which are detailed in the report. They are intertwined and we should not seek to just slice them apart.

I repeat my call that that issue be re-examined by the Senate, as a Senate committee did after this report came down in the late 1990s. It is unacceptable that the federal government has dismissed that out of hand without even re-examining it. That is what I call for. I will reintroduce my legislation, which seeks to provide one example of how compensation could be provided. That is another issue we can go on with. We should all celebrate this resolution, which was passed here today.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an interesting day today. When walking around, you meet some very decent Indigenous people, so everything you say you have to temper with the fact that there is no point insulting people and there is no point making a statement of belligerence. But the concern today—and you could see it even with the way question time went—is that the issues move on. The biggest concern is that this issue will move on and will in fact be left behind. A year’s time from now is when we will truly be able to judge whether this was just a rhetorical day on which there was a greater sense of presence and possibly a sense of theatre but which never actually delivered anything. A year’s time is when we will have the ability to look back and say: ‘Did anything really get better for Indigenous people? Were their lives improved? Did we make concrete statements to go out to where these people live and improve the economies of those areas so as to pick up the health, the education and everything that goes with it?’

I know there are Australians out there who have serious doubts about this issue. I know that. I know everyone is drawing their affinities to the Indigenous issue, but, coming from Danglemah, having gone to primary school in Woolbrook and having lived in Moree and Charleville and currently living in St George—I think I am the furthest senator from the coast—and having a house in Werris Creek, I suppose I have spent most of my life around Indigenous people, and I am probably enriched because of it. But there is always a sense that these things can turn into junkets. If this thing turns into compensation or a junket where money gets poured in all sorts of directions, but generally in the direction of solicitors in Sydney and Melbourne, who does it profit at the end except them? Who is the actual benefactor of it at the end except them? We saw that in so many of the land rights issues, and that is an eternal frustration for so many people in regional Australia who see that statements are made down here with all the right atmosphere and all the right intentions, but where it all ends up is nowhere. That is one of the frustrations that I hope does not become evident after this process has finished.

There are certainly things in our history that we need to be concerned about. I can recollect stories that people have told me. One person told me how his father went out and shot Aboriginals and then grabbed the children by the legs and smashed their heads across a rock to kill them. That is a story that I heard. The person who was telling me had no reason to lie and I was extremely disgusted and disturbed by what he had said. Obviously, we all know the story of the Myall Creek massacre, of the putting of arsenic into flour. We also know the stories of retribution where Aboriginals were driven over cliffs, basically just to kill them. I am truly offended by any association between that and the government. It was never an action of the government. It was an action of individuals who were criminals, not the government. I do not believe that the government put forward policies with malice aforethought, that the government put forward policies that were distinctly designed to be some sort of final solution, because in some of the scripting that is the way these things are seen. I do not think that is right. They may have been misguided, they may have been wrong and they may need to be corrected, but were they policies with malice aforethought? I do not know whether that is a blemish that we want on our nation. We have every right to say, in a greater light, with our better knowledge, that we should not have done it. But I do not suggest that that is the case.

In the process of this debate, it has to be said that a very dangerous precedent was created. I am discussing the issue now, but the vote has gone. The vote is over. We know it is a very important issue, but we have created a very dangerous precedent. Once you have created it, it becomes the excuse for others. I think that needs to see the full light of day. After this day has cooled down and after the media have had their time with it, I think we should reflect on what we did today—that is, to carry a vote without acknowledging that the debate can influence people. If you respect this chamber, you must respect the belief that people can say things that influence you. Today I have had the capacity to walk around and talk to Indigenous people, and they have influenced me, because I am a human being and I am affected by what people say to me. But to circumvent the process of the Senate and say there is a reason for that is really opening yourself up wide for things that may happen in the future. I think that should be acknowledged and I do not think we should ever do it again. I think people should question whether we could have conducted this in a better way so as not to circumvent and disrespect the process of the Senate.

Another flaw, I think, is that we see the world in 2008 but forget that the world of 2008 is not the world of the time when the initial acts were written, in 1869. It was built on the premise of an 1864 act. It is a different world even to that of the 1970s, and we have to be very careful that we do not start judging the views of people then by our views and values now. There are people who did the wrong thing, but I do not think that we should target certain nuns—who honestly believed that they were trying to advance the condition of fellow Australians who were Indigenous—with the word ‘stolen’, because I do not think they believed that they were stealing anybody. I do not believe that they thought they were doing a criminal act, and the pejorative term ‘stolen’ sends the message that the people who did it were criminals—and they were not. So this is an issue that I also think needs to be reflected on in the cold light of day.

We have had a lot of symbolism here today, but we all know that symbolism neither feeds nor clothes nor cures anybody. The issue that will be judged, whether at Woorabinda, Cunnamulla, Burketown, Doomadgee, Walgett, Tibooburra or White Cliffs, is whether the lives of the people actually get better. That will be the real judgement of what happens here today. If it becomes a lawyers’ feast—and I would have liked to have seen the legal advice tabled, not because of political point-scoring—that will completely disavow the clarity of what we were trying to do. It also opens up an avenue for other people to become financial benefactors of the Indigenous issue, and that has happened so many times. So many people—to be quite honest, white solicitors with harbour views—become the financial benefactors of these issues by turning them into a legal morass. If that happens because of this, then that I think is not good.

In summary and to close, there is an immense sentiment in the nation—I acknowledge it and I have changed my view—of a sense of true reconciliation where people are talking to one another and acknowledging the humanity of one another, and putting aside their conceits and maybe some of the views that they had prior to this. Maybe that inception has happened today. If it happened today, that is a good thing. If that is a true inception of reconciliation—my understanding others better than I did before and possibly them understanding my and others’ views—then that is a great step. Unfortunately, that view of reconciliation has already had, in some instances today, the winds of animosity blowing through it and blowing out the candles of reconciliation. I hope that does not happen. I hope that, if there is one thing that happens from today, it is that we all go on a path together where, as a nation, we make lives better not just for Indigenous people but for Australians in general.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia changed this week. I think it is really a very emotional and exciting week for this country. When I was first elected to this parliament in 2004, I gave my inaugural speech the following year and I said then:

What gives me hope is the increasingly loud and urgent cry from the hearts of Australians everywhere for a return to what we know in our heart of hearts is ‘country’—a return to the spirit of the land and the expansive values of goodness, honesty, justice, fairness, equality, generosity, freedom and ecological stewardship that are for Australians inherent in the concept of ‘country’.

I went on to say that what I was talking about in the concept of ‘country’:

... is a precious insight we have learned from our Indigenous people. It incorporates the land and their stories. It is not jingoistic. In talking about country

…            …            …

we must as a nation progress reconciliation with Indigenous people, we must also progress our own reconciliation with ‘country’—our own sense of place and identity.

Driving here this morning I could not help but be quite overwhelmed and very emotional as I came around the front of the parliament at half past seven in the morning. People were streaming to the parliament at that hour. I have no recollection of any other time in my experience where people were coming from all over the city to the parliament to join Indigenous people from all over the country, who had already arrived here for the convergence yesterday.

They were lining up in dignified silence but with quiet yearning and excitement about the fact that at last this parliament seemed to be in touch with the feeling of the nation. As I witnessed that, I thought this is actually a nation-changing event. It is something that I had hoped would have that impact, but I felt that as I saw all of those people coming towards the parliament.

In the coffee shop in the parliament, after the official apology given by the Prime Minister this morning, I had the good fortune to meet an Indigenous woman called Lois, who said, ‘I am proud to be an Aboriginal woman in Australia today, and it is the first time I have been able to say that in my life.’ So things have already changed.

Yesterday at the convergence I spoke to Lowitja O’Donoghue. She said of the rain yesterday as the welcome to country ceremony was taking place, ‘It is the tears of joy of our ancestors.’ She was referring to the fact that we the elected representatives of the people of Australia were seeking permission from the Indigenous owners of the land, the Ngunawal people, for permission to meet and walk on their land. That is what changed. It is extraordinary. Not only is it a really deep yearning inside Indigenous people for recognition and for an expression of sorrow and regret for what has been done to them but it is also a breaking down of the dam wall for all the people across Australia who have marched for reconciliation, who have moved, right across the country, for recompense and restitution for the wrongs that have been done to Indigenous people, and have not seen it happen.

Now there is a sense that it might happen. I feel particularly humble as well because I was in the balance of power in Tasmania in 1997 and I helped to negotiate the apology to the stolen generation in the Tasmanian parliament with a Liberal minority government. We did it in a tripartite way. We brought onto the floor of the house Tasmania’s Indigenous people and Annette Peardon responded for the Indigenous Tasmanians and the stolen generation. It was a particularly dignified occasion. Tasmania has moved on because of that ownership by all political parties of the apology—of the recognition of the wrong that had been done—and has now moved to a smooth process of compensation. The same is occurring in Western Australia; it can and it will happen nationally.

There are terrible stories of what has happened. For example, an Aboriginal boy runs through a Hobart street carrying 8½ pints of stolen milk. The milk has a value of, nowadays, $1.12. It is the 1960s. Within days not only the boy but the family’s three other children have been rounded up and made wards of the state. In court, a welfare officer says the boy’s behaviour is typical of ‘people of their origin’.

I cannot imagine what it would feel like, as a mother, to have your children taken from you in this way—in any way, but in this way. I cannot imagine the loss of living out one’s life and going to your grave never knowing. And the loss for the children who never know the love of their parents. In fact, the children in one of the submissions from New South Wales in the Bringing them home report said:

We may go home, but we cannot relive our childhoods. We may reunite with our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunties, uncles, communities, but we cannot relive the 20, 30, 40 years that we spent without their love and care, and they cannot undo the grief and mourning they felt when we were separated from them. We can go home to ourselves as Aboriginals, but this does not erase the attacks inflicted on our hearts, minds, bodies and souls, by caretakers who thought their mission was to eliminate us as Aboriginals.

The Greens have said sorry in the parliaments around this country, but I am very grateful for the opportunity to say sorry again and to support the Rudd government in making this official apology to the stolen generation.

