Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think I finished by saying, ‘for example’! In employment and business since the introduction of the Indigenous Employment Program in July 1999, some 70,000 Indigenous people have been placed in employment and/or training through Indigenous employment programs.

The number of Indigenous people commencing new apprenticeships has increased by 350 per cent from 2,080 in the 12 months to 11 March and there are now more than 9,340. (Quorum formed) In the health area, which is much discussed, there have recently been falls in infant Indigenous morbidity and mortality rates in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Education is an area where we can be particularly proud of the record of Indigenous participation. In 2005, more than 6,600 Indigenous people were studying for a bachelor’s or higher degree, and more Indigenous kids are staying at school—40.1 per cent stayed on to year 12 in 2006, which is up from 29.2 per cent in 1996. The number of Indigenous people in vocational and technical education has more than doubled since 1996 from 32,000 to some 68,000 in 2006.

The mining industry has committed to training and employing Indigenous persons. For example, at the Argyle Diamond Mine in the Kimberley around 25 per cent of the workforce is from the Indigenous community. Argyle is a Rio company, and its record in employing Indigenous people is certainly worthy of recognition and praise.

On the issue of housing, some 15,700 houses have been bought, built or fixed under the Community Housing and Infrastructure Program between 1995-96 and 2005-06. Housing is very important to Indigenous people. Indigenous Business Australia’s homeownership scheme has assisted around 12,000 Indigenous Australian families to own their own homes since its inception.

In the area of law and justice, the rate of Indigenous deaths in prison custody has decreased from six per 1,000 Indigenous prisoners in 1995 to 1.2 per 1,000 Indigenous prisoners in 2005. These are still very sad statistics, but the improvement is notable.

Around 70 per cent of Indigenous people live in the cities and towns of states such as Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales. While many of theses urban Indigenous people live ordinary family lives, as members of their local communities, accessing the usual benefits and services available to all Australian citizens, no doubt their number includes fringe dwellers living in deprived circumstances on the outskirts of country towns. However, when public discussion about our Indigenous people occurs, it is usually in relation to those Indigenous people living in isolated communities in the north of Australia, particularly in the Northern Territory and in the north-west of WA.

As we have heard in recent times, there are very serious problems in some of these remoter communities and towns which include alcoholism, drug abuse, glue sniffing and physical and sexual abuse. Indeed, in some of the towns in the north, Aboriginal children are too frightened to go home at night until their families have retired, or they find their way to safe houses, if they happen to live in towns such as Kununurra, where this kind of facility is available.

These are problems which just should not be happening in modern Australian and arise from the sense of hopelessness and meaninglessness these poor people have about their lives, as I referred to in my remarks in the Senate at the time of the Northern Territory intervention. Hopefully, with the leadership given by the Howard government in the Northern Territory intervention last year, these problems will be overcome now that public attention has been focused on the difficulties faced by Indigenous people in such communities.

In conclusion, while indeed the Parliament of Australia yesterday apologised to our Indigenous people for events in the past, I think it is more than fair to say that as a nation we are doing much to overcome Indigenous disadvantage so that our Indigenous citizens can take their rightful place in our society, as indeed they should and as I believe they will.

Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to incorporate Senator Hutchins’s speech.

Leave granted.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

Mr President, I congratulate the Prime Minister for his apology to the stolen generation and lend my support to the sentiments expressed by all Members and Senators who have supported the motion.

In doing so I wish to emphasise that this is only the first step towards reconciliation and redressing more than 200 years of mistreatment and persecution towards the first people of this nation.

The Bringing them home report on the Stolen Generation details some of the many thousands of stories of the forced separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their parents and communities.

From the story of John, removed from his family as an infant in the 1940s and sexually abused at Kinchela boys home to Stephen who attempted suicide by slitting his wrists—the plight of the Stolen Generation is unparalleled in our history as a nation. It, when considered with the historical reports of massacres and racial intolerance towards aboriginals, amounts to one of the great atrocities of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The report into the Stolen Generation, commissioned in 1995 and providing more than 50 recommendations to right the wrongs created by our predecessors, has sat there, ignored, for more than 10 years.

