Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, I present the report on the Stolen Generation Compensation Bill 2008 together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I want to begin my comments on the report by acknowledging, in this chamber, Senator Bartlett. I know that he is leaving the Senate in the coming weeks, but I think this is a timely occasion to put on record my acknowledgment and the acknowledgement of quite a number of Indigenous people around this country of his efforts and the concentration of issues that he has brought to this chamber in the matter of not only stolen wages but also the Stolen Generation Compensation Bill 2007. I want to acknowledge that work. Quite clearly, the overwhelming evidence from the comments made by witnesses during our hearings was applause for Senator Bartlett’s initiative in introducing the bill as well as broad support for the provisions in the bill. So I think this is a timely occasion to recognise your work, Senator Bartlett.

I also want to thank the Legal and Constitutional Committee and its staff—Peter Hallahan and particularly Julie Dennett—for their work in conducting the three hearings into this bill and for the way in which they dealt with the subject matter. This has been a difficult matter to deal with, and I want to acknowledge the many stolen generations organisations that presented evidence, including in camera evidence, to our committee and the emotional stories that we heard. There is a depth of feeling concerning the still unresolved issues that members of the stolen generation have in relation to this matter. We have read about this matter, we have acknowledged it and we have listened to people in Darwin and Sydney talk about it at public hearings.

I think it is also timely to acknowledge the work of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, the Australian Human Rights Centre and of course the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. In this country these three bodies keep issues such as this alive within our public awareness and keep this parliament and this chamber aware that there are still matters in relation to Indigenous people and the stolen generation that are yet to be resolved. This is one such matter.

Let me just turn now to the report, because I know that there is a lot of interest in what this report will bring and, in particular, in our recommendations. The primary purpose of the bill was to address the compensation for the stolen generation of Indigenous people and children in this country by proposing a compensation model for ex gratia payments to be made to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons found to be eligible for such payments under the bill. It is an issue that has been around since HREOC tabled the Bringing them home report in May 1997. Of course, one of those recommendations was that reparations should be made to all Indigenous people who suffered because of the forced removal policies.

Many of the people who gave evidence to the committee during this inquiry certainly supported the bill and recognised its symbolism as an acknowledgment of the harm incurred by members of the stolen generation and the importance of providing appropriate redress for that harm. It would be fair to say that every submission we received, apart from those from the federal government departments perhaps, but certainly every submission from individuals from the stolen generation and from major advocacy groups, believed that this was the next step after the formal apology that was given by the Prime Minister earlier this year. While there was absolute gratitude, acknowledgement and welcoming of that apology, people now want to see this government take the next step in relation to the treatment of the stolen generations.

To that extent, I believe that the recommendations of this report take that next step and acknowledge the work that Minister Macklin and the Prime Minister are doing in relation to the people of the stolen generations. There has now been a reference group established that consists of members of the National Sorry Day Committee and members of the Stolen Generations Alliance. That working group is now working with ministers in this government. Our report actually takes that concept and perhaps pushes the envelope a little bit further in terms of what that group could now do.

We do not recommend that the Stolen Generation Compensation Bill be taken any further. We do not recommend that the bill in its current form be endorsed or pursued by the Senate. We do acknowledge that there are many recommendations of the Bringing them home report that have not been implemented. The recommendation in relation to compensation is one of them. We do recommend that all of the outstanding recommendations need to be resolved by governments. We do recognise that in fact the working group that has been established by this government—which, as I said, consists of members of the National Sorry Day Committee and the Stolen Generations Alliance—would be the most appropriate body to pick up the Bringing them home report, examine it, possibly audit the outstanding recommendations and probably even monitor the recommendations that have been put in place. They are now the most suitable auspicing body in this country to look at what is outstanding from the Bringing them home report.

We did receive evidence suggesting that there are some difficulties relating to various aspects of this bill, which is why we have not recommended that it should not proceed. But we do not want to detract from the intention of the bill, which is that it further acknowledges the harm endured by members of the stolen generation and, in actually acknowledging that harm, that something else needs to occur through compensation, reparation, additional initiatives and incentives to address their pain and suffering. The bill is certainly a very useful starting point for future discussion on the issues of reparations for members of the stolen generation, but we do think that a holistic, nationally consistent approach is the most appropriate means of addressing the specific needs of members of the stolen generation and actually providing an effective model of healing.

