Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) | Hansard source

I too begin by acknowledging the Ngunawal and Ngambri peoples, the traditional owners of the land on which this parliament meets. I acknowledge the Indigenous members of this place: the member for Hasluck, the Minister for Indigenous Australians; the member for Barton; Senator Dodson; Senator McCarthy; Senator Thorpe; Senator Lambie; and Senator Cox. It seems unimaginable now that it was only a few years ago that we didn't have members of the Indigenous community here in this place. We've made extraordinary changes in such a short period of time and we all wonder why it didn't happen earlier. I extend that acknowledgment to the Wadawurrung and Dja Dja Wurrung peoples, the traditional custodians of the land that my electorate of Ballarat falls within.

Fourteen years ago this week the parliament finally said sorry to the stolen generations. I remember that day very well. I was heavily pregnant with my son Ryan, who's now 13 years of age. It was an incredibly unifying and proud moment for the nation, and I hope very much that, once he emerges from his slightly grumpy teenager years where he's not really that interested in what his mum does, he looks back and reads the Hansard. He might be in his late 30s, maybe his 40s or even his 50s when he's doing the family history—and I'm long gone—and he might think, 'It's pretty amazing that I was in my mum's womb when that amazing moment happened.'

Fourteen years ago we said sorry for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on our fellow Australians. We said sorry for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country, and the ongoing harm it has done for generations. We said sorry on behalf of all Australians. It was, as I said, one of the proudest days in parliament and I believe one of the best days of this parliament. It was an example of what the parliament of this country is capable of when we have compassion in our hearts and unity in our heads. Today I again acknowledge those families, those communities and those histories torn apart by historic injustice. Just because those acts happened a long time ago doesn't mean that the damage does not linger or do harm throughout generations.

I particularly want to recognise those who came here that day to accept our apology. They came to this place with a grace that was perhaps more than we all deserved. Like many regions around Australia, Ballarat cannot escape the history of the stolen generations. Nazareth babies homes, Ballarat babies homes, Ballarat Orphanage, St Joey's—all housed children of the stolen generations. Children from as far away as Gippsland were taken from their homes, stolen from their families and their culture, to be raised in our home town of Ballarat. Ahead of my contribution to the apology debate 14 years ago, I learned some of this history by reading Faded Footprints: Walking the Past, produced by the Ballarat and District Aboriginal Cooperative. This book told the story of Uncle Murray, who was here on that day. He was taken from his family in Gippsland. As he said:

By the time my auntie realised we were gone, we were in Melbourne.

He was later separated from his two sisters and put in what he described as a cell.

When you are 10 years old and you've never been shut in and you go into a dark room and the door is shut on you—well, 60 years later I can still hear that rotten door shutting.

The book also tells the story of Karen Atkinson, who spent 10 years at Ballarat Orphanage, which I later worked for. Karen's mother died three weeks before she left the orphanage, and she never saw her again.

Dianne Clarke remembered this:

So they bailed us up there and took the parents, like dragged them off, kicking and screaming, around to our window and they were fighting. Our parents were putting up a good fight. Our mum was real little but was fired up and was fighting for her kids and I remember seeing the police just giving it to her, just punching her on the ground.

That is the love of a mother up against the institutions of the state. At the apology 14 years ago, Prime Minister Rudd asked us to do one thing: imagine if that were you. In the years since that apology, I have had a child of my own, and the thought of him being taken is just unimaginable. These are just three stories, and there are countless stories like them that come from around this nation.

According to the Bringing them home report, between one in three and one in 10 Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families between 1910 and 1970. They were placed in institutions and church missions, were adopted or fostered and were at risk of physical and sexual abuse. Many never received wages for their labour, and welfare officers failed in their duty to protect Indigenous wards from abuse. They're not in the distant past. Survivors of the stolen generation live amongst us today, as do their children and their children's children. They were removed from their families solely on the basis of their race.

It was fitting that the apology was the first act of the Rudd government, because Australia as a nation faces no more important task than reconciliation. That apology 14 years ago did not solve the problems. It was neither the beginning nor the end of the road towards reconciliation; it was merely a step along the way. It was a process that started a century ago, continuing through William Cooper, the granting of citizenship in the 1967 referendum, the tent embassy, the Barunga Statement, the deaths in custody royal commission, Mabo, the Redfern statement and Bringing them home.

After the apology there remains more to do. As Prime Minister Rudd said:

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

We now need to renew the work of laying claim to that future. The apology led to the Closing the Gap process, an important process, but we know that First Nations people are still far more likely to be jailed, to die by suicide and to have their children removed than non-Indigenous Australians. Between 2013 and 2019 the rate at which those children have been placed with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers actually fell from 53.6 per cent to 43.8 per cent. Out of the 17 targets that have been set, only three were on track. Speaking on the most recent Closing the Gap statement, the Leader of the Opposition said:

… we are surrounded by unfinished business. Even worse, we are surrounded by business that hasn't even been started.

This 14th anniversary should be a moment to reflect and a moment to move forward. We're now coming up to the fifth anniversary of the Uluru Statement from the Heart—what the Leader of the Opposition rightly described as 'a patiently extended hand, waiting for us to take it and to go further as a nation'.

I remember at the time of the apology 14 years ago there were people, including people who are still in this place today, who felt that making that apology was somehow going to take our nation backwards. They still believed that on that day 14 years ago. The reality is that the world didn't fall apart. Nothing changed other than as a nation for the first time we were actually unified in the grief that had been caused by our institutions and we made a pledge together to move forward. I think many of us saw how incredibly powerful this parliament can be when it does that and really want to see that continue.

The Uluru statement is based on three things: voice, truth and treaty. They are three words that can guide our way forward as a nation. I know there are people who are nervous about that. There are people in this place who are nervous and have made some statements around some of those things. Again I say that nothing is worth doing if it isn't hard and if it isn't something that can unify the country in a way that treaty, truth and voice can—a voice to our parliament enshrined in our Constitution; truth about our past, without which we can never have reconciliation; and a treaty emerging from the makarrata commission, which an Albanese Labor government will establish. As the shadow minister I believe these are not radical propositions; they are a culmination of a century-long journey. I am proud that Labor supports this statement in full. The government needs to do so as well.

The Prime Minister promised a voice to parliament, and we have yet to see that delivered. This journey started long before Aboriginal people were even counted as citizens and it is a journey that has endured over long years of hardship and setbacks. They are incredibly patient. They should not have to wait longer. We know what the next step on the journey is, because they have told us. We need to listen to our First Nations peoples. We need to listen to the Uluru statement. We need to take that next step together. Fourteen years is a long time to wait. Fourteen years, hopefully, will not be in vain.

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