Today we see a recommendation of the report implemented in part, in a manner appropriate to our contemporary circumstances.

Recommendation 5A of the Bringing them home report calls for all houses of parliament across the country to acknowledge responsibility and apologise for the actions of their predecessors.

To this date, we have seen every state and territory parliament of this nation do just that. From New South Wales to Western Australia, every parliament has supported and passed a motion of apology to the indigenous population for their past mistreatment.

Only one stumbling block remains.

The closest that the Commonwealth Parliament has gotten to apology to the stolen generation and the indigenous peoples of this land has been to express its ‘deep and sincere regret’ for the injustices suffered under the ‘practices of past generations’.

Today I am pleased to see the Commonwealth Parliament go that one step further: apologising and officially acknowledging the responsibility of their predecessors for the laws, policies, and practices of forcible removal of a generation of indigenous children.

I am proud and humbled to be a part of the parliament is finally doing so.

That being said, 54 recommendations were made in the report into the stolen generation. I am not calling on parliament to support and implement every one of these—the recommendations themselves are more than 10 years old. Society and the problems faced by those victims of the stolen generation have moved on since then.

All I seek to demonstrate by raising these recommendations is to show that an official apology on behalf of the parliament is only the tip of the iceberg.

As my colleague Senator Moore has already expressed, words are of little meaning without action to back them up.

The indigenous population of this country is in crisis. Let no one here think that now an apology has been made, the matter is done and the book is closed on this dark chapter in our history. Let no one in this house think that an apology from our Prime Minister will remedy—without qualification—the problems faced by Aboriginals and Torres-Strait Islanders. We will not wake up tomorrow morning and find that there has been an end to drinking and petrol-sniffing in Aboriginal communities. We will not suddenly discover that sexual assaults in remote Northern Territory communities are down and primary and high school attendance rates have hit 100%.

Words alone are not enough to fix more than 200 years of disadvantage and persecution.

The Prime Minister announced this morning that we would be seeking a new partnership between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians—taking practical steps to close the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous disadvantage.

I believe this is a positive step forward, a new beginning as the Prime Minister put it.

I lend my full support to this initiative.

I commend this motion to the parliament and I support it without qualification.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opportunity to take note of the decision of this chamber, and indeed the decision of the House of Representatives, to apologise on behalf of the parliament to the stolen generation is a matter in which I take great pride. I take even greater pride having been part of the party that has made this apology its policy for several elections now since the recommendation was made in the report handed down by Sir Ronald Wilson during the first parliament of the coalition government. Of course, ever since that time, unfortunately, we had a barrier placed between this parliament and the apology. That barrier was clearly the coalition government. It is significant that a change in government to a party which has regard for the rights of Indigenous Australians—proper regard is perhaps a better way of putting it—has led to this parliament making the apology. It is significant that the leadership given by the Australian Labor Party in this parliament has led to the parliament making the apology and to the overwhelming majority of coalition members and senators supporting that apology.

It is unfortunate that there were a number of members—and I think one senator in this place—who made a point of highlighting the fact that they did not support the sorry motion which was carried unanimously in the House of Representatives by choosing not to participate. A senator in this chamber chose not to participate and made a point of drawing that to the attention of the chamber. Be that as it may, it is a matter of great pride that, in the end, the overwhelming majority of members and senators from all parties and all political persuasions were prepared to give their support to the resolution which was carried yesterday in both houses of Australia’s national parliament.

In all of the joy and emotion, the tears that followed the debate and the vote, and the celebration of the final coming to its senses of the Australian parliament, we have had a number of comments made by media commentators, such as Andrew Bolt, who wanted to highlight the fact that there may have been some individuals who were removed for proper reasons—entirely missing the point of this whole debate. The point about this debate, the point about the resolution, was that the historical facts are that many, many Indigenous Australian children were removed from their families because of their race, because of their colour. You only have to look at the national overview from that very well researched and authoritative report Bringing them home, to look at some of the aspects of our history, which completely and utterly justify the recommendation of that report, which has been now given effect by both houses of this parliament—well behind chambers right around Australia in all the states and territories. In the national overview we are drawn to events back in 1911, in the time since Federation:

By 1911 the Northern Territory and every State except Tasmania had ‘protectionist legislation’ giving the Chief Protector or Protection Board extensive power to control Indigenous people. In some States and in the Northern Territory the Chief Protector was made the legal guardian of all Aboriginal children, displacing the rights of parents.

