Tim Hammond (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This morning we gathered in the Great Hall to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the publication of the report Bringing them home, which detailed the horrors of the stolen generation. We also gathered to mark the publication from the Healing Foundation of the report Bringing them home 20 years on. I had the great privilege of sitting next to these men who are in the gallery here today—men from Kimberley Stolen Generation, including Frank Parriman, the CEO; Mark Bin Bakar, the chairperson; and also John Ross and Gordon Marshall. John shared his story about being taken away when he was two years old. The Leader of the Opposition then spoke and told some of the stories from Bringing them home, starting with evidence from a young boy about children who were put in a police ute and taken to Broome, and the mums were put in there as well, and then detailing the horror of the mums being kicked out of the ute and the kids being taken down to the Broome lockup. Just like Kim Beazley wept all those years ago, we shed tears at the table as Gordon Marshall, who is here in the gallery, shared his story—he was that boy, and here he is today. I take this opportunity to tell you all that we will never forget and we are sorry, and the three words that always ring true are reconnection, recovery and reparation. Here's to you.