Stolen Generations (Compensation) Bill

Second Reading

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (10:51): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I rise to speak on the Stolen Generations (Compensation) Bill 2014, which I have restored to the Notice Paper. Firstly, I would like to give some background on the bill to the parliament this morning.

The Liberal Party previously introduced this in the other place last year, and I would like to thank the Hon. Terry Stephens, who had carriage of the legislation there. It was successfully passed in the other place by my colleagues and the crossbenchers, despite a lack of support from government members. I note that the then minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation was not even in the chamber at the time to hear the bill debated and did not speak to the bill. I think this is an example of the government's lack of interest, compassion and understanding when it comes to the important issue of Aboriginal reconciliation, and I hope in future they take more of an active role in discussions with the parliament in correcting some of the roles in this area.

I take this opportunity to put on the record my thanks to the Hon. Tammy Franks whose own legislation, the Stolen Generations Reparations Tribunal Bill, was introduced in 2010. Ms Franks is in the chamber with us today. That bill was examined by the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee that same year, 2010, and the recommendations were tabled in the parliament in 2013. This multiparty committee found overwhelmingly that providing ex gratia reparations to members of the stolen generations and their families would give some closure to those who suffered as a result of being taken away from their families.

The committee recommended that the bill be redrafted to simplify the process for survivors of the stolen generations and their families, which is what we have now done. This current bill is based upon the successful Tasmanian legislation in keeping with the recommendations of the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee recommendations, and it is the recommendations contained in the report that have formed the basis for this current legislation. I thank the members of the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee for their work.

This is one of those rare bills that come around every so often—a bill that is about far more than legislation or regulation, or the daily nuances of government. This is a bill that seeks to acknowledge a historic wrong. This is a bill that recognises that governments are not infallible, that decisions made by policymakers have the ability to hurt, and hurt deeply, for generations.

I would like to acknowledge those who have contacted my office and said, 'We thought we were doing the right thing at the time,' and I know that the government-sanctioned policy to remove Aboriginal children from their parents was not actually designed to be cruel—it was, of course—but, rather, it came from a misguided sense of European superiority and paternalism and, in some instances, the horrible yet fashionable theory of eugenics.

Our forefathers, who came from those green fields of Europe, simply could not understand the red soils of this country. They sought to tame it, they sought to impose their own ideals of what proper Western civilisation should look like. In doing so, they tore families apart and sought to diminish the oldest existing civilisation in the world. Ultimately, they were unsuccessful, but the scars remain and run deep.

I would like to now read a letter into Hansard that I received from a woman named Tjanndamarra who was taken from her family:

I am a member of the Stolen Generation.

I would like to thank you for your recognition, understanding and embracing of reconciliation with our Nation.

I was removed from my mother's home at [the age of] two years, isolated from my family and everything familiar and raised in institutions.

Namely Kate Cox babies home, Fullarton Children's Home and Kent Street Girls home.

The devastation I have experienced as a result has had an enormous impact on me, who I am and my four beautiful children who are also profoundly affected.

Having had my roots and foundation ripped out from under me at such a tender age has essentially created a disconnection within me and I have always felt like an island in the sea of humanity...

I have done my best to parent and single handedly raise my children without any role modelling or extended family support, to be good citizens and high achieving contributing members of our society.

The grief, hurt and anger that I have endured and have had to work through, witnessed by my children has been enormous.

While financial compensation is not my sole preoccupation I feel it is extremely important that now there seems to be an opportunity to make it a reality, I am grateful that there are people like you who recognise and have an understanding of what we the individuals of the Stolen Generation have endured.

This is why we are here today, fighting for this bill and fighting to acknowledge the pain that has been caused by the policies of past governments. The members of the stolen generations are getting older. They are ageing and they are dying. Currently, the only way these people can get justice for themselves and for their families is to take this government to court. This is expensive and often traumatic—expensive for the individual and, of course, expensive for the government, which has already had to pay out a significant amount in one particular case.

This bill seeks to make it easier for members of the stolen generation to access justice, but it also reduces the risk of expensive and time-consuming legal proceedings for government. As outlined in the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee report, this model would:

...reduce the cost to both the state and the members of the stolen generations...[as] a total cost of operating the tribunal and paying monetary compensation and reparations to up to 300 stolen generations persons would probably be far less than the total cost of defending against litigation.

