Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) | Hansard source

I acknowledge the Ngunawal and Ngambri people, who are the custodians of this land, and I also honour the Darug people of the Eora nation. Representing an area that was known as the 'blacks town', I am always mindful that we have the highest urban Indigenous population in Blacktown in New South Wales, if not in all of Australia. I particularly want to thank my office manager, Nicole Duffy, a proud Wiradjuri woman, who wrote this speech for me. Her late father, Phillip Duffy, was a Vietnam veteran. He was also a very high-profile policeman in Riverstone, and he passed away during COVID in 2020. He did not get the send-off that he deserved, but he is honoured by his dear daughter Nicole and their family every day.

On 13 February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued an apology to the stolen generation by moving a motion in the House of Representatives. This finally and formally acknowledged the wrongs that were inflicted on First Nations people. However, prior to this historic apology, the Hon. Paul Keating spoke of the horror and torment inflicted on First Nations people, in his famous Redfern address in 1992. His words were both stirring and emotional, particularly when he said:

It begins, I think, with that act of recognition.

Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing.

We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life.

We brought the diseases. The alcohol.

We committed the murders.

We took the children from their mothers.

We practised discrimination and exclusion.

It was our ignorance and our prejudice.

And our failure to imagine these things being done to us.

With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds.

We failed to ask—how would I feel if this were done to me?

The forced removal of children from their families saw a profound impact on First Nations children and families that is still felt today. Families were broken, communities were shattered and a proud people were left with missing pieces to their family trees. Many of these missing pieces will never be recovered. The children who were forcibly removed suffered a loss of identity. They were robbed of their connection to country, their kin and their language. Horrifically, many children who were institutionalised often suffered unspeakable physical, mental and sexual abuse. The physical scars may heal with time, but the psychological damage is still being felt across the generations.

Kevin Rudd's motion meant that, for the first time, a government had acknowledged and apologised for the hideous atrocities inflicted on our First Nations people. He went on to say:

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.

Those words were echoed through the chamber and over the live streamed videos across the country. I must say too that I remember being a lawyer at the time, at Gilbert + Tobin. Danny Gilbert, who continues to this day to be a champion of First Nations justice and reconciliation and recognition, gathered the entire firm into our main meeting place. He didn't force anyone to be there, but everyone wanted to be there for this historic moment. I want to honour Danny Gilbert for the efforts that he makes. As he has said, we must deliver for First Nations people; we must deliver voice, treaty and truth. I thank Danny and the partners at Gilbert + Tobin, in particular, for their leadership and for being on this journey for so long.

The raw, heartfelt grief and sadness was met with hope—a hope that we, as a nation, learnt the gravity of these policies and vowed that it would never happen again. Archie Roach summed up what many of the survivors went through in his song 'Took the Children Away'. He sang of the pain of being ripped from his parents' arms, being separated from his siblings, losing connection to his country, kin and language and being raised white while being black. As I stand here today, it's hard to imagine how a government legislated to remove children and shatter families simply because of the colour of their skin. This is something that took place until quite recently in our history.

The apology was brought about following the Bringing them home report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families, which was instigated by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Fifty-four recommendations came out of the report, and today many of these recommendations remain unfulfilled. One of the key recommendations of the report was reparation, which should include the following: an acknowledgement of responsibility and an apology from all Australian parliaments, police forces, churches and other non-government agencies which implemented policies of forcible removal; guarantees against repetition; restitution and rehabilitation; and monetary compensation.

In reading this report, it is hard not to feel the despair of so many, in particular a man by the name of Paul. His mother was tricked into putting him into care while she recovered from a serious illness. While she recovered, her son became a ward of the state. She fought for her son to be returned, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. He wrote:

… my Mother never gave up trying to locate me.

She wrote many letters to the State Welfare Authorities, pleading with them to give her son back. Birthday and Christmas cards were sent care of the Welfare Department. All these letters were shelved. The State Welfare Department treated my Mother like dirt, and with utter contempt, as if she never existed.

We must, as a nation, move forward and ensure that the lives that were lost were not in vain. We need a treaty, we need to close the gap and we, as a nation, must learn and heal together. While the apology took place prior to my election to this place, as a member, I too say sorry for the pain many First Nations families still face today as a direct result of the past policies and practices of successive governments.

Today, as we meet in this place, it should be noted that, in November last year, a motion in the Senate to fly the Aboriginal flag in the chamber was defeated. That's a simple, necessary act to move us one step closer to being united and resolute in our stance with this country's First Nations people.

Yesterday, it was 14 years since this historic apology, and, sadly, recent data from the Productivity Commission showed that, up to June last year, up to 22,000 children were living away from their parents and more than 8,000 of these children lived in New South Wales. Fourteen years on, we still have so far to go. If we're serious about history not repeating itself and about reconciliation, we must work together with First Nations communities all over this country. We must acknowledge and accept our part to play and be serious about moving forward.

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