We have recommended, therefore, that a national Indigenous healing fund be established. We actually believe that this would be a way in which a more holistic, broader approach to the issues of reparations can be dealt with in this country. We do believe that the Canadian Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement actually provides some models and at least a starting framework for consideration of the development of any reparations scheme. I believe a national body to implement healing initiatives would be very useful in the Australian context and that is now where we are at in this country—that is, the establishment of a national Aboriginal healing fund or a healing foundation.

I notice that in the latest edition of National Link-Up News, which came out in May, the co-chair of the Stolen Generations Alliance said she believes a healing fund should be funded by governments, churches, trusts, foundations and the Australian community. This news leaflet says that it would make available valuable information on services and would carry out research to improve those services. It would support established stolen generations organisations, enabling them to develop the vital role they play in healing. We do also suggest in our report that the parameters and framework of that healing fund would be adopted or driven by this working group. Finally, can I say that a further additional recommendation is that there be a specific and additional amount of money set aside in the Closing the Gap fund, not just as an extension of that fund but as discrete funds over and above that initiative to address the concerns of these people.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand to speak in support of the report on the Stolen Generation Compensation Bill 2008, which has been tabled by Senator Crossin, and to commend Senator Bartlett for his objectives and his ambitions with respect to the stolen generations, as it were. The Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee was commissioned to inquire into this bill on 12 March this year and it reported, obviously, today. The primary purpose of the report was to consider the bill put forward by Senator Andrew Bartlett from the Democrats. The bill, in essence, proposed a compensation model for ex gratia payments to be made to Indigenous Australians. It also established what was referred to as a Stolen Generations Fund from which ex gratia payments are to be made to eligible persons. It also provided for the establishment of other support services, including funding for healing centres and services of assistance for people in receipt of compensation.

We received 85 submissions and had hearings in Darwin and Sydney. I want to put on the record my thanks, on behalf of Liberal senators on the committee, for the efforts the witnesses made to take time out to present their views. I also wish to express our thanks to those who made submissions to the committee; it was very much appreciated. It was pretty full-on and, at this juncture, I would like to specifically thank, on behalf of the Liberal senators, the committee secretariat—specifically Peter Hallahan and Julie Dennett and their team—for their professionalism and the manner in which they pulled together not only the hearings and the report but also the entire program in such a way that our committee could deliberate and provide this report to the Senate today.

The Senate report is not inconsistent with the previous Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee report which was commissioned in 1999—the committee at the time being chaired by Senator Marise Payne—and delivered in November 2000. That particular report was looking at similar matters and, at the time, recommended the establishment of a reparations tribunal and an independent evaluation of the Bringing them home report. As I say, the report that we have presented today and the recommendations that have been made are, I think, not inconsistent with that report. I think that shows a good deal of depth and longevity with respect to the Senate and the working of its various committees. I want to note that right up-front.

I also want to note that Dr Brendan Nelson and, of course, the Prime Minister, on 13 February 2008, just a few months ago, made an unreserved apology to those Indigenous communities that have suffered. That is on the public record. I will return to that shortly. I spoke in the Senate the following day, in full support of that apology, to say sorry and to apologise for past injustices. I noted at the time that the passing of the motion had been received with great relief by many and I said that I hoped it would provide healing and reconciliation. That remains my view.

It is worth noting that it is not just the federal government that is responsible here but, indeed, both levels of government, state and federal, which had laws and policies in place which were based on race and were discriminatory. That position has been noted, I know, by the various state and territory governments around this nation and, indeed, since February, by the Australian parliament. In Tasmania on 13 August 1997, the state parliament passed a motion which was of the following accord. It was moved by Tony Rundle, the Premier at that time. It said:

That this Parliament, on behalf of all Tasmanians, expresses its deep and sincere regrets at the hurt and distress caused by past policies under which Aboriginal children were removed from their families and homes, [apologises] to the Aboriginal people for those past actions and reaffirms its support for reconciliation between all Australians.

I note and support the motion which was moved by Premier Rundle in the Tasmanian parliament. It had unanimous support and I support it wholeheartedly.