…            …            …

Enforcement of the protectionist legislation at the local level was the responsibility of ‘protectors’ who were usually police officers.

It is interesting to see how that took effect. Because government officials clearly, according to this report, theorised:

... by forcibly removing Indigenous children from their families and sending them away from their communities to work for non-Indigenous people, this mixed descent population would, over time, ‘merge’ with the non-Indigenous population.

As the report says, quoting Brisbane’s Telegraph of May 1937:

Mr Neville [the Chief Protector of WA] holds the view that within one hundred years the pure black will be extinct. But the half-caste problem was increasing every year. Therefore their idea was to keep the pure blacks segregated and absorb the half-castes into the white population. Sixty years ago—

that is, about 1867—

he said, there were over 60,000 full-blooded natives in Western Australia. Today there are only 20,000. In time there would be none. Perhaps it would take one hundred years, perhaps longer, but the race was dying. The pure blooded Aboriginal was not a quick breeder. On the other hand the half-caste was. In Western Australia there were half-caste families of twenty and upwards. That showed the magnitude of the problem ...

In Neville’s view, skin colour was the key to absorption. Children with lighter skin colour would automatically be accepted into non-Indigenous society and lose their Aboriginal identity.

What could be more clear than this publication of the views of the arms of the state which was designed to enforce the policy on Indigenous Australians? Why is it so hard for some people to believe that we have something to apologise for? The other point I want to draw to senators’ attention is that, after 1940, the removal of Indigenous children was governed by the general child welfare law. Although, once removed, Indigenous children were treated differently from non-Indigenous children—again, one rule for Indigenous Australians and another for non-Indigenous Australians. It is important to note this, because some people have talked about the welfare concerns that might have impacted on the decisions. The report continued:

Under the general child welfare law, Indigenous children had to be found to be ‘neglected’, ‘destitute’ or ‘uncontrollable’. These terms were applied by courts much more readily to Indigenous children than non-Indigenous children as the definitions and interpretations of those terms assumed a non-Indigenous model of child-rearing and regarded poverty as synonymous with neglect. It was not until 1966 that all eligibility restrictions on Indigenous people’s receipt of social security benefits were fully lifted. Before that time Indigenous families in need could not rely on the financial support of government which was designed to hold non-Indigenous families together in times of need. Moreover, ongoing surveillance of their lives meant that any deviation from the acceptable non-Indigenous ‘norm’ came to the notice of the authorities immediately.

There is a wealth of information in the report about how the application of those laws to Indigenous Australians was much different, much more rigorous in many circumstances. For example, in the state of Tasmania, children were taken from Flinders Island and flown from the island and parents did not have the means or the understanding of the way that they might challenge that.

The best way that I can categorise the comments of those that have opposed this motion, or sought to downplay it, is to use that very well known Arabic proverb, ‘The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.’ We have moved on. It is time for Australia to move on. I think we have to have no regard for this snapping at the heels of progress by those who oppose this resolution.

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to support the motion to take note of the national apology in the Australian parliament for the past mistreatment of Indigenous Australians under the laws and practices of past governments. There has been a lot of hairsplitting and semantics that have surrounded the 10-year debate in our nation about saying sorry to Indigenous Australians. The debate has been bookended to a large extent by two reports: Bringing them home in 1997 and Little children are sacred in 2007. The first report assembled a catalogue of historic mistreatment and heart-rending personal stories of removal and alienation that have been characterised as the ‘stolen generation’. The second report contains horrifying contemporary accounts of endemic sexual abuse, neglect and injury to children in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, some of whom were just babies.

