Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) | Hansard source

I begin by acknowledging the Ngunawal and Ngambri people and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging. I also pay my respects to the Wajuk and Pinjarup people of the Nyungar nation on whose traditional lands my electorate of Brand sits in Western Australia.

I have said before in this place that I feel sad at practically every welcome to country ceremony I attend and at every acknowledgement of country I witness. My response is from a deep sorrow of how painful the British-led occupation of this continent has been for those who have been here for eons. My sadness is born out of regret for what we as newcomers to this land have missed out on by our centuries-old practice of dominating every culture we find, taking whatever we want and dismissing languages, lifestyles and lives we don't care to understand.

Luckily for us newcomers, Indigenous Australians have a millennia-old practice of patience and care for this land. Sixty-five thousand years on this continent is an eternity for human purposes. New Australians living off this continent for 230 years is but the blink of an eye in relation to that endless time line, but those short 230 years have devastated Indigenous Australia. Nonetheless, our First Nations sisters and brothers are patient with us and continue to try to share their extraordinary culture, history and knowledge of country with us with good humour and generosity, despite our ignorance and despite how long it has taken us as new Australians to understand all that we have missed out on.

After so much trauma and hurt, after so many years of being told no, and after a hard-fought election campaign in which Kevin Rudd committed to saying those two simple words that carry so much meaning, 'I'm sorry', the national apology was a solemn moment of national healing. And, for anyone in the electorate of Brand, I'm really pleased to be able to provide to anyone who asks an official copy of the national apology that Kevin Rudd issued in 2008.

Some people may have noticed a photo I keep in my office. It was taken on the day of the apology. To be honest, I don't know how I came to have this photo. I just don't know. It's got no acknowledgment of the photographer who took it or of the women who are in it. I'm going to describe it for the House. It is a photo of four Indigenous women standing in the forecourt of the parliament. Two of them have T-shirts that say 'sorry', and two of them have T-shirts that say 'thanks': sorry, sorry, thanks, thanks. They are arm in arm, leaning into one another. I think it's one of the most remarkable photos of our time, and that's why I keep it with me, on my desk at work. It sums up how important it is to say sorry, and, equally, the generosity of our Indigenous sisters and brothers that they can so easily say thanks for what shouldn't have been as hard as it was. So, if anyone knows who took this photo or knows the women in it, I would be most grateful if they got in touch, because I would really like to get another copy of it. It's an amazing piece of Australian history.

Now, just as faith without works is dead, so is an apology without a change in behaviour. Australia on that day in 2008 resolved to change to make things better for our First Nations communities. Fourteen years later, there's just as much work as ever to be done—hard work, policy work, cultural work; discussion, consultation, inclusion. Not enough progress has been made to close the gap. The Closing the Gap project has been disappointing, not least because of its slow progress. But falling short of our goals should not mean abandoning them or celebrating mediocrity. No, it means that we strive on, borne forward by our shared commitment to being better than we were before.

On this side of the House, the Labor Party is committed to the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Paul Keating said in Redfern in 1992:

… there is nothing to fear or to lose in the recognition of historical truth, or the extension of social justice, or the deepening of Australian social democracy to include indigenous Australians.

There is everything to gain.

There is everything to gain in listening to Indigenous Australia, working with them and adopting in our hearts and our Constitution the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

This year marks 55 years since the successful 1967 referendum, which sought to ensure that First Nations Australians are included in our community. It marks 30 years since the historic Mabo decision of the High Court, which reversed a 220-year-old legal fiction that sought to obliterate more than 60,000 years of Indigenous land custodianship. It marks five years since the Uluru Statement from the Heart was shared with us. I sincerely thank and honour our Indigenous sisters and brothers and other leaders who have supported these just causes. Now it is time to share this burden across the country. Now is the time for us in this place to show leadership and to ensure that truth is heard, that voices are heard, that rights are enshrined and that reconciliation is real.

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