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South West Sydney Stolen Generations Support Group |
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The Apology Relive the emotion of the Apology by the Australian
Government to the Stolen Generation
February 13, 2008 That today we
honour the indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history. We reflect on
their past mistreatment. We reflect in
particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history. The time has
now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward
with confidence to the future. We apologise
for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss
on these our fellow Australians. We apologise
especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their
country. For the pain,
suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry. 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. We the Parliament
of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing
of the nation. For the future
we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written. We today take
this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians. A future where
this parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again. A future where
we harness the determination of all Australians, indigenous and non-indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life
expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity. A future where
we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed. A future based
on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility. There comes a
time in the history of nations when their peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with
confidence to embrace their future. Our nation, Australia,
has reached such a time. That is why the
Parliament is today here assembled: to deal with this unfinished business of the nation, to remove a great stain from the
nations soul and, in a true spirit of reconciliation, to open a new chapter in the history of this great land, Australia. Last year I made
a commitment to the Australian people that if we formed the next government of the Commonwealth we would in Parliament say
sorry to the stolen generations. Today I honour
that commitment. I said we would
do so early in the life of the new Parliament. Because the time
has come, well and truly come, for all peoples of our great country, for all citizens of our great commonwealth, for all Australians
- those who are indigenous and those who are not - to come together to reconcile and together build a new future for our nation. Some have asked,
Why apologise? Let me begin
to answer by telling the Parliament just a little of one person's story - an elegant, eloquent and wonderful woman in her
80s, full of life, full of funny stories, despite what has happened in her life's journey, a woman who has travelled a long
way to be with us today, a member of the stolen generation who shared some of her story with me when Nanna Nungala
Fejo, as she prefers to be called, was born in the late 1920s. She remembers
her earliest childhood days living with her family and her community in a bush camp just outside Tennant Creek. She remembers
the love and the warmth and the kinship of those days long ago, including traditional dancing around the camp fire at night. She loved the
dancing. She remembers once getting into strife when, as a four-year-old girl, she insisted on dancing with the male tribal
elders rather than just sitting and watching the men, as the girls were supposed to do. But then, sometime
around 1932, when she was about four, she remembers the coming of the welfare men. Her family had
feared that day and had dug holes in the creek bank where the children could run and hide. What they had
not expected was that the white welfare men did not come alone. They brought a truck, two white men and an Aboriginal stockman
on horseback cracking his stockwhip. The kids were
found; they ran for their mothers, screaming, but they could not get away. They were herded and piled onto the back of the
truck. Tears flowing, her
mum tried clinging to the sides of the truck as her children were taken away to the Bungalow in Alice, all in the name of
protection. A few years later,
government policy changed. Now the children would be handed over to the missions to be cared for by the churches. But which
church would care for them? The kids were
simply told to line up in three lines. Nanna Fejo and her sister stood in the middle line, her older brother and cousin on
her left. Those on the left were told that they had become Catholics, those in the middle Methodists and those on the right
Church of England. That is how the
complex questions of post-reformation theology were resolved in the Australian outback in the 1930s. It was as crude as that. She and her sister
were sent to a Methodist mission on Goulburn Island and then Croker Island. Her Catholic brother was sent to work at a cattle
station and her cousin to a Catholic mission. Nanna Fejo's
family had been broken up for a second time. She stayed at the mission until after the war, when she was allowed to leave
for a prearranged job as a domestic in Darwin. She was 16. Nanna Fejo never saw her mum again. After she left
the mission, her brother let her know that her mum had died years before, a broken woman fretting for the children that had
literally been ripped away from her. I asked Nanna
Fejo what she would have me say today about her story. She thought for a few moments then said that what I should say today