In terms of the report that we have delivered to the Senate today, I want to also note that the Prime Minister, the Hon. Kevin Rudd, is on the public record explicitly stating that the federal government will not be establishing any compensation arrangements or any compensation fund. Obviously, Senator Crossin and those in the Senate in this report have a different view. The report, on page 6, quotes the Prime Minister as saying that Aboriginal people affected should be engaged in their own legal actions through the courts of their state or territory. But during the hearing we heard witnesses who expressed difficulty in pursuing that particular option. We heard about the South Australian case by Dr Thalia Anthony from SCIL, in regard to Bruce Trevorrow, who was awarded $700,000 in, I think, the Supreme Court of South Australia.

We received evidence with respect to the Tasmanian arrangements, where the Tasmanian government has created a $5 million fund to provide payments to eligible members of the stolen generation and their children. I note that former Tasmanian Liberal Premier Ray Groom advised on that particular matter. The ex-gratia payments to 84 eligible living members of that group were $58,333.33 each. That again is noted in the report. There is a reference to the Western Australian government’s announcement of a $114 million redress scheme. So this clearly is not just a matter for the federal government; it is a matter for the states and territories as well. It is noted in the report that, by working together and perhaps through the COAG process, this matter may be advanced.

However, I do want to draw to the Senate’s attention the fact that the federal government has refused to provide legal advice with respect to the impact of the apology of the parliament. Why has it done that? I asked questions in the February estimates, as did Senator George Brandis, and again more recently in the May estimates of the Senate committees. Again, the government has refused to provide that legal advice. What has it got to hide? The advice we received from the various witnesses was that there was not any direct correlation and there was not any direct necessity to provide compensation as a result of that resolution of the parliament proceeding. So I want to draw that to the Senate’s attention and express concern about that.

The committee did conclude that the issue of reparations for what has been referred to as the stolen generation needs to be addressed. The committee agreed that the Commonwealth should engage with the state and territory governments through COAG to establish a cooperatively funded national scheme that provides specific services and assistance to surviving members and the Indigenous people affected.

I want to draw to the Senate’s attention specifically the additional comments of the Liberal senators. We noted that the use of the term ‘stolen generation’ is not only in the majority report but also in a broader context. We said that we queried the use of the term ‘stolen generation’, which we consider:

… implies that past policies of separation of Indigenous children from their families involved, in all cases, forcible removal undertaken with dubious motive.

That is clearly not the case, so we wanted to make that point. We referred specifically to the quote of the opposition leader, the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson, in his speech in support of the apology on 13 February, where he outlined his views about forcible separation and that it is not in all cases a stolen generation. So that needs to be put on the record. The bill is recommended not to proceed, but again I note this report and commend Senator Bartlett for his bill. (Time expired)

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens support the intent of the Stolen Generation Compensation Bill 2008. We strongly believe that all the recommendations of the Bringing them home report should be implemented, including the provision of financial compensation, because, as people will be aware, the Bringing them home report had a number of recommendations around reparation. One of those was financial compensation, and we believe this is essential in recognising the harm suffered by those Indigenous people who were taken from their families.

The Greens support the findings of the majority report. We think that it provided good detail of the evidence that was presented to the inquiry. However, we are disappointed that the majority report did not recommend that the bill—or, in fact, an amended version of the bill—be supported. We believe that the Prime Minister, when he gave the apology, did half the job. A very important part is saying sorry to the stolen generations, but, to complete that and to make it a whole, sincere approach, we do need to ensure that financial compensation, as well as other reparations recommended in the Bringing them home report, happens. We are disappointed that the committee did not recommend that a form of this bill go ahead. I think the Greens are already on the record as articulating our concerns about putting a $20,000 cap on compensation, which is articulated in the current bill, and we have also expressed that opinion to Senator Bartlett.

Evidence was presented to the committee from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and the Australian Human Rights Centre. They presented a slightly different model which we think probably improves the current bill that was before the committee and is before the Senate. They recommend a reparations tribunal which has three key functions—that is, to provide a forum for Indigenous peoples affected by forcible removal policies, to enable them to tell their story, have their experience acknowledged and be offered an apology; to provide reparation measures in response to applications through appropriate reparations packages; and to make recommendations about government and church activities that affect contemporary Indigenous child separation and measures that might be taken to heal the past. We were particularly taken with the proposal that a specific function of the tribunal would be to provide a forum for stories and the sharing of experiences, and to have those acknowledged.