I think in particular of people like Archie Roach, who was one of the stolen generation himself, who have campaigned for this day for many years. Archie Roach’s famous album in 1990, Charcoal Lane, included his song Took the Children Away, which moved the nation, and still does. In that song he said they:

Taught us to read, to write and pray

Then they took the children away,

Took the children away,

The children away.

Snatched from their mother’s breast

Said it was for the best

Took them away.

The welfare and the policeman

Said you’ve got to understand

We’ll give them what you can’t give

Teach them how to really live.

Teach them how to live they said

Humiliated them instead

Taught them that and taught them this

And others taught them prejudice.

You took the children away

The children away

Breaking their mothers heart

Tearing us all apart

Took them away

Today I note that Archie Roach said that, like many Aboriginal people, he hoped the apology would be a beginning rather than an end. He said:

Once this is done, perhaps we can then make inroads into other issues. I understand that an apology is not going to solve all the problems, or the plight of Aboriginal people, but it’s going to help. It’s going to help people to feel a bit more free to go ahead. It will help me and my children.

That is something which I find incredibly humbling. What I find in particular so overwhelmingly humbling is the dignity, the tolerance, the wisdom and the nobleness of the Indigenous people who are accepting this apology and accepting it in good faith as a first step. And it must be a first step to reparations and to compensation. It must also be a first step to saying to Australia’s Indigenous people that we are serious about reconciling with them and coming home to country and assisting them to come home to their country and that we, as Australians, recognise that this is a brand new day. In the words of Oodgeroo Noonuccal:

Look up, my people,

The dawn is breaking,

The world is waking,

To a new bright day,

When none defame us,

Nor colour shame us,

Nor sneer dismay.

This is a historic day and I am so pleased to be here to say sorry to the stolen generation of Australia’s Indigenous people.

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian parliament has this week taken a bold and decisive step—a historic step—that is quite unprecedented at this level of Australian government, although, it should be said, not unprecedented at another level of Australian government. This week, we have engineered a measure of resolution to an issue which has troubled and divided us as Australians for more than 10 years. We have used the authority, the gravitas, of parliament as a tool to achieve an important public policy objective, not through the enactment of legislation but through the symbolism of a solemn bipartisan resolution to end a divisive chapter in the history of our relations with Indigenous Australia.

I am very proud to be here today to participate in this process. I am proud that my party, the Liberal Party, albeit belatedly, has joined in to endorse this endeavour. I am proud because this step is significant far beyond the walls of this and the other chamber. Very often the things we do here reach the consciousness of Australians generally as a dull and distant impression, if they reach them at all. The things we have done today in this place will undoubtedly be felt by huge numbers of Australians in the most immediate and direct way.

This week we have said sorry for the actions over several decades of churches, institutions, police officers, court officials, doctors, individuals and, by implication, governments in participating in the involuntary removal of children from their families on the basis of their race. However well meaning those actions were, they led to enormous grief and heartache. Those actions did great damage to the confidence and self-esteem of those children. That damage resonates today, decades after the practice of forced removal has ended.

It has been pointed out that many removals of Indigenous children were undertaken for the best of motives and that, objectively speaking, the material, educational and health outcomes of those who were separated were improved by virtue of their removal to other circumstances. In a physical sense, this will often have been true—not always, of course. But that observation overlooks a very important consequence of forced removal. I had the privilege of participating in the ‘forgotten Australians’ inquiry, which was the Senate inquiry into children in institutional care—one of what Senator Murray refers to as the trifecta of reports on child welfare. That particular inquiry, the third in the series, reported in August 2004. It gave those involved an insight into how damage to children has a ripple effect that is felt throughout society, very often creating damaged and dysfunctional adults.

While that inquiry took evidence from hundreds of people who had been separated from their families—often, it has to be said, very dysfunctional families—I tried to identify the element of this separation that was most distressing, most harmful to their development as balanced human beings. Surprisingly, the answer was not mistreatment or abuse at the hands of the institutions or foster families to which they were consigned—although many people gave evidence of mistreatment in those circumstances—but the fact of separation from people that these children believed loved them and wanted them and missed them. The separation from family—where the children were old enough to remember their families—was the single most corrosive factor undermining that child’s sense of well-being and which no amount of care and material comfort could offset.

If that was true of the general population of separated children, it was at least as true of separated Indigenous children. For so many children, that knowledge of their real family kept from them by a cruel authority was a constant, gnawing pain; a rot to the soul which would leave a deep, indelible mark on every child, no matter how decent their treatment in their later homes.

I was recently reading a collection of short stories told by Indigenous people about their experiences growing up apart from their families in homes and institutions where they were made to feel that their Aboriginality was a cause for humiliation and shame. Some of the stories pulsed with anger. Others were overlaid with a great sadness and a sense of loss. One particular story caught my eye because, while the author spoke bluntly about the damage done to him and his family by their forced separation, he also spoke positively about the need to look forward towards a better future. He wrote:

The past cannot be changed but some of the wounds can be healed.

I can think of no better way to express what we all feel here today and what we, as a community, are aiming to achieve through this apology.

The decade since the release of the Bringing them home report has shown that wounds this deep cannot heal on their own. The previous federal government worked to improve the lot of Indigenous Australians in a range of practical ways, particularly through major funding and support for health, education and social welfare programs. But, of course, there was something missing in that approach. By not apologising for past wrongs we have been unable to draw a line between then and now; between what was done in the past and what we plan to do in the future. And so it has been in some ways hard for our community—black and white—to heal.

For me, this motion today is about drawing that line. It says to the children of the Cootamundra Girls’ Home, St Mary’s Hostel, Retta Dickson House, the Parramatta Girls’ Home, the Kinchela Boys’ Home, Bedford Park and dozens of other homes and missions that we regret the way they were treated, we acknowledge it to have been wrong, and we intend to ensure that it does not happen again to future generations. In doing so, we face up to an unpalatable truth about Australia’s history. The nature of this truth has been much disputed: exactly how many children were taken, for how long and where to is sometimes ambiguous. It is certainly not becoming any clearer as time goes on. Some people say that because of this uncertainty we should not be issuing an apology today. To be perfectly frank, that is just a cop-out. We know without doubt that some people in some past times experienced pain, suffering and loss of identity as a result of the policies and actions of successive Australian governments, and for that we should rightly be sorry.

It is important for us today to be positive about the future and to acknowledge that, despite the pain and disadvantage and dispossession which these policies engendered, many people, both through their own endeavours and, I hope, as a result of today’s actions, will be able to move forward in a positive way and offset—at least partly—the nature of the experience that they have suffered.

One such person, who appears to have had some level of resolution, is a man called John Williams Mosley, a man taken from the Palm Valley area of the Northern Territory when he was eight months old, separated from his mother at that very tender age. Some years later he was able to meet his mother in these circumstances:

I spoke to my mother for the first time when I was 27 years old. The time was 11.37 pm on Friday 15 September 1978. I had just arrived at Tennant Creek from Sydney, where I had lived and worked for the previous 27 years.

He describes how he came to a house in Tennant Creek:

My eyes followed the path in front of me to where I saw the silhouette of a woman, standing in the half light of the open door. Her hands were clasped together in front of her body and she stood perfectly still. Even in the darkness I could see tears rolling down her chubby cheeks. She held out her arms to embrace me, and I walked into them. We held each other for the longest time. I was home.

I hope that by today’s actions we help more dispossessed, separated people in this country to come home. That would be the earnest hope, I am sure, of everybody in this place today.

Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President, for the opportunity to make a contribution to this debate concerning the national apology to the stolen generation. This has indeed been a remarkable and lively topic of discussion for many, many years—more than we all care to remember—and it is appropriate, it is entirely proper, that there is now resolution of this most horrific of issues. It is time to move it forward. The symbolism that this resolution represents is very, very important, as many people in a range of forums have repeatedly suggested. But more important now are outcomes which are critical to a permanent resolution deriving from the harm that has occurred to so many Australians over the last 40, 50 or more years.

More than 20 years ago, I attended some conferences in New York City and attended upon some senior officials of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union in that city. In those days it had some 250,000 or 300,000 members. It was a significant union on the east coast of the United States. I met for some time with a senior representative of that union in New York City. He was a man of African-American extraction. After we exchanged the customary pleasantries and had our discussion on the business at hand on a range of then topical issues, somehow or other the conversation shifted to issues germane to the treatment of Indigenous people in Australia in the seventies and eighties. The discussion meandered on for some time. This man was in his 50s and was a veteran of the civil rights movement and the battles in the United States in the fifties and sixties before he went on to another part of the liberal movement in the United States. At the end of the discussion he looked at me with the most steely blue eyes and said: ‘I meet a lot of Australians. A lot of Australians come and meet with me. And the common factor that you all bring to the discussions is the way you treat Aboriginal people in your own country.’ He said: ‘I don’t know why you all raise this issue with me, but you do so, and we have the discussions. And you must be the 20th or 30th person over the years who has raised these sorts of issues in my country, the United States.’ He said to me at the end: ‘Young man’—and I was very young in those days—‘I tire of these conversations with you from the other end of the world. Why don’t you just go home and fix those problems, because the fact that you have raised them here suggests to me that you are responsible and you need to attend to those problems in your own home.’ I have always remembered that conversation, and as I was thinking of the comments I should make today I was reminded of those ones.

In addition to those comments, I bring two other perspectives to this debate. Firstly, again, many years ago, I had exposure to hundreds of files in Perth held by the government relating to what was then the department of Aboriginal affairs, or the Department of Native Welfare, and those files went right back to the 1920s and 1930s. They had been assiduously maintained in a warehouse that, back in 1982 or 1983, was located in West Perth. I had exposure to those files for many weeks on end, doing some work. In those files, properly maintained in detail, were hundreds and hundreds of letters written from the 1920s through until the 1960s by mothers and fathers of children who had gone missing, who had been removed or who had been stolen, imploring the bureaucrats in the department to give them advice as to why their child was taken, where the child was now, what the name of the child was, what had happened to the child. There were hundreds and hundreds of these letters, mostly written in a beautiful script and pouring out the emotions of these parents who—over some 40, 50 or 60 years—had lost their children. It was the most heartfelt correspondence. There was other correspondence from policemen, priests, pastors, local chambers of commerce and business people who were writing on behalf of other Indigenous people who were, presumably, illiterate asking for details as to where their children might be and how they might be located. And on each file there was a simple comment—government policy: advise sender we do not have to respond; we do not have any advice. I remember being exposed to those letters as a 25-year-old and thinking how horrible it must have been.