was that ''all mothers are important''. And she added:
''Families - keeping them together is very important. It's a good thing that you are surrounded by love and that love is passed
down the generations. That's what gives you happiness.'' As I left, later
on, Nanna Fejo took one of my staff aside, wanting to make sure that I was not too hard on the Aboriginal stockman who had
hunted those kids down all those years ago. The stockman
had found her again decades later, this time himself to say, sorry. And remarkably, extraordinarily, she had forgiven him. Nanna Fejo's
is just one story. There are thousands, tens of thousands of them: stories of forced separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander children from their mums and dads over the better part of a century. Some of these
stories are graphically told in Bringing Them Home, the report commissioned in 1995 by Prime Minister Keating and
received in 1997 by Prime Minister Howard. There is something
terribly primal about these firsthand accounts. The pain is searing; it screams from the pages. The hurt, the humiliation,
the degradation and the sheer brutality of the act of physically separating a mother from her children is a deep assault on
our senses and on our most elemental humanity. These stories
cry out to be heard; they cry out for an apology. Instead, from
the nation's Parliament there has been a stony, stubborn and deafening silence for more than a decade; a view that somehow
we, the Parliament, should suspend our most basic instincts of what is right and what is wrong; a view that, instead, we should
look for any pretext to push this great wrong to one side, to leave it languishing with the But the stolen
generations are not intellectual curiosities. They are human beings, human beings who have been damaged deeply by the decisions
of parliaments and governments. But, as of today, the time for denial, the time for delay, has at last come to an end. The nation is
demanding of its political leadership to take us forward. But should there
still be doubts as to why we must now act, let the Parliament reflect for a moment on the following facts: that, between 1910
and 1970, between 10 and 30% of indigenous children were forcibly taken from their mothers and fathers; that, as a result,
up to 50,000 children were forcibly taken from their families; that this was the product One of the most
notorious examples of this approach was from the Northern Territory Protector of Natives, who stated: ''Generally by the fifth
and invariably by the sixth generation, all native characteristics of the Australian Aborigine are eradicated. The problem
of our half-castes'' - to quote the protector - ''will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race,
and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white''. The Western Australian
Protector of Natives expressed not dissimilar views, expounding them at length in Canberra in 1937 at the first national conference
on indigenous affairs that brought together the Commonwealth and state protectors of natives. These are uncomfortable
things to be brought out into the light. They are not pleasant. They are profoundly disturbing. But we must acknowledge
these facts if we are to deal once and for all with the argument that the policy of generic forced separation was somehow
well motivated, justified by its historical context and, as a result, unworthy of any apology today. Then we come
to the argument of intergenerational responsibility, also used by some to argue against giving an apology today. But let us remember
the fact that the forced removal of Aboriginal children was happening as late as the early 1970s. The 1970s is
not exactly a point in remote antiquity. There are still serving members of this Parliament who were first elected to this
place in the early 1970s. It is well within
the adult memory span of many of us. The uncomfortable
truth for us all is that the parliaments of the nation, individually and collectively, enacted statutes and delegated authority
under those statutes that made the forced removal of children on racial grounds fully lawful. There is a further
reason for an apology as well: it is that reconciliation is in fact an expression of a core value of our nation - and that
value is a fair go for all. There is a deep
and abiding belief in the Australian community that, for the stolen generations, there was no fair go at all. There is a pretty
basic Aussie belief that says that it is time to put right this most outrageous of wrongs. It is for these
reasons, quite apart from concerns of fundamental human decency, that the governments and parliaments of this nation must
make this apology - because, put simply, the laws that our parliaments enacted made the stolen generations possible. We, the parliaments
of the nation, are ultimately responsible, not those who gave effect to our laws. And the problem lay with the laws themselves. As has been said
of settler societies elsewhere, we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors; therefore we must also be the bearer
of their burdens as well. Therefore, for
our nation, the course of action is clear: that is, to deal now with what has become one of the darkest chapters in Australia's
history. In doing so,
we are doing more than contending with the facts, the evidence and the often rancorous public debate. In doing so,
we are also wrestling with our own soul. This is not,