It was impossible, on reading the second report, not to be moved by the accounts of violence, hopelessness, despair and dysfunction that still exist in contemporary Australia, and it demanded an urgent response. The report provided the catalyst for a new, innovative and daring approach to address what we all accept as enduring Aboriginal disadvantage and need. It was, and it is, the Northern Territory intervention. The intervention has bipartisan support and we must all work to ensure it is a success and that it delivers long-term benefits for Indigenous children.

I hope and trust that our actions today, well-meaning as they are, are not judged as misguided by future generations as we now regard the ones that we are apologising for in this national apology. There have been tomes written about the relative benefits of symbolic gestures, when compared to practical help, as the bridge to address what is urgent, unfinished business in our nation. In my view we need both. It is a compelling reason to extend a full apology for past mistreatment as the bridge to reconciliation. I accept that an apology to those affected by past mistreatment is a fundamental plank to rebuilding trust, confidence and mutual respect between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. This foundation is the cornerstone upon which the practical help with housing, health, education and employment, which have been the focus of the former Howard government’s efforts, can now be built. It is the basis upon which we can build the bipartisan joint policy commission announced yesterday to develop a national Indigenous housing strategy and, looking forward, the constitutional recognition of the first Australians. This move may well prove to be the best chance our nation has to improve standards of living and life expectancy for Indigenous Australians in the longer term.

I am somewhat surprised, however, by the Labor government’s adamant assertion that an apology will not give rise to an expectation, on the part of forcibly removed Indigenous children and their families, that a statutory compensation scheme will be set up to pay reparations. I have heard this referred to by some Aboriginal leaders as ‘unfinished business’. While it seems tolerably clear that the apology of itself is not an admission that would render the Commonwealth liable, the Rudd government has not seen fit to provide the legal advice on which it relies, and I think that is unfortunate.

However, every Australian has the right to use the state, territory and federal legal systems if they can identify a personal cause of action that sounds in damages. The obstacles to successfully pursuing such a claim are well known. If the state sanctioned removal was lawful or at least not negligent, it is unlikely that the apology will generate a flood of new claims for compensation and even less likely, in my view, that such cases would be capable of yielding successful verdicts. I do not believe that the Rudd government has thought through the moral implications and likely pressures of encouraging expectations and then failing to deliver on a compensation fund. I think we will hear a lot more debate about whether individual reparation for those forcibly removed is a more constructive way to rehabilitate them than generic programs that will deliver absent compensation. That, of course, is an argument for another day.

The purpose of the apology is that it provides a healing gesture. It needs to be done so that all Australians, whatever our differences, can move forward. That is enough reason for me to offer an apology, together with my colleagues—the members of parliament in the lower house and my colleagues in the Senate—in the spirit of reconciliation.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to incorporate a speech from Senator Chris Ellison.

Leave granted.

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

Mr President, the motion before the Senate is to take note of the motion of apology passed in the Parliament yesterday. The motion offers an apology to those indigenous people past and present who were affected by the removal of Aboriginal children from their families.

The fact that the Senate is only noting the motion and not debating begs the question as to the abuse of process pursued by the Government. This is important because it demonstrates a less than frank approach by the Rudd government.

Firstly, the wording of this motion was only released the day before the apology despite being a matter of Labor Party policy for the last 10 years. Despite talking of an apology for some time, Prime Minister Rudd could only advise the Australian people of the wording the day before yesterday. Despite the fact that this has been on Labor’s political agenda for some time, we now have a truncated debate where only Party Leaders could participate. The remainder of the Senate has now only the opportunity to take note of the motion.

As Senator Brown said on Tuesday 12 February 2008, “the process in here is not right. It should not be depriving every senator of their contribution to this historic debate. I put on the record that we do not support the component which says that those senators who contribute after the vote will effectively be doing so as also-rans”.

Similarly, Senator Bartlett pointed out on the same day “I think it is right to suggest that this should not become a precedent as a matter of course”.