The second perspective I bring is something that occurred in more recent years, when I had exposure to a lot of younger white children who had been through the court system in Perth. They came from what, by any description, would be called dysfunctional families, whether their mother or father was the subject of alcohol abuse, physical abuse, drug addiction, unemployment—a whole range of issues. Often the courts have to make a decision that the young boy or girl is to be removed from their parents and put into some form of foster home or welfare institution. My observation was that no matter how bad the child’s upbringing might have been—no matter how dysfunctional the family and no matter how manipulative, dishonest or improper the practices of abuse, either of a physical or mental nature, were—almost without exception those young boys and girls resisted to the end being removed from their mother or father. These were children from the age of about five or six, when they would develop the ability to reason, to the age of 13 or 14, when they developed a sense of right and wrong. No matter how bad their home might be, no matter how often they were not fed, washed, sent to school, provided with love or affection—no matter how bad it was—they did not wish to be removed from their mother and father.

It still goes on and it must have been absolutely horrific for those thousands and thousands of young Indigenous people and their parents to be forcibly separated. In that context, a number of people have made the observation today that past actions should not be judged by contemporary standards. That is a very, very interesting comment because, to me, it seems to confuse absolute concepts of right and wrong and a relativist approach to issues.

Always and without exception it is wrong to steal or to engage in murder, rape, theft and like offences. It does not matter whether it was in the days of Hammurabi giving the laws to the Assyrians or Solon’s Athens, always and without exception those offences are wrong and there is no justification for engaging in them. They might be lawful acts and they might be carried out pursuant to decisions of government policy but they are always and without exception wrong. It is entirely proper to judge those absolute acts by today’s standards because they were absolutely wrong then and they are absolutely wrong now. This debate now moves to practicalities and to resolving the absolute poverty— (Time expired)

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to take note of this motion I open my contribution by stating that I do not personally feel any sense of guilt for what has happened during Australia’s brief history. I should also state that I am a strong supporter of the very limited role that I believe government should occupy. I support an increasing self-reliance for all Australians and a reduced role of government in their lives.

Today is a stark reminder that government intervention, no matter how well-intentioned, may not actually benefit the people but can, in fact, do the opposite. That is not to say that governments have not had a positive impact on the lives of Indigenous Australians. The Howard government stood firm in the face of great adversity to achieve practical outcomes for Indigenous people. We tried to break the cycle of poverty, hopelessness and dysfunction that afflicted many Aboriginal communities. We did it by drawing a line between what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. We drew a line between what is right and what is wrong. We ceased to accept excuses and we tried to move forward.

I realise now that what we did not do was embrace the symbolism that is represented by an apology to the Aboriginal people for transgressions of previous government policies. But I do not believe that the previous government, nor indeed any previous government, should stand condemned for this. There is no doubt in my mind that past practices in relation to the treatment of Indigenous Australians have caused significant distress to a number of people within that community.

I am in no doubt that some children were unjustly taken from their families, but equally I have no doubt that many of the so-called stolen generation were saved from what would have been an all too brief life of neglect and, in some instances, abuse. Let me be very clear that abuse, especially of children, can never and should never be defendable. I know that physical and sexual abuse of separated children took place in many areas of our community and most alarmingly it took place in the very areas which were designed to be sanctuaries. It was wrong and it continues to be wrong. But unfortunately much of that abuse is now taking place within Aboriginal communities. And this is the substance of my contribution today: we need to stop the errors of the past from being a reason not to confront the vile acts of today.

For my entire life I have observed any number of excuses for dysfunction amongst some areas of Indigenous Australia. When I was 14, I was set upon by a gang of Aboriginal youths for daring to be on ‘their land’ as they put it, which happened to be Glenelg beach in South Australia. Their violence went unpunished because, as I was told by a policeman, nothing would happen to them because they were Aboriginal. As a publican I remember rescuing an Aboriginal woman from a savage attack in the street by her husband. After providing her sanctuary within my premises, a group of elders came to visit and told me that unless I told her to leave my premises they would destroy my hotel.

For too long this type of behaviour has gone unchallenged. For too long excuses have been made that have established Indigenous issues in the minds of many Australians as simply too hard to deal with. That is why I think today is very important. As I said, I feel no personal remorse or sorrow. In fact I am quite optimistic about the future because I feel that today is a day that our nation can move on together.

While saying sorry is a symbolic gesture—and it is a symbolic gesture because surely none of us can truly believe that tomorrow will see an end to the alcoholism, violence, child rape, incest and abuse that takes place in too many Aboriginal communities today—tomorrow we can see an end to the excuses for this type of abhorrent behaviour, because today is the first step in achieving reconciliation. But it is only the first step, because reconciliation requires not only an act of self-mortification or sorrow but also forgiveness.

That is now the challenge confronting Indigenous Australia. They need to ditch the industry that has sprung up preventing the real changes—the policy areas that can have a significant impact on Indigenous communities—from taking effect. They need to reject the inevitable overtures from the no win-no fee ambulance-chasing lawyers—who will pop up as soon as tomorrow, I would guess—in pursuing billions of dollars in compensation. To do anything else would demonstrate that this call for sorry is more about compensation than about reconciliation and I sincerely hope that this is not the case.

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make some brief remarks in this very important parliamentary discussion. I am pleased to have the honour—as I regard it—of participating in this parliamentary resolution of apology. It is an occasion of great significance for our parliament, for Indigenous Australians, for our nation and for our nation’s future. Since my first speech in 1997, which I will avoid the self-indulgence of quoting, I have supported an apology to Indigenous Australians of the stolen generations. It was not necessarily a popular claim to make in 1997 from my side of the chamber. Today’s resolution, though, is a very important step in the history of reconciliation in this country. To those men and women who have campaigned long and hard for this apology and other aspects of reconciliation, I truly hope that you are able to take a great deal from this day and from this parliamentary resolution.

I have heard other speakers today, in this chamber and elsewhere, talk about their experience of living in Indigenous communities. I cannot lay claim to that experience. However, I have found in the last 10 or so years that one of the great privileges of this role in the Senate has been an opportunity to learn much more about Indigenous Australia and Australians than I had known before I came here. For that, I thank some of my colleagues who in part formed the instruction team along the way, based on their own enthusiasm and interest. And, perhaps ironically, I also thank the Senate committee process.

The committee process of the Senate is sometimes regarded as a practice of the darker arts, but in this case it is a highly valuable experience and it has afforded me a chance across the nation—in the Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and here in Canberra—to meet with a range of leading Indigenous Australians and many members of the community to discuss a very broad list of issues over time. Those issues have ranged from the one we are discussing here today—the stolen generations, the subject of this motion—to the detention of juvenile offenders, to reconciliation more broadly and, more recently, to the question of stolen wages. With my colleagues I have heard many personal stories and testimonials—sometimes highly emotional and highly disturbing; sometimes so coldly factual that they were even more devastating in their effect—about some of the personal and family experiences of these our fellow Australians. Through that process, overwhelmingly one of listening, I have been persuaded that the symbolism of this apology is indeed very important and that it does have the capacity to make a real difference to our capacity to move forward in relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

I have been interested to listen to some of the discussions about the value of symbols. It seems to me that, as members and senators in this place, we work in an environment laden with symbolism and, in 2008, still redolent with tradition. I think it is actually very difficult for us to judge for others, culturally and personally, what is a validly important symbol. But I do hope that this symbolic step of ‘apology’ does have the desired outcome for members of the stolen generation and their families and is a step forward on the path to reconciliation in Australia. Saying that is emphatically not a rejection of the importance of what has become known as practical reconciliation. Without the basic advantages of life that the overwhelming majority of Australians take for granted in terms of health, of life expectancy, of education, of living circumstances, and so the list goes on there is no capacity to move forward. I absolutely acknowledge that and want that to be a very important part of my remarks this afternoon. But the link between symbolic and practical reconciliation, which I hope this apology establishes and confirms, is one which I further hope enables us as a nation to move further forward.

I particularly want to acknowledge and congratulate the women of Indigenous Australia that I have had the most extraordinary honour and pleasure of meeting over the last 10 years. In so many cases it has been their leadership in their communities and in their families—and in the face of adversity that is unknowable for women in the situation I, the previous speaker and many others in this place enjoy—that has enabled governments to actually pick up the steps of practical reconciliation and move towards their implementation.

I quite honestly cannot imagine the pain of being separated from one’s living family. I have enough trouble dealing on a daily basis with the loss of both my parents relatively early in my adulthood. But I do know that my family grounds me; that my family helps me know where I actually belong. In his remarks in the Members Hall today I heard a person for whom I have an enormous amount of respect, Tom Calma, the Social Justice Commissioner of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, talk about the importance of ‘belonging’, in the context of this apology and of the experiences of his own family. It is not rocket science to understand that if you are dislocated, if you are separated from your family, it is hard to know where you belong. That does not just go for Indigenous Australians, of course. But today is about the impact of these actions and these policies on Indigenous Australians over decades in this country.

When I finally saw the motion moved by the government yesterday afternoon—after waiting, I thought, quite patiently, which is not something for which I am known—I was struck particularly by the last five clauses. They refer, so importantly, to the future—to a future where the parliament is able to resolve that these injustices must never be repeated; where we are able to harness the determination of all Australians, which hopefully today will reinforce, to close the gaps I spoke about in life expectancy, education and economy; and where we will look at new solutions to enduring problems where, as the words of the resolution of the parliament say, ‘old approaches have failed’. Without an acknowledgement of that it is impossible to move forward. The clauses also refer to a future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility and to a future where, as the last clause says, ‘all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country’. They are very powerful words and ones to which I am very proud to commit myself absolutely. I think the parliamentary resolution is one which provides for this nation, in so many ways, an opportunity to advance on the path of reconciliation. It is something which I am proud to see we can all participate in here today.

