Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I begin my contribution on the motion of apology to Australia’s Indigenous peoples by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which this parliament meets. I want to thank Matilda House and the Ngunawal elders for their welcome to country which was performed at the opening of parliament last Tuesday. I would also like to pay my respects to the Darumbal people, who are the traditional owners of Rockhampton and much of the land which is included within my electorate of Capricornia.

For me the act of apologising to the members of the stolen generations and their families who have followed them, and who today carry the hurt that was done to their mums and dads and aunties and uncles, is easy. I have always believed that to follow our very fundamental human instincts when faced with the suffering and pain of another human being and to say sorry—to say sorry when we feel sorry—is the right thing to do. Last week’s apology by the parliament to the stolen generation of Indigenous children, to their descendants and to the families they left behind felt right. It felt right for me standing in the chamber and it felt right for the countless Australians who stopped to watch and listen to the apology and who cried, cheered and embraced at the sound of that word ‘sorry’. It felt right because it was the right thing to do, and it should have been done many years ago. There has been a gap, a chasm, between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia for too long over this failure to be very honest with each other and to feel empathy for what has happened in the past.

A lot of speakers—and the preceding speaker, the member for Wentworth, raised it in his comments—have talked about the notion of apologising for something that we individually did not do, that we do not have individual responsibility for and that has not been done by this parliament or by any of us within the parliament. I have had to give an explanation for that to my son. I have a son who is almost five and he put that very basic question to me in the week leading up to the apology in parliament, saying, ‘But why would you say sorry for something that you didn’t do?’ Children often put those things in pretty blunt terms. I explained to him that when you come across someone who is hurting, feels bad and needs comfort surely it is a natural reaction to say, ‘I’m sorry—not sorry that I did something to you, not sorry because it’s my fault that you feel that way, but sorry that you are feeling that way. I am sorry for the hurt that has been done to you and I am sorry for how it has left you feeling.’ My son had no difficulty understanding that when I explained to him how I felt about it—and that is certainly how I do feel about it. These people are hurting, and I am sorry for their hurt.

So there is no question for me about the act of saying sorry and all that it symbolises. I guess what I have struggled with are the words to use. What do I say to those Indigenous people in Central Queensland who have been carrying the pain of separation from their mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, the injustice of discrimination and the indignity of their treatment, carried out in the name of past governments? What do I say to them? I have grappled with that task ever since it was announced that, living up to the commitment that we gave to all Australians at the election, there would be an apology given by the parliament to the members of the stolen generation as the first act of a Rudd Labor government in the new parliament. But, after being part of the apology in the parliament last Wednesday and seeing the reaction across the country, I am reassured that when it comes to starting the healing process for the stolen generation and our Indigenous peoples—and, indeed, for our nation as a whole—that one word is strong enough to carry the weight of our expectations, our expectations that that word can right past wrongs and our expectations that it can lead to a better future. So I say ‘Sorry’.

In the words of the motion moved in the parliament last week, I am sorry for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on my fellow Australians. I am sorry especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country. I am sorry for the pain, suffering and hurt of those stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind. I say sorry to the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities. And I say sorry for the indignity and degradation that was thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture.

I think all of us would hope that last week’s apology represents the turning of a new page in Australia’s history and all of us welcome that opportunity. It has been too long coming and we are pleased that it is now here. In turning that page, however, we should not forget the actions of the past that have done so much damage and that have caused Indigenous people so much pain. We must pay our Indigenous peoples the respect of honouring their history, even those parts that may be uncomfortable for non-Indigenous Australians to face.

Turning the page on this chapter should not be read as sweeping this part of our history under the rug. Indigenous people and especially those members of the stolen generations and their families have had to live with the reality of the past for decades—the reality of the past and the legacy of the past that carries on through subsequent generations of those families and communities that were affected by these policies.

The Bringing them home report of 1997 brought that history to life and meant that none of us could continue to shelter behind the excuse that we did not know what had happened. Page after page of that report tells us that it happened. It tells us in absolutely heart-rending detail that it happened. Page after page of that report tells us that children were taken away, that abuse happened, that mothers and fathers were left heartbroken and, indeed, many lives were completely broken. Many families, not surprisingly, never, ever recovered from what happened to them. Communities were destroyed and we see the results of these policies in Indigenous communities today. In that report so many brave people told their stories of loss, grief and pain. We owe it to them to face up to what happened, accept that its legacy lives on in present-day disadvantage and take the steps, both practical and symbolic, to make amends.

Having said sorry—having said that powerful word ‘sorry’—I feel that I have said enough for now. Now it is time to listen to the Indigenous people in Central Queensland to learn how we can best work together to achieve our shared goal of reducing Indigenous disadvantage in all its forms. When it comes to listening I was given the chance to reflect on what that means in a poem that one of our local Indigenous leaders Margaret Holdagorn sent to me last week after hearing the apology. It is a piece written by a woman called Miriam Rose Ungunmerr. It is called Dadirri: listening to one another. I will be reflecting on this as I go back to my electorate with the aim of working closely with the Indigenous people of Central Queensland and listening to them. The piece says:

Dadirri. A special quality, a unique gift of the Aboriginal people, is inner deep listening and quiet still awareness … It is something like what you call contemplation.

Miriam Ungunmerr goes on to say:

Our people are used to the struggle and the long waiting. We still wait for the white people to understand us better. We ourselves have spent many years learning about the white man’s ways; we have learnt to speak the white man’s language; we have listened to what he had to say. This learning and listening should go both ways. We would like people in Australia to take time and listen to us. We are hoping people will come closer. We keep on longing for the things that we have always hoped for, respect and understanding.

We know that our white brothers and sisters carry their own particular burdens. We believe that if they let us come to them, if they open up their minds and hearts to us, we may lighten their burdens. There is a struggle for us, but we have not lost our spirit of Dadirri.

I want to thank Margaret Hornagold for sending that to me, because it has given me a lot to think about as I go about working with her and other Indigenous people in my electorate on the very big task we have ahead of us in bridging the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. As Miriam Rose Ungunmerr says in this piece, it has taken a long time, and I hope we are now at that point. I hope we have moved on as a country to a place where we can put aside the unfinished business that has stood between us, that we can now listen to each other in an honest way, where we can truly work together to make this country as good for Indigenous people as it has been for the non-Indigenous people, and that we will have a truly shared future together.

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