Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, it is almost holocaust denial, a bit like many other historians who have tried to deny other issues in history. I will not say that our Indigenous issues in this country are anywhere near as extreme as the holocaust but, in terms of people’s understanding and views, carrying this on into perpetuity is concerning. The fact is it was a young journalist writing about this particular stuff. She goes on to say:

I’m much more of your ‘what’s in it for me’ kind of girl—and there’s nothing for me in saying sorry except a giant payout my taxes will fund.

It also says:

But I have to say sorry.

Sorry for giving you free medical care, for giving you money, for building you homes which you vandalised and destroyed and treated with contempt and we paid to fix.

Sorry for developing large farms and properties, which today feed your people.

Sorry for providing you with warm clothing made of fabric to replace the animal skins you used before.

It goes on to talk more about the particular things that so-called white society has given. Further, she says:

… let’s take it international.

…     …         …

Check under every rock, there’s something to apologise for everywhere you look.

The tribal war in Rwanda, the atrocities in Cambodia, the Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan.

The Middle East. Uh-oh. For all we know, Mohammed and Jesus played together as kids.

But Jesus would have been the cool kid. Well, it’s true.

This journo may not be aware of what occurred to Salman Rushdie some years ago and the extremes of views which we do not have in this country. I am concerned that this sort of journalism could bring this notion to a point. As I said, I am giving the benefit of the doubt to this journalist. In fact, any politician knows it is dangerous to bang the media, but in this case I would be interested to know whether this is the feeling of the general community, certainly in the region I represent. And I would like to know the views of other members.

Look at what happened in Queensland particularly. Only last night in my first speech I mentioned the era of the Bjelke-Petersen government. I was only seven years old when Indigenous people were finally recognised through the referendum in 1967. It was a time that all Australians celebrated through the ballot box and the referendum. There was overwhelming agreement that Indigenous people should be considered part of Australian society and have all the rights we have. Far more justified, people could stand here and talk about what that 1967 referendum meant for everybody. Certainly, it gave the country an understanding. It was probably the first point of reconciliation, and on the Labor side of politics we talk about the processes of reconciliation.

Last night I said that the sorry in this case, the historic apology last week, were really carrying on from the last Labor government in terms of proceeding with the apology. Getting back to the years of the Bjelke-Petersen government: as I said in my first speech, what galvanised me politically in terms of conservatism was the many strange laws made during that Bjelke-Petersen period. We had no upper house in Queensland, so the rule of the day was made in that one chamber. Of course, it was considered a police state. My own personal experiences suggest it may have been, but again people would have different views on that. The outcome was that there were a number of state ministers who ended up in jail—about seven of them—through a range of bad dealings and convictions for fraud.

I remember early in the 1970s a particular Indigenous affairs minister in Queensland talking about the need to work with and support Indigenous communities. His particular idea or initiative was that we should sterilise all 13-year-old Indigenous, or Aboriginal, girls because of unwanted pregnancies. My understanding, from my involvement with the Indigenous community, is that they do not have such things as unwanted pregnancies. That is very much a Western view.

That example shows, I guess, the strange and extreme views of the government at that stage, but I thought certainly by the 1980s and 1990s, even under the previous Howard government, there were sensitivities towards Indigenous people. But something went wrong. After the 1997 report and the notion of saying sorry, we somehow went off the track. Getting caught up in the dialogue, the taxonomy of the word, what ‘sorry’ meant, has stalled the process until now. The other side of politics probably consider that they should have dealt with this much sooner—but they did not. We did it because it was something that had to be done, so we can certainly get on with it.

Getting back to the Gold Coast Bulletin and Robin Wuth’s story: I am hoping that her intention was to raise this sort of debate so that people could get this stuff out in the open. A lot of these degrading comments were made by chain emails. People were talking about it and I have had people show me messages they received on their phones. My intention today, of course, is to bring it into the open to get some debate about it. There have been a number of publications and letters from different groups. Reconciliation Australia wrote to all members of parliament. I have listened to a number of the discussions and arguments in the House and outside the House about what the apology was all about. I wonder why people keep going over the same old ground, saying that it is conditional and it should be somewhat reconsidered.

It is very clear if you have any understanding of Indigenous communities—while I have had some involvement, I am certainly no expert—they are very, very productive, they get on with life and business and they have a very strong and growing community. They talk about sorry business and, interestingly enough, I was aware of sorry business many, many years ago. In our Western culture, if there is a bereavement, if someone dies, then we automatically say sorry. It is about empathy. This was always about empathy. It was not a strange issue or the taxonomy of words; it was about feeling empathy for another group.

I refer to a particular publication that I read many, many years ago. I do not want to submit it, but I can hold it up. It is a book called Liberal Thinking. Many people in the Liberal Party would have read this. It is in fact their bible. Chris Puplick and Robert Southey, I think it was, wrote this particular publication and it is a philosophical journal if nothing else. This is why I cannot understand the arguments on the other side of the House about simply saying sorry. This book talks about liberalism and it says:

Thus, while we discuss the centrality of the concept of freedom in liberalism, we must begin by establishing the ethical basis of freedom.

Further, along with the question of how people should act, there is the question of how they should be treated; or, as it is commonly framed, ‘What rights do people have?’

Our starting point for examining these is the concept of human dignity.

This is what I am here today to say. Irrespective of newspaper articles, irrespective of the arguments that are put up in terms of reconsideration, at the end of the day, this is about human dignity.

I can give my own experiences in life. I said, again in my first speech last night, that I was an adoptee and there are a whole range of other issues there and a lot of pain involved in that. But, interestingly enough, while adoptions were a legal arrangement that governments well managed, there were still a lot of people hurt and there are still a lot of people hurt today from probably bad decisions that were made from the 1930s right through to the 1990s. It is interesting that, in Queensland particularly, prior to those laws being changed there was an outpouring of grief and certainly then sorry business occurred within Western society in Queensland. Everyone had a view that this was a bad thing and everyone apologised to each other. Changes to the laws and legal requirements were made. That is what I cannot understand. Our Indigenous community have clearly had a number of things done to them under inappropriate laws, as we consider them to be now.

This is simply and essentially recognising that the laws were inappropriate. It is a government saying sorry, that governments got it wrong—as has every other state when it came to the adoption legislation in their state. This was about saying: ‘The laws were wrong. We needed to change them. We’re sorry. Let’s get on with it.’ In my closing remarks I would like to consider that, if we look at the publication of that which the other side used as their philosophical tome, really we all should understand that it is about human dignity. I thank you for your indulgence.

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