as some would argue, a black-armband view of history; it is just the truth: the cold, confronting, uncomfortable truth - facing
it, dealing with it, moving on from it. Until we fully
confront that truth, there will always be a shadow hanging over us and our future as a fully united and fully reconciled people. It is time to
reconcile. It is time to recognise the injustices of the past. It is time to say sorry. It is time to move forward together. To the stolen
generations, I say the following: as Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of
the Government of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of
the Parliament of Australia, I am sorry. I offer you this
apology without qualification. We apologise
for the hurt, the pain and suffering that we, the parliament, have caused you by the laws that previous parliaments have enacted. We apologise
for the indignity, the degradation and the humiliation these laws embodied. We offer this
apology to the mothers, the fathers, the brothers, the sisters, the families and the communities whose lives were ripped apart
by the actions of successive governments under successive parliaments. In making this
apology, I would also like to speak personally to the members of the stolen generations and their families: to those here
today, so many of you; to those listening across the nation - from Yuendumu, in the central west of the Northern Territory,
to Yabara, in North Queensland, and to Pitjantjatjara in South Australia. I know that,
in offering this apology on behalf of the Government and the Parliament, there is nothing I can say today that can take away
the pain you have suffered personally. Whatever words
I speak today, I cannot undo that. Words alone are
not that powerful; grief is a very personal thing. For us, symbolism
is important but, unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more
than a clanging gong. It is not sentiment
that makes history; it is our actions that make history. Our challenge
for the future is to cross that bridge and, in so doing, to embrace a new partnership between indigenous and non-indigenous
Australians - to embrace, as part of that partnership, expanded Link-up and other critical services to help the stolen generations
to trace their families if at all possible and to provide dignity to their lives. But the core
of this partnership for the future is to close the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians on life expectancy,
educational achievement and employment opportunities. This new partnership
on closing the gap will set concrete targets for the future: within a decade to halve the widening gap in literacy, numeracy
and employment outcomes and opportunities for indigenous Australians, within a decade to halve the appalling gap in infant
mortality rates between indigenous and non-indigenous children and, within a generation, The truth is:
a business as usual approach towards indigenous Australians is not working. Most old approaches
are not working. We need a new
beginning, a new beginning which contains real measures of policy success or policy failure; a new beginning, a new partnership,
on closing the gap with sufficient flexibility not to insist on a one-size-fits-all approach for each of the hundreds of remote
and regional indigenous communities across the country but instead allowing flexible, However, unless
we as a Parliament set a destination for the nation, we have no clear point to guide our policy, our programs or our purpose;
we have no centralised organising principle. Let
us resolve today to begin with the little children, a fitting place to start on this day of apology for the stolen generations. Let
us resolve over the next five years to have every indigenous four-year-old in a remote Aboriginal community enrolled in and
attending a proper early childhood education centre or opportunity and engaged in proper pre-literacy and pre-numeracy programs. Let
us resolve to build new educational opportunities for these little ones, year by year, step by step, following the completion
of their crucial pre-school year. Let
us resolve to use this systematic approach to build future educational opportunities for indigenous children to provide proper
primary and preventive health care for the same children, to begin the task of rolling back the obscenity that we find today
in infant mortality rates in remote indigenous communities up to four times higher than in other None
of this will be easy. Most of it will be hard, very hard. But none of it is impossible, and all of it is achievable with clear
goals, clear thinking, and by placing an absolute premium on respect, cooperation and mutual responsibility as the guiding
principles of this new partnership on closing the gap. The
mood of the nation is for reconciliation now, between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. The mood of the nation on
indigenous policy and politics is now very simple. The
nation is calling on us, the politicians, to move beyond our infantile bickering, our point-scoring and our mindlessly partisan
politics and to elevate this one core area of national responsibility to a rare position beyond the partisan divide. Surely
this is the unfulfilled spirit of the 1967 referendum. Surely, at least from this day forward, we should give it a go. Let
me take this one step further and take what some may see as a piece of political posturing and make a practical proposal to
the opposition on this day, the first full sitting day of the new Parliament. I