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the resolution of the Senate and the extension of the apology on behalf of the parliament to the members of the stolen generation and their families and, indeed, to all the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Indigenous people of this country. It is often said that words have no real meaning without actions, that words can never hurt. But that old saying that ‘sticks and stones can break your bones but words will never hurt you’ is not true. Words are powerful. Words can hurt. But words can heal.

Today, through this apology—through these remarkable words—we are endeavouring to help to heal. We apologise for the wrongs of the past and, indeed, we apologise for the mistreatment and neglect that still continues today. That is why it is so important for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people—for the Indigenous people—of this great nation. They have known all along how important the apology would be to them. They know that it does not necessarily right all the wrongs, but they know how deeply important it is that we extend this apology. We, the non-Indigenous people of this country, have finally come to understand the power of the words that an apology would have: that it would mark a turning point in the history of this nation, when we finally, in a public way, at the level of the parliament of this nation, extended this apology.

I listened to the speech of the Prime Minister and I heard the speech of the Leader of the Government in the Senate today. I listened to other speeches and there is not really much that I can add to what has been said, because it has been said. Rather than trying, as it were, to be eloquent about it in my own terms, I simply adopt and endorse the words of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Government in the Senate and of the other leaders and representatives of this parliament. I cannot do it any better. Whilst today it is important to reflect upon what was in the Bringing them home report, it is also important to recognise that an apology can often be a simple statement and more powerful. Saying that you are sorry without qualification should say it all—and I hope it does. I read the report a couple of years ago and I have listened to the recounting of the stories of those stolen generations. Like all senators and members, I feel and try to understand the terrible circumstances in which many of those people had to grow up, torn from their families and their loved ones.

Where I come from—the Sutherland Shire—is often characterised as the birthplace of the Australian nation, when Captain Cook landed at what is now Kurnell on 29 April 1770. For many years, that date was commemorated and celebrated as the date of the birth of the Australian nation. Each year, a ceremony would be held at Kurnell on the shores of Botany Bay. But some years ago we realised—the Sutherland Shire Council and others—that that was not appropriate. Rather, we had to recognise on that same day that it was also the day when the dispossession of the lands of the Indigenous people commenced to occur in this country. So, the commemoration was changed from one which celebrated and commemorated not only Cook’s great voyage of discovery and his landing in Australia at Botany Bay, but also a meeting of two cultures and a symbolic day for the Aboriginal people. Now, each year on 29 April, that ceremony not only celebrates Cook’s landing but also recognises the incredible impact that that event ultimately had on the Indigenous people of this country. Each year, representatives of the Indigenous community of that area participate in that ceremony in a way that we saw yesterday with the welcome to country here in Parliament House. It is now celebrated and commemorated—not as an achievement or a dispossession, which it was, depending on whether you look at it from the perspective of white Australia or the perspective of Indigenous people—but rather as a meeting of two cultures and an opportunity to go forward and endeavour to ensure that the culture of the Indigenous people of this country is protected and enriched.

Yesterday I attended the ecumenical service at St Christopher’s here in Manuka for the opening of parliament and I was impressed by the sermon of Archbishop Coleridge. I recall that in March 2000 Pope John Paul VI expressed sorrow for the treatment that the Catholic Church had over centuries meted out to people of the Jewish faith. I raise that because at the heart of Christianity is the concept of expressing sorrow, and I think that it is in that context that we—certainly those of us who follow the Christian faith—should also consider this event.

It is not about whether or not we personally were responsible for the misdeeds or mistreatment—the massacres, the dispossession—that occurred in the past. It may certainly be a historical fact that we personally are not responsible. But that is not the point. The point is that if we believe in righting the wrongs of the past it is appropriate for us to express our sorrow and an apology for those deeds that were done in the past.

When I hear speakers refer to what has happened with the Northern Territory intervention as a result of the Little children are sacred report, I ask myself: why is it that some of us can recognise that that mistreatment needs to be dealt with now but somehow we should ignore, or not recognise, the importance of all of the mistreatment that has gone before it. Indeed, much of what is happening today within those Aboriginal communities that we are endeavouring to fix through that intervention is a result of that legacy. I sincerely apologise to the stolen generations.

Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly want to add my voice to those who are saying sorry today as individuals and recognise that as state and federal governments we have much to be sorry for to the Indigenous peoples of Australia—not just to those who were forcibly removed as children from their families but to everyone who has been affected adversely by white settlement in Australia since 1788. There can be no disputing what happened.

But I have felt uneasy, I suppose, over the last few days. I have felt a sense that to not see everything that was being done as perfect and complete and covering every part of the issue was to be seen almost as curmudgeonly—that it was mean-spirited not to agree with the whole process as it was and every little facet of that process. The article this morning in the Age by Mr Tony Wright crystallised for me what I was finding wrong with this whole process. It is that in many ways we are not telling the full story. Much was made yesterday of the Indigenous welcome to parliament, which was a fabulous initiative. It was in fact recommended in a 2001 joint standing committee report chaired by a former Liberal member of the House of Representatives, Gary Nairn. One of the recommendations that that committee made was that there should be an Indigenous welcome at the opening of every parliament. Coincidentally, this committee also recommended that the current Australian of the Year, whoever that might be, might speak at such an opening on behalf of the Australian people and that the opening of parliament be held in the Great Hall to enable more people to come along. I think these are both initiatives that we should consider in the future.

But much was made at the ceremony yesterday of the treatment of Mr Jim Clements, also known as ‘King Billy’, a Wiradjuri man who arrived, after walking many miles barefoot, in a battered old suit and with his dogs. It was commented on that he was actually told to clear off by the police. Mr Wright’s article in the Age this morning points out that that was not the full story. In fact, when that happened, a good group of the crowd said, ‘No. Stand your ground; you stay here.’ A prominent member of the clergy who was there on the same occasion said, ‘This man’—Mr Clements—‘has more right to be here than the rest of us.’ People apparently threw coins at King Billy; I presume that was as a gesture of charity. It is probably cringe-worthy now but it was not then. He ended up standing on the steps for the opening of parliament in 1927 and being amongst the VIPs who met the Duke and Duchess of Kent the next day. That is the full story of the treatment of Mr Clements. I think that we do ourselves a disservice if we are so keen to paint a black, dark picture of the treatment of people that we do not also see that there are good people—and always have been good people—who will fight and continue to fight for the rights of, particularly, Indigenous people, whose situation is currently not a good one.

In looking at this issue and preparing my thoughts on it, I went back to the motion of reconciliation that was passed by this parliament in August 1999. It says:

That this House:

(a)

reaffirms its wholehearted commitment to the cause of reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians as an important national priority for Australians;

(b)

recognising the achievements of the Australian nation commits to work together to strengthen the bonds that unite us, to respect and appreciate our differences and to build a fair and prosperous future in which we can all share;

(c)

reaffirms the central importance of practical measures leading to practical results that address the profound economic and social disadvantage which continues to be experienced by many indigenous Australians;

(d)

recognises the importance of understanding the shared history of indigenous and non-indigenous Australians and the need to acknowledge openly the wrongs and injustices of Australia’s past;

(e)

acknowledges that the mistreatment of many indigenous Australians over a significant period represents the most blemished chapter in our international history;

(f)

expresses its deep and sincere regret that indigenous Australians suffered injustices under the practices of past generations, and for the hurt and trauma that many indigenous people continue to feel as a consequence of those practices; and

(g)

believes that we, having achieved so much as a nation, can now move forward together for the benefit of all Australians.

You may note that, apart from the word ‘sorry’, this motion covers every aspect of the motion that we have agreed to today. It covers current disadvantage. It fully acknowledges past wrongs and injustices, and the hurt and trauma that those injustices caused and still cause, and it highlights the need for practical and radical improvement of the way we help Indigenous people in Australia. To me, that 1999 statement is part of telling the full story of our journey towards a true reconciliation and of moving forward.

I would also mention that much has been made of people of Indigenous background and their involvement in this parliament. There have been far too few, but one that I would like to honour today is the late Senator Neville Bonner, a Junggera man who was the first senator of Aboriginal background to serve in this parliament. He was a Liberal senator from my own state who taught our party and our people a lot about how to go about assisting people of Indigenous background.

I would also like to talk about the fact that there has been an improvement—there has been change. If you look at figures from the Medical Journal of Australia published last year, the life expectancy for Indigenous women has increased from 65 to 67.9 years in the past 10 years. This is nowhere near good enough—we must close the gap—but there has been change and there have been improvements. There are actions and there are policies designed to put some practical background behind what we have done to date in this area. On that basis I would like definitely to add my voice to the view that, yes, we must say ‘sorry’ and, yes, we must add a practical aspect to that by supporting the moves that are currently going on in the Northern Territory to assist people to come to a situation where they can go on themselves.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise briefly in this debate to support the motion of sorrow that has been passed in this chamber today. I feel that the motion itself is terribly important, because it shows a solidarity with Indigenous people. I use the word ‘solidarity’ very, very carefully, because it is something that people who have known a dispossession come to grips with when they know that those who have possessions are as one with them. I am sure that that is the thrust of what is being put here in this chamber today and what has been put here in the past—that we are at one, feeling a solidarity with our Indigenous Australians who have been so bereft of a real comfort over a long period of time because of many injustices that have been placed upon them. Therefore, I believe that this is an important step in the healing process of this nation.

Of course I support the comments of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Government in the Senate in this particular debate. I want to refer in particular to the words of the Prime Minister when he referred to the stolen generations as human beings, not an intellectual curiosity. He went on to say they were ‘human beings deeply damaged by the decision of parliaments and governments’. That is something that has not been focused on, in my view. We are dealing with humanity. We are dealing with human beings who are no different from any of the rest of us. The major difference may well be the colour of their skin. The major difference may well be their opportunity. The major difference may well be their life expectancy. The major difference may well be the hurt that they have suffered. But the reality is that they are human beings and, as such, need to be seen to be treated with the dignity that human beings deserve.

