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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-02-13 Daily Xml
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STOLEN GENERATIONS

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (15:49): Today is a day of days, a day when all of us can be justly proud of the institution of parliament. For the first time in a really long time I can rise in this place and say that I am unequivocally proud of our federal government and our federal parliament. Today I am proud to be an Australian. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has today acknowledged the pain and suffering experienced by the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal people and their families and offered an apology on behalf of us all. In so doing, it begins a new chapter in the history of this country.

No-one who has had even a cursory look at the 1998 Bringing Them Home report can deny that, as a group, the Stolen Generations deserve an apology.

Over a decade ago, in the other place, the then premier Dean Brown did something that, sadly, his federal counterparts never found the stomach, or perhaps the heart, to do: to apologise to the Stolen Generations. Faced with the release of the Bringing Them Home report, this parliament was united in its apology, and premier Brown spoke for our state when he said:

We apologise for the actions of past parliaments which allowed Aboriginal children to be taken without consent from their parents, to the children who were taken from their mothers and fathers, to the mothers and fathers who watched in pain as their babies and children were taken from their side or taken from their schools. To those people, we apologise.

I echo those sentiments unreservedly today. Some commentators have pointed out in their mean-spirited way that an apology is useless and that it does nothing to help the indigenous people in any real sense. Of course, it is true—indeed, it is self-evident—that an apology will not address all the problems facing the indigenous people of Australia. It will not break the cycles of poverty, of drug and alcohol misuse and of violence that disproportionately affect Aboriginal people.

An apology was never intended to solve these problems, but an apology opens up a dialogue between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia. It demonstrates, albeit in a small way, that the rest of us are ready to listen. It is, I think, a new beginning, a way of acknowledging the past and then moving forward. Solutions can best be built on a bedrock of trust and mutual respect, and saying sorry is a necessary first step. Besides, surely we can make symbolic gestures and do the hard work at the same time; one does not preclude the other.

It has also been argued in some quarters that an apology is not necessary because whatever happened is not the fault of the current generation. This argument is fatuous at best. I can be sorry and say that I am sorry about the death of a friend's relative without implying that it is somehow my fault or that I should pay reparation. This argument has wasted far too many column inches in recent times; let us not hear any more of it.

It has even been suggested by some that those taken are now somehow better off for the experience. A study quoted in the Bringing Them Home report makes short work of this argument. The study found that, compared with those indigenous people raised by their own families or in their own communities, the members of the Stolen Generations were:

less likely to have undertaken post-secondary education;

much less likely to have stable living conditions and more likely to be geographically mobile;

twice as likely to report having been arrested by police and having been convicted of an offence;

three times as likely to report having been in gaol;

twice as likely to report current use of illicit substances; and

much more likely to report intravenous use of illicit substances.

This sad list of dysfunction goes on and on. It is up to all of us now to seize this opportunity and to build on the goodwill that will be generated today. It is my hope that an apology and a recognition of past wrongs, delivered sincerely by the whole of parliament, will go some way to opening up the dialogue we all need. I want to add my voice to that of the Prime Minister and the millions of Australians who support this apology and say very simply: I am sorry.

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