said before the election that the nation needed a kind of war cabinet on parts of indigenous policy, because the challenges
are too great and the consequences are too great to allow it all to become a political football, as it has been so often in
the past. I
therefore propose a joint policy commission, to be led by the Leader of the Opposition and me, with a mandate to develop and
implement, to begin with, an effective housing strategy for remote communities over the next five years. It
will be consistent with the Government's policy framework, a new partnership for closing the gap. If this commission operates
well, I then propose that it work on the further task of constitutional recognition of the first Australians, consistent with
the longstanding platform commitments of my party and the pre-election position of the opposition. This
would probably be desirable in any event because, unless such a proposition were absolutely bipartisan, it would fail at a
referendum. As I have said before, the time has come for new approaches to enduring problems. Working
constructively together on such defined projects would, I believe, meet with the support of the nation. It is time for fresh
ideas to fashion the nation's future. Mr
Speaker, today the Parliament has come together to right a great wrong. We have come together to deal with the past so that
we might fully embrace the future. We have had sufficient audacity of faith to advance a pathway to that future, with arms
extended rather than with fists still clenched. So
let us seize the day. Let it not become a moment of mere sentimental reflection. Let
us take it with both hands and allow this day, this day of national reconciliation, to become one of those rare moments in
which we might just be able to transform the way in which the nation thinks about itself, whereby the injustice administered
to the stolen generations in the name of these, our parliaments, causes all of us to reappraise, at the deepest It
is for the nation to bring the first two centuries of our settled history to a close, as we begin a new chapter. We embrace
with pride, admiration and awe these great and ancient cultures we are truly blessed to have among us cultures that provide
a unique, uninterrupted human thread linking our Australian continent to the most ancient prehistory of our planet. Growing
from this new respect, we see our indigenous brothers and sisters with fresh eyes, with new eyes, and we have our minds wide
open as to how we might tackle, together, the great practical challenges that indigenous Australia faces in the future. Let
us turn this page together: indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, government and opposition, Commonwealth and state,
and write this new chapter in our nation's story together. First
Australians, First Fleeters, and those who first took the oath of allegiance just a few weeks ago. Let's grasp this opportunity
to craft a new future for this great land: Australia. I commend the motion to the House. AAP a moment that
this had happened to you. I say to honourable
members here present: imagine if this had happened to us. Imagine the crippling effect. Imagine how hard it would be to forgive. My proposal is
this: if the apology we extend today is accepted in the spirit of reconciliation, in which it is offered, we can today resolve
together that there be a new beginning for Australia Let us resolve
today to begin with the little children, a fitting place to start on this day of apology for the stolen generations. Let us resolve
over the next five years to have every indigenous four-year-old in a remote Aboriginal community enrolled in and attending
a proper early childhood education centre or opportunity and engaged in proper pre-literacy and pre-numeracy programs. Let us resolve
to build new educational opportunities for these little ones, year by year, step by step, following the completion of their
crucial pre-school year. Let us resolve
to use this systematic approach to build future educational opportunities for indigenous children to provide proper primary
and preventive health care for the same children, to begin the task of rolling back the obscenity that we find today in infant
mortality rates in remote indigenous communities up to four times higher than in other None of this
will be easy. Most of it will be hard, very hard. But none of it is impossible, and all of it is achievable with clear goals,
clear thinking, and by placing an absolute premium on respect, cooperation and mutual responsibility as the guiding principles
of this new partnership on closing the gap. The mood of the
nation is for reconciliation now, between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. The mood of the nation on indigenous
policy and politics is now very simple. The nation is
calling on us, the politicians, to move beyond our infantile bickering, our point-scoring and our mindlessly partisan politics
and to elevate this one core area of national responsibility to a rare position beyond the partisan divide. Surely this is
the unfulfilled spirit of the 1967 referendum. Surely, at least from this day forward, we should give it a go. Let me take this
one step further and take what some may see as a piece of political posturing and make a practical proposal to the opposition
on this day, the first full sitting day of the new Parliament. I said before
the election that the nation needed a kind of war cabinet on parts of indigenous policy, because the challenges are too great