There is already the money available to provide compensation to South Australian members of the stolen generations: that exists in the Victims of Crime Fund. Cheryl Axelby, from the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, has said:

The Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement think it is a good suggestion [that payment come from the Victims of Crime Fund], particularly because members of the stolen...generation are also victims of crime in that context;...many of our members were illegally taken from their families.

Another benefit of this scheme is that members of the stolen generations would not have to relive their past trauma in a stressful court environment. Professor of Education from the University of South Australia, and my good friend, Professor Lester-Irabinna Rigney has said:

One of the things about any process is the pain you feel when you relive and retell those stories. This is a far easier route for Indigenous people to get heard, to hear and to have people care for them in a way that is respectful of what's happened.

I ask those of you here today to remember what it was like to be a child. Our worlds were small: they were made up of our families, our friends, our neighbours and our homes. Imagine now that you were taken from that life suddenly, that you were institutionalised and coached to forget where you had come from. Imagine the isolation this would have caused. Imagine the disruption to your sense of self, the pain to your family and to your parents. All we can do is imagine, but there are those in our community who have lived in it. There are those who are still living it today.

I urge—I implore—members of this place to join with our colleagues in the other place and vote in favour of this important bill. I am dismayed that the Labor government has failed to take any action in response to the recommendation of the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee investigation into this matter, which was tabled in this parliament in 2013.

I understand that this is a contentious issue, I understand it is not receiving favour within the ALP caucus, and that is why I say to this Premier: this should be a conscience vote. We should move on this matter as a matter of urgency. People from the stolen generations are ageing, they are dying. We need to take action, and we need to take it now.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (11:00): I rise to very strongly support our leader and our Liberal Party on the Stolen Generations (Compensation) Bill. In the electorate of Stuart, which I represent, there are two key Aboriginal communities—Davenport and Nepabunna—and there are Aboriginal communities spread across our entire state, but let me say very clearly that this is not about Aboriginal communities.

Too often, people assume that any public issue with regard to Aboriginal people could automatically be linked to Aboriginal communities, but this is not so in this case. This is actually about people. This is about real people living real lives. This is about people who were taken from their home by the establishment when they were children.

As the leader said, most of the establishment thought at the time that they were doing the right thing, so this is not about trying to look back and penalise people who were clearly doing the wrong thing with the right intentions, but it is actually about trying to recognise the damage that was done to individual people. There are people who are victims of the stolen generation process in Aboriginal communities, in cities and in country towns. Some of them are very well off, some of them are very poorly off, some of them are living constructive lives and the lives of some have been completely decimated for one reason or another.

The people who we are trying to support are Aboriginal people, regardless of how they ended up, whose lives were damaged, whose lives are not as good as they would or could have been if it were not for what happened to them. Please, let no-one think that this is about a particular class of person, because members of the stolen generation are spread throughout our society: city, country, Aboriginal communities, corporate world and living in poverty as well.

But throughout that wide variety of people, there is one common thread in that they were harmed by what happened to them. There is no way of disputing that their lives were damaged, and that their lives are not as positive as they could have, would have, should have been if it were not for what happened to them.

It is actually time to take responsibility for this. Not one member of parliament here is personally responsible for what happened to these people, but the establishment that we are part of is responsible for what happened to these people, so, today, as the contributors to that establishment, we have to take the responsibility to try to repair the damage that was done. I think that is a very important thing to understand.

The parliamentary committee that looked into this understood. Bipartisan support came together in the parliamentary committee and recommended that this sort of action be taken. Queensland, WA, New South Wales and Tasmania have all taken this sort of action, and it is time for South Australia to do exactly the same thing.

This is not just about saying sorry, as important as that is. This is actually about trying to make a constructive, tangible contribution to the people whose lives were harmed. We cannot undo the damage, but we can recognise the damage and we can try to make some sort of a modern world contribution to those people's lives.

It will not break the bank. It has been estimated to be $5 million. It would not be appropriate in such an earnest, genuine debate as this to list off the myriad $5 million wastes of money that the government has made, but please do not let anybody think that $5 million to the government is the reason that this should not be done. There should be consistent support for people across all walks of life: Liberal, Labor, Greens, Independent—whoever you are—and people who are not in this place. There should be consistent support for the principle of doing what is right, as the parliamentary committee actually found to be the case. It is about correcting a wrong; it is about trying to redress a mistake that was made.