I believe that it is a fundamental right of every individual human being, and no more or no less for our Indigenous Australians, to have the right to that dignity as well, and that that right to that dignity is expressed through the solidarity of the resolution that was passed in the other chamber and this chamber today. That dignity should prevail through the various stages of life. It is not something that is just gained at birth, it is not something gained in youth and it is not something gained simply at the end of life. It is something that is a continuum through life. Of course, with much of the injustice that many of our Indigenous Australians have suffered, they have not had the opportunity to experience the dignity of life that they deserve.

I am not seeking to expand on the apology as a statement as such, because I believe it enunciates the heartfelt and strong sorrow that many of us have experienced in this country for a long time. I share that sorrow and I wholly endorse the apology as adopted by our parliament. I see it, as others have said, as a positive way forward on reconciliation. To express one’s sorrow is important indeed, but then the next step, having expressed one’s sorrow, is not to go back and repeat the errors of your ways. As they say, you do not sin anymore. I think that that is the significance of the statement and the significance of the process: that, having recognised our own inadequacies, we have said that we are sorry. It is a sorrow that comes from within the heart, because if one does not have that then the sorrow is shallow indeed. I think the expressions that I have heard in this debate on the issue in general show that the sorrow is deep and heartfelt, and that people genuinely do not want to see a repeat of what has happened previously. I believe that the solidarity shown by the parliament of Australia, and other parliaments before us in the states, will give hope to our Indigenous Australians that there is a future, and a bright future, where their dignity will be respected and will grow because of the respect that we show to each other as human beings. I commend the recommendation of the Senate and I support it fully.

Rod Kemp (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion regarding an apology to those Indigenous Australians who were forcibly removed from their families and communities under the laws of past state and federal governments. The Leader of the Opposition, Brendan Nelson, has spoken eloquently on this matter today on behalf of the coalition. There has been, as we all know, a longstanding debate on the appropriateness of one generation apologising for another. At least as far as this parliament is concerned, this debate is now over. Nevertheless, there will be a continuing debate in the community on the appropriateness of what the parliament has done today.

Just 11 years ago, in moving a motion of reconciliation, John Howard said the treatment of Indigenous peoples was ‘without any doubt, the greatest blemish and stain on the Australian national story’. That motion recognised the mistreatment of many Indigenous Australians over a significant period and expressed deep and sincere regret that Indigenous Australians had suffered injustices under the practices of past generations and for the hurt and trauma that many Indigenous people continue to feel as a consequence of those practices. The parliament today has reinforced that statement, in a sense, with the use of the word ‘sorry’.

This is a complex issue. As the Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson said in an extensive article in the Australian yesterday:

The truth is the removal of Aboriginal children and the breaking up of Aboriginal families is a history of complexity and great variety. People were stolen; people were rescued; people were brought in chains; people were brought by their parents; mixed-blood children were in danger from their tribal stepfathers, while others were loved and treated as their own; people were in danger from whites, and people were protected by whites. The motivations and actions of those whites involved in this history—governments and missions—ranged from cruel to caring, malign to loving, well-intentioned to evil.

Some of the examples of the removal of Aboriginal children that have been stated before this parliament are simply horrific. They demonstrate that bureaucracies, as well as having the potential for good, also have the potential for great evil.

It is appropriate to say sorry to people who have suffered so dreadfully from the actions of government and its officers. But it would also be wrong not to acknowledge that there were children who were rescued from dreadful circumstances. And there were white missionaries who had the interests of Indigenous people at heart. Noel Pearson refers to a Bavarian missionary who, in his view, will always be a hero.

An apology can have both positive and negative aspects. It will be interesting to see in the coming weeks and months whether the government, having taken this step, reverts to the failed policies of the past or whether, as so many speakers have indicated, this will be the springboard for moving on and addressing the real causes of Aboriginal disadvantage.

Today’s apology is a very specific apology relating to the harm caused by the removal of Aboriginal children from their families. It should not and cannot obscure the fact that the policies which were put into effect by governments prior to the Northern Territory intervention have damaged Aboriginal people over the last 30 years and more. The lives of many thousands of Aboriginal people have been blighted by these failed policies. They are as worthy of an apology as the policy for which we are apologising today.

The road to hell, as the old saying goes, is paved by good intentions. And there is no doubt that the Indigenous policy makers in the post-war period have, in my view, a lot to answer for. Like many parliamentarians, I have visited Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. One cannot but be struck by the examples of overriding poverty and despair in some of these communities. Indeed, I believe it is a scandal that such circumstances could exist in Australia today. By every measure—life expectancy, child mortality, unemployment, literacy and violence—the policies of the last 30 years have failed. Indeed, some future parliament may well be apologising for our failure.

The Northern Territory government’s Little children are sacred report showed the shocking conditions in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. It summarised:

A number of underlying causes are said to explain the present state of both town and remote communities.

Excessive consumption of alcohol is variously described as the cause or result of poverty, unemployment, lack of education, boredom and overcrowded and inadequate housing.

The use of other drugs and petrol sniffing can be added to these.

Together, they lead to excessive violence. In the worst case scenario it leads to sexual abuse of children.

It is inexcusable that the Northern Territory government had allowed this situation to develop.

What are the policies that have led to this result? Let me summarise some of these policies: unrestricted welfare; reverse apartheid through the permit system; absence of proper policing in many Indigenous communities; failure to control drugs, alcohol and pornography; concealing of abuse by welfare agencies; and almost complete neglect of needs in education, health and housing in remote communities.

My brother, Dr David Kemp, by establishing national standards for numeracy and literacy, exposed, possibly for the first time, the shocking neglect of education for Indigenous children in remote communities in the Northern Territory and elsewhere. These policies, let us not forget, remained in place because of misguided symbolism and political correctness, and stayed in place until John Howard and Mal Brough had the courage to act to save the children. The Howard government, to its enormous credit, broke from the failed policies of the last 30 years when former minister Mal Brough announced the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007. Mr Brough said in the second reading speech:

When confronted with a failed society where basic standards of law and order and behaviour have broken down and where women and children are unsafe, how should we respond? Do we respond with more of what we have done in the past? Or do we radically change direction with an intervention strategy matched to the magnitude of the problem?

He went on:

We are providing extra police. We will stem the flow of alcohol, drugs and pornography, assess the health situation of children, engage local people in improving living conditions, and offer more employment opportunities and activities for young people. We aim to limit the amount of cash available for alcohol, drugs and gambling during the emergency period and make a strong link between welfare payments and school attendance.

Now that the apology has been said, it is time to approach again the pressing issues of the safety of children and the wellbeing of Aboriginal communities. A great deal of work remains to be done.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners on whose country we are meeting today. I would also like to acknowledge all traditional owners and elders across our country. I want to thank Matilda House and her delegation for the generosity of their welcome that we received yesterday. In doing so, I want to congratulate all the people who were involved in that moving ceremony that we witnessed. As Senator Boyce said, this has been on the cards for a very long time and it is wonderful that it has finally become a part of the ceremony of the opening of parliament in this place. I was particularly pleased to hear the Leader of the Opposition commit to continuing with the welcome to country ceremony into the future.

Yesterday heralded a new dawn for relations between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and non-Indigenous Australians, and that has been built on today. It is an understatement, in my view, to say that today is a historic day for all Australians. The celebration that this parliament has seen throughout today is something that will not be forgotten for a very long time—the laughter and the tears; the emotion; and the people, Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians, coming together to celebrate an important day in the history of our country. It gives me enormous pride and a sense of relief today to wholeheartedly support the motion that has been carried unanimously in the Senate and the House today. I commend the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, for all of their efforts to ensure that Indigenous people were consulted about the words in this motion and for planning such a wonderful day here in Canberra. I also agree that today’s motion of apology is not about us as senators and members of parliament. It is a day for Indigenous people in particular and a day for all Australians to come together to right past wrongs.

The words of the motion are very important. I encourage all Australians to take the time to read them, to know what they mean and to know personally of the intent behind them. The words are designed to, firstly, recognise the indisputable fact that past actions instigated and/or sanctioned by parliaments and governments resulted in many thousands—we do not actually know the number, but many thousands—of Indigenous children being taken from their mothers and their families because of their race. And that is the key. That is the very significant difference that we need to remember in this debate today. It was because they were black that they were taken. And that is the sorrow that they live with. The words are designed to show that we, as non-Indigenous Australians, want to say that we are sorry for what occurred. As a mother I cannot understand, I cannot imagine the abject loss, the emptiness, that mothers who had their children stolen endured—endured for the rest of their lives in many, many cases. I cannot contemplate the fear that people lived with, waiting for the welfare, hiding their children, as we know they did. The words are drafted to show that we understand the toll that the practices of forced removal, of so-called fostering, of being placed into unpaid labour, of institutionalisation, have wreaked on Indigenous Australians. The words are drafted to make it clear that we know that much has to be done to bridge the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The tenor of the Prime Minister’s speech and those of many others, including the Leader of the Opposition’s, in this and the other place, has been sincere and heartfelt. Australians can take heart from the leadership that has been shown today that we as a nation have taken a very large step towards a reconciled Australia.

In May 1997 I was fortunate to be in attendance at the National Reconciliation Convention. At the end of that convention—a very emotionally up and down meeting—Pat Dodson invited us to walk with him on the road to reconciliation. What we have witnessed today restarts that process of reconciliation anew. I have talked about what the words in the motion say. I think it is also important to talk about what the words do not say. The words do not apportion blame. They do not encourage people to feel guilt. There is nowhere in those words that tries to point a finger at anyone, at any group or any particular government action. There would be no purpose in doing so. The words do not apportion blame nor do they encourage guilt. The words do not seek to advance the value of symbolism above the real and obvious need for improved outcomes in terms of health, education and employment for Indigenous people. It is not one or the other. It is not symbolism or services and programs; it is both. Of course it is both. And that is how it should be. We need as a nation to lay down a marker, to acknowledge the horrifying, unthinkable truth of the stolen generation era and to sincerely apologise. And that is what we have done today.