I raise these points because it is not just the Opposition which has an objection. Indeed this lack of process taints a very important issue and it is essential that we do not employ an abuse of process where none was needed.

Mr President, this motion of apology broadly responds to the Bringing Them Home Report in 1997.

Key recommendations by that Report were that reparation be made to Indigenous people affected by policies of removal of indigenous children from their parents and that reparation should also include an acknowledgement of responsibility and apology from all Australian parliaments and other agencies which were involved.

It also recommends compensation.

It is important to note that this motion, whilst apologising, deliberately does not endorse compensation.

Moreover, the Senate quite rightly yesterday solidly rejected an amendment by the Greens calling for compensation.

Over the last eleven years a number of statements and apologies have been made. In 1999, the former Prime Minister John Howard moved a Motion of Reconciliation which acknowledged prior injustices and expressed regret.

Over the last eleven years, all States and Territories have passed a number of resolutions which have included an apology however without the word sorry. Moreover, none of the governments concerned used the term “Stolen Generation”.

I do not believe that the term “STOLEN” is appropriate. Firstly, the term “stolen” is one which denies that some children were voluntarily surrendered as found by the Bringing Them Home Report. It also flies in the face of the good intentions held at the time by some of those involved who believed they were acting in the best interests of Aboriginal children.

If there is to be a healing process this act of apology, as the motion states, should be accepted in the spirit it is given.

This does not involve people turning their backs on the Leader of the Opposition who supported the Motion but should involve positive action by all concerned for the future of indigenous Australians.

Interestingly, despite apologies by various Governments over the last eleven years, there has been little progress made in indigenous affairs by State and Territory Governments. Indeed, in the Northern Territory, it has been necessary to intervene due to the drastic situation in the Territory. In my home state of Western Australia, the apology has done nothing to deliver practical outcomes for Indigenous Australians. In the Kimberley region, we have a situation so severe it rivals that of the Northern Territory.

It is undeniable that to separate a child from its parents is a serious matter and that unless there are serious threats to a child, all would agree that a child should be raised by its parents.

We need therefore to look at the actions which are the subject of this motion.

From about 1910 to the 1960s, there was a policy of removal of Aboriginal children from their parents in circumstances which at the time were thought to be in the best interests of the child.

The Bringing Them Home Report closely examined the differences between forcible removal, removal under threat or duress, official deception, uninformed voluntary release and voluntary release. It has never been disputed that some removals were certainly voluntary, with mothers possibly surrendering their children for any number reasons that could include sickness, poverty and living arrangements. Some would have also voluntarily released their children in the hope that they would be able to remain in contact with their children and have some knowledge of their whereabouts. The report acknowledged that there are several cases where the state took responsibility for children that were genuinely orphaned or in a state of neglect.

It is undeniable that stress and trauma was suffered by those removals and we all feel for those children who never knew their parents and family, along with those that never knew their children or never knew a brother or a sister.

Some of those children who were removed suffered abuse whilst there are reports of others pursuing a successful life.

In any event, the stress to those indigenous people concerned cannot be denied, however it is also clear that the policy was carried out by many people who believed that they were doing the right thing.

It should also be made clear that this motion of apology does not cast integrated guilt across the various generations of Australians.

You cannot deal with this motion of apology, however without also addressing commensurate measures to achieve positive outcomes for Indigenous Australians for if you do not, the apology is useless.

The motion of which the Senate is taking note does have some positive aspects for the future. The motion tells of closing the gap that lies between the life expectancy of indigenous Australians and the wider community. It talks of new solutions where old approaches have failed. These are commendable goals.

Now is the time for the Rudd Government to commit to the intervention in the Northern Territory. It would do well to follow the advice of such indigenous leaders as Noel Pearson and Dr Sue Gordon.

It would also do well to engage in practical measures for education, health, housing, law and justice rather than simply engaging in rhetoric or measuring its commitment in terms of expenditure.

In this regard we ALL stand accountable—indigenous and non indigenous—to ensure that real outcomes are achieved for Aboriginal Australia.

(Quorum formed)

Question agreed to.