and the consequences are too great to allow it all to become a political football, as it has b It will be consistent with
the Government's policy framework, a new partnership for closing the gap. If this commission operates well, I then propose
that it work on the further task of constitutional recognition of the first Australians, consistent with the longstanding
platform commitments of my party and the pre-election position of the opposition. This would probably
be desirable in any event because, unless such a proposition were absolutely bipartisan, it would fail at a referendum. As
I have said before, the time has come for new approaches to enduring problems. Working constructively
together on such defined projects would, I believe, meet with the support of the nation. It is time for fresh ideas to fashion
the nation's future. Mr Speaker, today
the Parliament has come together to right a great wrong. We have come together to deal with the past so that we might fully
embrace the future. We have had sufficient audacity of faith to advance a pathway to that future, with arms extended rather
than with fists still clenched. So let us seize
the day. Let it not become a moment of mere sentimental reflection. Let us take it
with both hands and allow this day, this day of national reconciliation, to become one of those rare moments in which we might
just be able to transform the way in which the nation thinks about itself, whereby the injustice administered to the stolen
generations in the name of these, our parliaments, causes all of us to reappraise, at the deepest It is for the
nation to bring the first two centuries of our settled history to a close, as we begin a new chapter. We embrace with pride,
admiration and awe these great and ancient cultures we are truly blessed to have among us cultures that provide a unique,
uninterrupted human thread linking our Australian continent to the most ancient prehistory of our planet. Growing from
this new respect, we see our indigenous brothers and sisters with fresh eyes, with new eyes, and we have our minds wide open
as to how we might tackle, together, the great practical challenges that indigenous Australia faces in the future. Let us turn this
page together: indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, government and opposition, Commonwealth and state, and write this
new chapter in our nation's story together. First Australians,
First Fleeters, and those who first took the oath of allegiance just a few weeks ago. Let's grasp this opportunity to craft
a new future for this great land: Australia. I commend the motion to the House. een so often
in the past. I therefore propose
a joint policy commission, to be led by the Leader of the Opposition and me, with a mandate to develop and implement, to begin
with, an effective housing strategy for remote communities over the next five years. It
will be consistent with the Government's policy framework, a new partnership for closing the gap. If this commission operates
well, I then propose that it work on the further task of constitutional recognition of the first Australians, consistent with
the longstanding platform commitments of my party and the pre-election position of the opposition. This
would probably be desirable in any event because, unless such a proposition were absolutely bipartisan, it would fail at a
referendum. As I have said before, the time has come for new approaches to enduring problems. Working
constructively together on such defined projects would, I believe, meet with the support of the nation. It is time for fresh
ideas to fashion the nation's future. Mr
Speaker, today the Parliament has come together to right a great wrong. We have come together to deal with the past so that
we might fully embrace the future. We have had sufficient audacity of faith to advance a pathway to that future, with arms
extended rather than with fists still clenched. So
let us seize the day. Let it not become a moment of mere sentimental reflection. Let
us take it with both hands and allow this day, this day of national reconciliation, to become one of those rare moments in
which we might just be able to transform the way in which the nation thinks about itself, whereby the injustice administered
to the stolen generations in the name of these, our parliaments, causes all of us to reappraise, at the deepest It
is for the nation to bring the first two centuries of our settled history to a close, as we begin a new chapter. We embrace
with pride, admiration and awe these great and ancient cultures we are truly blessed to have among us cultures that provide
a unique, uninterrupted human thread linking our Australian continent to the most ancient prehistory of our planet. Growing
from this new respect, we see our indigenous brothers and sisters with fresh eyes, with new eyes, and we have our minds wide
open as to how we might tackle, together, the great practical challenges that indigenous Australia faces in the future. Let
us turn this page together: indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, government and opposition, Commonwealth and state,
and write this new chapter in our nation's story together. First
Australians, First Fleeters, and those who first took the oath of allegiance just a few weeks ago. Let's grasp this opportunity
to craft a new future for this great land: Australia. I commend the motion to the House. AAP
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