This morning on the ABC AM program an Indigenous gentleman was speaking about how there are some non-Indigenous Australians who have an understanding of the experience of the stolen generation. He was referring to the child migrants as also being stolen—and that has been referred to in this place today. As we know through the Senate inquiry, along with the child migrants there are many other Australians who have been institutionalised, taken from their families and placed in institutions. I acknowledge the pain of the child migrants and of the so-called forgotten Australians today. I apologise too for the actions of governments that separated those children from their families. There is more to be done in that area as well.

In closing, I want to thank the many Indigenous Australians, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, mainly in North Queensland, who have shared their stories and lives with my family and me. I have felt welcome in their homes and in their communities. I am grateful for the generosity that has been shown to me and for the opportunity to understand better their lives and their culture. I say to those people—I cannot name them all—their generosity and openness has allowed us, my family, to have some understanding of the road that you walk.

I am always in awe of the patience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We know they waited for their vote, they waited for native title, they have waited for education and they have waited for health services. But today’s motion means that the wait for the apology to the stolen generation is now over. We are now once again on the path to reconciliation and on the path to closing the gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and non-Indigenous Australians. I wholeheartedly support the motion and commit to working to improving outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia.

Judith Troeth (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to support the apology. Today is a very important day in the life of this parliament and this country. There is no doubt that much of the past policy was undertaken partly in the name of improving the lives of children—supposedly in material ways of measuring happiness. Children were removed from their families with the thought that they could have what were seen as better living conditions and better education with the hope of better eventual employment. But there was no thought given to the family providing an essential underpinning to an individual’s emotional life, and that is what we are recognising today, amongst other things.

Over time there is no doubt that both sides of government have attempted to provide practical forms of reconciliation through health, housing, education and employment initiatives. This has been done to the extent that the former government last year spent $4 billion on Indigenous initiatives. Yet many of the indicators which would signal an improvement in those areas have changed very little, such as life expectancy, infant mortality, progress through primary and secondary school, and sustainable employment. Saying sorry will not change these conditions in the short term. Yet, by acknowledging the emotional scarring that previous policy has caused, I hope we are creating a true feeling of partnership to go forward and start to improve living standards in every way. By ‘living’ I do not just mean physical conditions but also anticipating and being able to aspire to a physical and emotional standard of living which is due to all Australians.

As a parent, I can only begin to understand what it would feel like to have one child taken from the family, let alone multiple removals, as so many of these cases seem to be. It is no wonder that so many of those parents spent the rest of their often short lives wondering what had become of their children. They were never to know.

Many of these issues have come together in the expressions of regret by various state governments. I was very pleased last June when former Prime Minister John Howard and former minister Mal Brough announced what is now known as the Northern Territory intervention. I am well aware that not everyone agrees with every aspect of that initiative. I hope the new Rudd government carries on the practical aspects of this reform. We must act now, in concert with state and territory governments, to ensure that conditions improve. There have been many expressions of bipartisanship at the national government level for some time, especially yesterday and today, and I applaud the acceptance of this declaration by the leader of my party, Dr Brendan Nelson. Let us go on with this so that the succeeding generations can note this declaration at the start of this new parliament as the start of a new era and new partnerships.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion before the chamber to take note of the apology. What a historic moment it is. This federal parliament has finally done what ought have been done many years ago, and that is to apologise to Indigenous Australians for this long chapter in our history where people were taken away from their families.

I want to speak briefly about some of the reasons why I believe this apology is so important. In my first speech to this place I spoke about the need for compassion and why compassion, to my way of thinking, ought be the driver for those of us in public life. It ought be that which those who have power remember and seek to implement when engaging in their activities. I said that this notion of compassion really was that which lay at the heart of a truly civilised society. I also made the point that compassion is what underscores our relationships with one another and that which enables us to come to a place of community even in our diversity. That is a view which I have had for all of my life—or for as long as I can recall; perhaps not when I was born, but certainly for all of the time when I have actually thought about these issues—and it is very much the reason why I have always been since this issue was raised an advocate for an apology. It is an expression, not only of regret but also of apology, that enables us to come to a place of community. It demonstrates an understanding of what was done, of the impact of what was done, and enables us to move forward.

I was engaged for some part of the years of the former Howard government in various antiracism activities at a community level. In that context I once interviewed Lowitja O’Donoghue in a public forum at which she talked about her experience. That was one of the more profoundly moving experiences that I have had. This woman of extraordinary achievement, extraordinary intellect and extraordinary integrity spoke about what it meant for her to have been taken away. For those of you who do not know, Lowitja O’Donoghue was taken away from her mother at the age of two. She, from memory, was one of the young children who were taken eventually to Colebrook, which was a home in the Adelaide Hills actually not far from where I lived when I came to Australia from Malaysia. Lowitja gave all the people in the audience that day an extraordinary insight into what that meant for her and what it meant for her not to have seen her mother for, I think, about 33 years.

The thing that I remember most about that discussion is not just the sadness of the story that was being told but the extraordinary dignity and spirit of forgiveness with which Miss O’Donoghue spoke. To be honest with the chamber, that was a hallmark of much of the activity I engaged in with Indigenous people on antiracism and other issues before I came into parliament. I have been struck over and over again by the big-heartedness of our Indigenous peoples. How much forgiveness there has been in the way in which they have dealt with me and other non-Indigenous Australians. I have often thought that, if I had been in the same situation and had that sort of history, my anger and bitterness would probably not have enabled me to behave in the ways they did. I have so often been humbled by the dignity, forgiveness and, as I said, big-heartedness of so many Indigenous people with whom I have worked over the years.

I speak in support of this motion firstly, obviously, as someone in this chamber—as an elected representative. But I also want to express my strong personal commitment to this motion and my gladness that we have come to this place. As I have said before, I believe that it is an understanding of the experience of others which enables us to come to a place of community in our diversity. Diversity is a good thing. It is a characteristic of Australian society which has enriched us and it is a characteristic which I believe contributes to a strong, vibrant community. But, in order to ensure that diversity has its most positive manifestation, I believe we must try to understand what it is like for others who are different to ourselves. Non-Indigenous Australians need to come to a place where we have a better understanding of what life has been like in the past and what it is like currently for our Indigenous brothers and sisters.

This is not the day for much partisan politics. I do commend the opposition, after some public comments indicating disquiet on this issue, for eventually supporting this motion. I want to make a couple of brief points about comments made by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate in his response in this place on behalf of the opposition. He first made the point that we ought not to judge previous actions by contemporary standards. That is something I have heard said by those who were in the former government and by those who oppose the notion of an apology. It is true that over time human societies develop different notions about what is right and wrong and what is socially acceptable. That is obviously part of what is great about us; we do move forward and we do change. But I want to emphasise this: there are some things which were never right. There are some things which, no matter what time in history they occur, are simply wrong. To try in any way to suggest that, because something occurred in the past when some people and some parliaments thought differently and when some policies were different, it in any way diminishes the moral wrongness of what occurred is incorrect, I believe.

The second point I want to make in relation to the comments made by Senator Minchin and, frankly, by a number of opposition senators is that there was a lot of discussion about the process, criticism of the Prime Minister’s release of the apology and so forth. On a day when we are talking about what has happened over many decades in this country to a group of people because they were black and because they were Indigenous, for people to be so concerned about their own processes really does demonstrate a level of self-absorption that is extraordinary. It would seem from some of the comments made in this place that what was happening inside the coalition party room was of more importance to some than the enormity of what has been done today.

As I said, this is a motion that has been a long time coming. This is a motion which ought to have been dealt with in this place before. I think it is a regret of many people in Australia that for so many years we have failed to see the importance of this symbolic gesture in moving forward. I hope that in the years to come we can look back and say that this was a time when this parliament, on behalf of the community that elects us, and, more importantly, the broader Australian community could acknowledge and apologise for past wrongs and that we then moved forward to do something very different.

Nobody who has argued for symbolic gestures or moments such as this believes that they are the only things we must do. Clearly, there are many practical measures which we have to put in place to redress the unacceptable disadvantage so many of our Indigenous brothers and sisters suffer. But symbolism and ideas are important. We all know that. We are all members of political parties that are not just about practical plans; they are also very much about ideas, philosophies and what we feel in our hearts is right for this nation and this community. Today we have stated as a parliament what we believe is right—that we should say sorry.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion to take note of the apology given today in this place and in the other place. I do so with great pleasure and to make a contribution to this debate on this historic occasion. We, as people, can be terrible and flawed creatures at times. We can inflict harms that make most cringe. We can do wrongs that we dare not speak of. We can inflict wilful pain upon each other and on the environment around us. However, thankfully, very few of us are guilty of inflicting wilful, deliberate acts of pain. Most of us, when we inflict pain or harm, are often ignorant of the pain we are causing. Most of us act with the best of intentions, however right, wrong or misguided those intentions may prove to be in future years and in retrospect.

Today this parliament has taken a stand and apologised for the wrongs of the past committed against the Indigenous peoples of Australia. We have made this expression of sorrow both for the harms inflicted wilfully by some and for the inadvertent or unintended harms of many. As the Liberal Party leader in the other place said in his, I thought, very moving and worthwhile contribution to the apology, each generation lives in ignorance of the long-term consequences of its decisions and actions. Even when motivated by inherent humanity and decency to reach out to the dispossessed in extreme adversity, our actions can have unintended consequences. Consequences unintended and, sadly, in some cases intended, certainly did cause harms and wrong to many of our Indigenous people over the years. They were recognised in the historic Bringing them home report released in 1997. Whilst it has taken some time, today this place has done the right thing. Although I may wish it had been done earlier, I am very proud to be a member of the parliament which has said, I believe very genuinely, deeply and overwhelmingly in very heartfelt and sincere terms, that we are sorry for those wrongs which were committed. We have heard many comments in this place and elsewhere reciting very tragic and personal stories of children removed forcibly from loving families, the fact that many people lost touch with their culture or background, others who were forced into child labour, and some, sadly, who were beaten or sexually abused. These are the challenges which generations of Indigenous people have faced and have brought to bear in coming to where we are today. Against that backdrop and many other challenges and issues over the years, it is little wonder that we see the extent of despair, adversity and disadvantage that exists across our Indigenous communities.