As I am often reminded by Aboriginal leaders in Port Augusta, the Aboriginal culture in Australia is the longest living culture on the planet—the oldest, consistently still alive, living culture on the planet. That was not recognised decades ago, and it was not valued decades ago, but we must value it now. We must try to recognise the mistake that we have made and we must show, in a tangible way, that we want to contribute towards some sort of reparation to the lives of these people.

If the Labor Party was in opposition, I have absolutely no doubt that they would support this bill, wherever it came from, whether it came from Labor, or it came from the Liberals (as it is at the moment), or from the Greens (as it has and I believe will again). If the Labor Party was in opposition, they would support this legislation without any hesitation. There would be no fractious debate in the party room whatsoever. The Labor Party is in government; they can make it happen, and I think they should.

Mr DULUK (Davenport) (11:06): I also rise to speak very briefly on the Stolen Generations (Compensation) Bill 2014, and echo the sentiments of the leader and the member for Stuart. In essence, to me this bill is about trying to right, in some small way, the grievous errors of the past. It was wrong to forcibly remove children from their parents solely on the basis of the colour of their skin. In circumstances in which this has happened, it is appropriate that the state pay adequate compensation.

While it is impossible to erase the pain of the past which has already occurred, we can, as a state, try to ease their suffering. As the member for Stuart alluded to, no-one in this place is personally responsible for that pain and suffering, but as legislators we have an obligation to right the wrongs of the past.

The estimate which I have seen is that this bill will benefit approximately 300 Indigenous people in South Australia, in accordance with the proposed eligibility criteria, at a cost of about $5 million. I hope that this, in some small way, will help the victims of the stolen generation. As we are all aware, this is a scheme which has been successfully implemented in Tasmania. South Australia would be the second state in the commonwealth to adopt such a scheme if we did so.

In my own electorate of Davenport, there is a strong connection with what is known to be the stolen generations. The Colebrook Reconciliation Park in Eden Hills remembers the victims of the stolen generations with two poignant statues called the 'Fountain of Tears' and 'Grieving Mother', which were sculpted by Silvio Apponi. The park was built on the site of the old Colebrook Home, which was home for many Aboriginal children from 1943 until 1972, when it was demolished.

The Colebrook Reconciliation Park also features a list of names of all the children who were residents at the Colebrook Home. Some of the former residents of Colebrook experienced harsh treatment and the dislocation of their culture and Aboriginal identity. A notable resident of Colebrook Home, who attended Unley High School and later became a champion of Indigenous issues, was the 1984 Australian of the Year, Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue. Dr O'Donoghue was also the first chairperson of ATSIC and has been recognised with a Companion of the Order of Australia award, and awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

The practical effect of this bill is to compel the state government to put their money where their mouth is on Indigenous issues and support it. Labor members of parliament are more than happy to acknowledge traditional owners of the land at the beginning of each and every meeting that they attend. They are full of platitudes, but it is time for those opposite to step up to the plate and support this measure which has been passed in the other place. It is time for them to support the Indigenous communities in South Australia. The reason for the government's opposition, in my mind, is the measure of symbolism over substance. Too often, we see this within the Labor Party's DNA on these issues.

The Leader of the Opposition (member for Dunstan) has made it clear that the Liberal Party will do whatever it can to work with the government and all members of parliament to ensure this matter is resolved in a satisfactory matter. I do implore those opposite to support this bill that has been passed in the upper house.

I commend the Hon. Terry Stephens MLC, who had carriage of this bill in the other place, for his advocacy on this important issue. I want to put on the record that the Liberal Party has a very proud history of championing Indigenous issues in this place and in this state. Former prime minister Tony Abbott, with his work in Cape York, was a big champion of Indigenous issues, and it was the prime ministership of Harold Holt that saw the successful 1967 referendum. Closer to home, we had Dean Brown's apology to the stolen generation when he was premier, and former premier Tonkin's courageous championing of Indigenous issues in the APY lands was a generous start in this state. I commend this bill to the house, and I urge those opposite to support it.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.R. Kenyon.