We do believe, as I said, that an important part of that tribunal that we believe should be set up under legislation would be to make appropriate responses to and assessments of applications for appropriate financial reparations, so we are going to be looking at those particular suggestions very closely. It should be noted that there was a lot of consultation with the stolen generation and people affected by that series of policies; so it seems to us that that tribunal approach and those recommendations have a lot of support from the community. In the Greens’ additional comments, our recommendation was:

That the Government moves as a matter of urgency to introduce legislation providing for full reparations, including financial compensation, to members of the Stolen Generations.

The Greens will continue to pursue this matter, and we will continue to pursue the issue of financial compensation, because we will not have dealt with this issue adequately until members of the stolen generation are financially compensated and the other recommendations of the Bringing them home report are, in fact, implemented in full.

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

I welcome the Senate committee report into the Stolen Generation Compensation Bill 2008—which, as a number of speakers have mentioned, is one that I put forward, and I thank people for their kind remarks. I congratulate the secretariat and the committee on what I think is actually a positive report. Whilst it does not recommend the passage of my bill and it says that the bill should not be proceeded with, I would state that I do not think the bill should be proceeded with either. Where I depart from the majority view of the committee is that I think an amended version of the bill should be proceeded with, particularly the version put forward by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, who have been working on this issue for 10 years or so, since the Bringing them home report was brought down.

I think both that the information provided in the report, which reflects the material provided to the inquiry, is valuable and that the recommendations, particularly the one that seeks to give a role to representatives of the stolen generations in their capacity as an advisory group to the government, where they would advise the government on the unimplemented recommendations from the Bringing them home report, are positive. To me that is the key issue. That recommendation, which I support, is a vital one, and I urge the government and Minister Macklin to adopt it, to give representatives of the stolen generations a clear role of advising the government and the minister on that whole area of unfinished business from the Bringing them home report, which includes but is certainly not limited to compensation. That has really been my core goal in introducing this legislation, which I first did last year on behalf of the Democrats, following on from the work of many Democrats, including former Senator Aden Ridgeway, in this area. I did that in the lead-up to the 10th anniversary of the Bringing them home report because the issues kept being repeated to me, by Indigenous Australians in particular, that this was still unfinished business and it needed to be put back on the political agenda so that people realised that the unaddressed issues from the Bringing them home report were not just about the apology. Indeed, the apology itself and the recommendation regarding that were integrally intertwined with the broader notion of reparations and with the notion of compensation. So it is important to have that back on the political agenda.

I appreciate the difficultly of the members of the committee from the major parties. The situation is quite clear: the Prime Minister has categorically ruled out any form of compensation. Clearly, the coalition in their period in government categorically ruled it out. I think the committee has taken a good approach in seeking to, if you like, go around that and seek to get the existing processes that have now being put up by the new government to consider all of the outstanding areas, which include compensation. But it does need to be emphasised that compensation can be applied. It should be provided. In that area I certainly differ from the committee and take a view similar to Senator Siewert and the Greens. It is pleasing that the Greens will continue to pursue this issue. I believe this report will provide a valuable mechanism for them to credibly maintain that pursuit.

That is not to say that there should not be a role for the states. In most cases, stolen generation practices were carried out by state governments, apart from in the Northern Territory, where the federal government then had responsibility. The Tasmanian parliament has shown that a compensation scheme can be applied, that it can operate effectively and indeed that the very process of considering those types of monetary reparations in itself can be valuable over and above the monetary outcome—or, in some cases, as occurred in Tasmania, the non-monetary outcomes, where some people’s claims were knocked back; but, nonetheless, by virtue of being heard, of having their situations examined, they have a feeling at least that they have not been ignored. That has provided a valuable process.

I would like to say in conclusion that I do not take the view that the Bringing them home report and all of its recommendations should be taken as holy writ, that they have got it 100 per cent right in every capacity, particularly that 10 or 11 years later nothing has changed that could therefore vary from what they recommended, but I do think their recommendations should be treated effectively and with respect and should not be dismissed without due consideration and explanation. That has not happened to date. All we have had is the federal government and the Prime Minister just ruling it out and saying it is not going to happen. And none of the evidence provided to this inquiry by the department, in my view, went anywhere near providing an adequate explanation of why those recommendations should be dismissed. That is why keeping the issue alive, as the recommendations of this report propose, and having stolen generations representatives themselves playing that role, is crucial. I urge the minister to take on board all of the recommendations and I urge those in the community who support this, as I do, to continue to campaign on the matter. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.