As I said earlier in this place, I hope today will mark not just an expression of sorrow but the beginning of healing, a process of forgiveness and, most importantly, an opportunity to move forward. Like many, I know that our Indigenous communities are suffering very deeply. Prior to coming to this place, working at the Winemakers Federation of Australia, I spent time trying to grapple with issues of alcohol and substance abuse, travelling around Alice Springs and the town camps nearby with officers of the Northern Territory Licensing Commission. In those trips it became very clear to me that not just the harms created as a result of that direct abuse but the many wrongs committed over the years gave people a sense of dispossession, having no sense of hope or future about their lives.

I hope in delivering some sense of closure today in this very broadly worded motion that we can achieve progress in many aspects of the tragic history and relationship with Indigenous Australia and ensure that today’s Indigenous people, and most importantly the generations to come, enjoy hope and opportunity and feel a sense of worth and wellbeing in our community. We, as parliamentarians, need to make today stand as a proud day in our history. We will only do that if the current government and future governments back up today’s words with action. The symbolism of today must go hand in hand with true, meaningful, practical steps. We must ensure the investment is there to genuinely tackle the ills in Aboriginal communities, the disadvantages in health care and education standards and the need for policing and put a stop to the abuse and violence in our Aboriginal communities that we have seen so widely reported.

It is a challenge that many have, sadly, failed to meet. Failure is reflected in the statistics and in the lives of many broken people in Aboriginal communities. The challenge now falls upon the shoulders of the new government and on each of us, as parliamentarians, to ensure that policies and actions follow up the very great words spoken today in this place and in the other place. I say to the new government that this symbolic step is not enough. It is important. It is a great step, but I hope it will be the first of many steps to deliver a strong and proud future for our Indigenous peoples.

In my first speech to this place just a few months ago, last year, I spoke of the hope that I would see and make a contribution to Indigenous people becoming free of suppression, paternalism or welfarism and enjoying incentives and the respect of the community. Today we have shown enormous respect in this place. I am very proud to have seen that occur, but there is much to be done to ensure the incentives and opportunities that I spoke of.

I note that I am not the only person to have referred back to their first speech, though mine was more recent than most in here—I note Senator Wong, Senator Payne and others have referenced their first speeches in relation to their commitment to healing the wounds in Indigenous Australia and creating advantage and opportunity. So many of us have made that commitment in what is perhaps our most important speech in this place: our first speech. I hope that we can genuinely see that commitment through in the same type of bipartisan, well-meaning and well-spirited manner that we have today, because that is what our Indigenous peoples need. Indeed, we will be much prouder and a much stronger country if today’s steps can be taken forward to deliver hope and opportunity for future Indigenous peoples.

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land that we find ourselves on in this federal parliament and I support the motion taking note of the apology. Today Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, on behalf of the Parliament of Australia, said sorry to Indigenous Australians for past injustices they experienced as a result of previous government policies. Prime Minister Rudd recognised the devastating impact of previous government policies on the families of the stolen generation, and the dislocation and displacement of whole communities, and he did so in a way that I think encompassed all of the pain, not just of those affected directly but of their families and their extended families, and indeed the long-term impact on whole communities—an impact that continues today.

Saying sorry has been a long time coming, and I know many people in this place and many, many more outside of this place have dreamed of this day, have worked long and hard to make it happen through their own compassion and activism, leading towards this moment. I would like to acknowledge the efforts of everybody who, from the bottom of their hearts, worked towards the positive outcome of a genuine apology emanating from the Prime Minister of this country. It is a historic moment for the healing of the nation. It is as though the warmth and optimism that I felt coming into Parliament House today has permeated the community right around the country.

There is obviously some scepticism and some questions. What happens next? Of course—that is appropriate. But I was truly inspired by the warmth and optimism that was tangible in the building this morning and that I think has been reflected in the extraordinarily gracious generosity of the acceptance of that apology by Indigenous people. I think it is a day from which we can move forward. I have great hope and optimism for that. I applaud the inspired stewardship of Kevin Rudd—and I also acknowledge the very committed work of our Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin—in making this a priority for this first sitting of the 42nd Parliament.

There are undisputed facts, as reported in the stolen generations report Little children are sacred. Now those facts are firmly imprinted on our collective consciousness, and it is for those facts that today we are saying sorry. We know that between 1910 and 1970, between 10 and 30 per cent of Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their parents. For those of us who have heard the stories firsthand, it is an incredibly emotional experience and one that I think everybody should be able to listen to firsthand, because it is that compelling telling of those stories that makes it real for all of us. We can never share the pain directly, but it makes it real to us in a way that we all acknowledge and accept some responsibility.

It was, of course, the product of deliberate, calculated policies of the state at the time. The powers to take the children away were provided by the parliament of the day—explicit powers provided under statute. This whole experience should make us very humble as legislators. We have seen the harm that misguided policies can cause and we have an immense responsibility to stand up and acknowledge these mistakes, as we have today, as well as to celebrate the successes. The apology is, as I think everyone including the Prime Minister is saying, a first step.

The Rudd Labor government is committed to reducing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians with respect to health, education and life expectancy. These policies will no doubt be challenging to implement. To improve health in a genuine, sustainable, long-term and holistic manner requires attention to and investment in the social determinants of health—housing, education, employment, obviously health services, the physical environment and individual and collective self-esteem. This gamut of public policy challenges is, fortunately, an area that we in Australia have a great deal of expertise in. In fact, many of our states do have the capacity to provide the professional guidance, support and public policy inspiration we need to make a real difference. What was lacking in the area of health promotion public policy was the genuine commitment needed by the former federal government to see fit to deploy those resources in a focused and unrelenting way towards a problem that still exists, to our shame—and that is, the health status of our Indigenous population.

Let us hope that we will not have to wait as long to report back positively about the impact of the changes in those policies and the outcomes of investment in education, employment opportunities and health status. Let us hope that this agenda will continue to attract the sort of bipartisan support that I am hearing echoing back across the chamber today from most, if not all, because that gives us all great heart that this really is going to be a concerted effort—not one divided by the partisan politics of opportunism but one inspired by the opportunity to rectify a great wrong.

The weight that has been lying across our collective conscience has been lifted slightly in one corner. We have a way to go, but I think together all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, will be able to stand tall and walk together at some point in the future with this weight lifted. For my part, I am proud to be part of the moment—I am proudest of the Indigenous people, who have lived their lives with great dignity and who found themselves part of this formality today in the federal parliament of a Prime Minister finally saying sorry.

In closing, I would also like to acknowledge the wonderful initiative in having a welcome to country ceremony prior to the opening of parliament yesterday. It is a longstanding tradition I know in other houses of parliament and it has been a feature of public events in Canberra for a very long time. The lack of that presence in Parliament House stood out as glaring. It has now been fixed and I too would like to acknowledge the bipartisan support for that continuing tradition. I would like to thank Matilda House and the elders for their participation in a wonderful ceremony that I think will set the tone for that tradition to continue in the future.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak to the motion before the Senate on our national apology, which both houses of parliament supported today, accompanied by the great national fanfare and feeling. I accept that the Australian people in the great majority want this parliament to come together to settle this longstanding matter. To this end, I express my heartfelt support for the words and feelings in the national apology which in part reads:

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

…            …            …

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

…            …            …

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.

The national apology, while accepted as important symbolism, will nevertheless we trust have the very practical effect of healing much of the hurt, pain and anger of those that say that they or their family members were taken from their family origins at a young age for no other reason than race. That is what we are apologising for today; that is what we are sorry for today. Therefore it is worthy to note, as has been recognised by previous speakers, that the national apology in no way must blanket the history of the good work and good intentions of so many churches and welfare groups that helped Aboriginal children from settlements who were in dire need of help. The distinction ought to be made between the two. It in no way dims the apology but sets out the differences in what is a complex issue. It is probably best put by Noel Pearson, an Aboriginal elder known to all in this chamber, in a very fine and thoughtful piece which he wrote in the Australian on Tuesday, February 12. I quote that part of the article, which I recommend to everyone in the Senate, that relates to the point I am making here about the churches. Noel Pearson said:

The truth is the removal of Aboriginal children and the breaking up of Aboriginal families is a history of complexity and great variety. People were stolen, people were rescued; people were brought in chains, people were brought by their parents; mixed-blood children were in danger from their tribal stepfathers, while others were loved and treated as their own; people were in danger from whites, and people were protected by whites. The motivations and actions of those whites involved in this history—governments and missions—ranged from cruel to caring, malign to loving, well-intentioned to evil.

Noel Pearson went on to say:

The 19-year-old Bavarian missionary who came to the year-old Lutheran mission at Cape Bedford in Cape York Peninsula in 1887, and who would spend more than 50 years of his life underwriting the future of—

Noel Pearson’s people, in Noel Pearson’s words—

cannot but be a hero to me and to my people. We owe an unrepayable debt to Georg ... Schwartz and the white people who supported my grandparents and others to rebuild their lives after they arrived at the mission as young children in 1910.

What Noel Pearson said makes a most significant point about an issue that we all concede is a complex one, and it is more eloquently put than what, I thought, was the Prime Minister’s very smart alec remark in the chamber today—he said that it was a very crude, post-reformation, theological way of resolving the differences in the churches. It was nothing of the sort; it had nothing to do with theological differences or the post-reformation. It was either a tongue-in-cheek remark or a smart alec remark by the Prime Minister. It was unwarranted on a day like this, and it was a cheap shot at the churches.

Equally, on the subject of cheap shots, I am informed that many of the staffers of the Labor Party—no doubt it was caught on film—turned their backs on Brendan Nelson during his speech.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

‘That is right,’ say my colleagues. It was done on the grounds that Brendan Nelson raised the issue of the Northern Territory intervention. That was the reason they decided to turn their backs during what was a bipartisan approach to saying sorry.

So, before they become so pleased with themselves in trumpeting their own compassion in this matter, I make the point that, while the Labor Party might be feeling chuffed with itself over this matter—and I have already referred to those who turned their backs and played politics right till the end—I am convinced that the apology is not a case of a change in the political landscape brought about by the new government bringing in this policy. I think the political landscape changed well before the election when we introduced the Northern Territory emergency action. The sea change occurred when the majority of the Australian people, who might once have been cynical about an apology and thought of it as hollow and lacking meaning, saw definite, practical action being taken by the government. We felt that sea change when we were in government. We felt that the great majority of Australians believed that an apology was acceptable and due because it would be combined with strong, practical action.

I think the sea change came for the Australian people when the great majority wanted an apology, for what they were once very cynical about, because of the strong action taken in the Northern Territory emergency action. So, it would be a tragedy if that action were to be unwound. It has been a marked success, with over 5,500 children in 48 communities now having had health checks, just to quote one figure, although it is probably the most significant figure of all. But to pull out the foundation stone upon which that action was built—that is, the removal of the permit system—would endanger the success of the whole action. The other side must know that it is the most practical action to take. The ability to succeed in the Northern Territory emergency action comes from the abolition of the permit system. Yet, in my judgement, the government are using the reinstatement of it as a symbol of the Left. They have reinstated it and, in so doing, they have unwound the most practical action taken in Aboriginal affairs for many decades.

It would be a tragedy if anything more was unwound; if you were not genuine and you caved in to the pressure I see on the news services to unwind the whole Northern Territory action. If you think I am overdramatising it, when you have staff members turning their backs on the Leader of the Opposition on the grounds that he raised the issue— (Time expired)

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s momentous and long-overdue apology to the stolen generation—Indigenous Australians who were, sadly, the victims of one of the most shameful chapters in our nation’s history. Last year, Mr Rudd made the commitment that, if the Labor Party were to form government, he would take the important and historical step of saying sorry to the stolen generation for the pain and suffering they endured as a result of being forcibly separated from their families. Today he delivered on this commitment. Our Prime Minister said sorry on behalf of the government, on behalf of the Australian parliament and on behalf of the Australian people.

The significance of this important moment in our nation’s history should not be downplayed or lost. For many thousands of Indigenous Australians, both those with us and passed, this day has been a long time coming. Indeed, for the past 10 years the possibility of an apology has all but eluded us. However, the election of the Rudd Labor government last year not only put the issue back on the agenda but, as we have seen in the last couple of days, placed the apology to the stolen generation at the very top of the agenda. The significance of this event will no doubt be resounding for years to come, but for now its present and fresh importance should not be lost. It should be enjoyed and celebrated.

The atmosphere in Parliament House over the last two days has come to symbolise the immediate meaning of this event. There has been necessary reflection upon and acknowledgement of the past, but there is also a sense of hope for the future. To me this is the most basic and true meaning of reconciliation: a sincere and heartfelt acknowledgement of what has come before and a genuine desire to move forward together towards the future.

The apology today was an acknowledgement of a past wrong. It also represented a clear statement of our desire as a nation to move forward as one people. However, the Rudd Labor government acknowledges that the events of today are only the first step of many steps that need to be taken to mend the past injustices suffered by the Indigenous people. Much more needs to be done to bridge the gap that has been allowed to develop over a number of years between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. As the Prime Minister stated today, in this country we are about a fair go for all, and up until now this sentiment has failed to be applied when it comes to Indigenous Australians. The facts speak for themselves in lower life expectancy and poorer health and education outcomes. These people have done it tough.

However, the Prime Minister also stated today that the Rudd Labor government is committed to improving outcomes for Indigenous communities from this point on. The Prime Minister acknowledged that most of the old approaches are not working and that there is a need for a new beginning based on consultative, tailored and local approaches to improving outcomes in areas such as health and education in Indigenous communities. The Rudd Labor government has already committed to a number of policies aimed directly at improving health and education outcomes for young Indigenous children—the future of the Indigenous people’s heritage and culture, the future of our country.

I am extremely proud to be a member of the Australian parliament that finally took the important step of acknowledging the wrongs suffered by members of the stolen generation and that has set a positive agenda in working towards closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Today the first words have been spoken and the first steps have been taken on the road towards reconciliation. Let this day rest in the minds of all Australians as one of hope.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today is a great day for all Australians. I suppose you could say it is a new dawn for the original custodians of Australia. I am a farmer and occasionally I pretend that I own the farm. In fact I am only the custodian of the farm; and, even if you live a long time, you actually do not live very long. This is just a great new opportunity for all Australians and I am very proud of the fact that Australians have displayed great generosity of spirit. Today is the day for our Indigenous people—or as I say in the back country, ‘my blackfella mates’. It is not a whitefella day.

I am not interested in some of the disadvantages where, if you go to different parts of Australia, you will see third-generation unemployed whitefellas in pretty dire circumstances. Today is a great day for Australia to display its generosity. I am not interested in the nuances of who got what. Ever since we got here, the whole thing has been a national disgrace and whitefella habits have inflicted great pain on a lot of our Indigenous people. So I can only say: thank God we have got here to this point today.

My view is that there are people—and there are those who have a different view—who are innocently ignorant of what has gone on in the past. There are a lot of people like that. When I left school I did not know that at Cootamundra, 30 miles from where I lived, there was a place full of young girls who had been taken away. We had no idea. So you can be innocently ignorant of the facts. There are some people—and you can pick it by their language or by their silence—who are passengers of political convenience on this particular issue and are not in favour of it, but there are other people, in my view, who are just simply moral cowards.

With all human endeavour there is human failure and, sure, some of the things that have been put together over the years have not worked out as they should have. As senators would know, you can go out into any remote community now and find that things are not like they ought to be. The position in some of these communities is still a continuing national disgrace. But if today is going to help heal people who have been seriously disadvantaged directly by what has gone on in the past, and raise their self-esteem by seeing the display of generosity of spirit of the wider Australian community, then I think today is just a magnificent day for everyone to celebrate. It was a great pleasure for me today to see people with smiles on their faces around this place. Sure, one size does not fit all. There are several remote communities that want to live traditionally. They might want to live traditionally with a LandCruiser to assist them, but they still want to live traditionally and share their goods with all the neighbourhood and all the rest of it. That is fair enough.

There are a lot of Indigenous people who want to leave something in their will just the same as whitefellas do. If they get the opportunity they want to better themselves and leave a better situation for their children. I think that we have got to aspire to all the things that have been repeated many times in this place about education, health and all the rest of it. We have got to aspire to putting people in a position where they can own their own home on their own country and leave that home in their will to their kids. It is a pretty simple aspiration, but it is a great builder of spirit.

I am pretty upbeat about the future for our Indigenous people. As I said, ever since the 1700s they have had a pretty rotten deal for various reasons which, today, I am not interested in. Today is a day of celebration. But I have to say that, if you analyse the science of climate change in Australia—the predictions of declining run-off of somewhere between 3,500 and 11,000 gigalitres in the Murray-Darling Basin, which has a total of 23,000 gigalitres and produces 40 per cent of our food from water and 70 per cent including the dry land—and then look at the north, we are the only island continent globally, in my view, that is going to deal with climate change. I know this is a long way from this particular motion, but it is certainly where it is going to finish up. In 50 years time, if the science is right, 50 per cent of the world’s population will be water poor, a billion people will be unable to feed themselves, 1.6 billion people will be displaced by climate change, 30 per cent of the productive land of Asia will have disappeared and the food task will have doubled. If Australia can maintain its sovereignty, the new wealth creators are going to be our Indigenous people. That is because, gladly, they own in the Northern Territory, for instance, 45 per cent of the land mass. A lot of that land mass is going to be greatly enhanced by climate change if the science is right.

The ILC is a wonderful opportunity for enhancement by our Indigenous people. They own many, many great properties in Australia, scattered right across the Top End as well as the south end. We have a duty of care to our Indigenous people to make sure that they are the beneficiaries of this new wealth that will come, and that a bunch of shysters and crooks do not intercept it all. So I am greatly gladdened by recent events. I am not interested in the intricacies and the nuances of the language. I just think it is a great day for all Australians and I am so pleased to see our Indigenous people celebrating that, as well as our whitefellas. I went today, as Senator Moore did, to see the people who feel that things in the Northern Territory are not what they ought to be. What that said to me, Senator Moore, is that all human endeavour has some human failure. One size does not fit all. Obviously there are serious problems, but I am not going to go through them now because today is a day of celebration. I am mightily proud to have had the privilege to be in a parliament that did what we did today. I think that is a great privilege. And, like most things in life, you do not really appreciate them until they have passed you by. I am so proud of everyone in this place today and of the wider generosity of spirit of the Australian people. It is no more complicated than that.

I would hope that the people out at Wadeye see light at the end of the tunnel. For Tobias, who is the associate principal out there, today has gladdened his heart. When you have seen kids who want to go to school but who have no school to go to, it is a great thing that the government has listened to the concerns of the people at Wadeye. They have now got a Centrelink person at the office instead of a phone in a hole in a wall. I think they are all little indicators that Australia is waking up to the rotten deal that our Indigenous people have got. There is an old saying: you should walk a mile in my shoes. The critics who are, in my view, innocently ignorant of the facts ought to try walking a mile in their shoes. I felt like knuckling a few people out there. I struck a bloke out there who has thousands of cattle on an Indigenous property, and I will not repeat the rotten deal that the Indigenous people got out of it, but I felt like smacking him in the ear. It is those things that we want to put behind us. We want to make sure that the people of our Indigenous communities—who are the original custodians of Australia and whose heritage is the most precious thing that Australia has got—who want to live traditionally are allowed to and that those who want to go off and become doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs can do that too. This is a very complex matter, but it is a day of celebration. I am not the least bit interested in anyone— (Time expired)

Debate interrupted.