Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Will the minister update the House on the significance of National Sorry Day in closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians?

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I know that the House is glad to see the member here today, but the member has the call and he should be heard in silence.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I particularly thank the member for Leichhardt for his question. Today is a very significant day for all Australians. For 10 years now on 26 May we have paused and reflected on what I think many Australians recognise is a very blemished chapter in our nation’s history: the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and their communities.

What began as a recommendation in the Bringing them home report has become a day of real national significance. It is very pleasing that across the country, whether it is in the different cities and towns or in outer and remote parts of Australia, we have many, many different Australians participating in Sorry Day events. Here in Parliament House this morning, the Prime Minister unveiled a manuscript of the motion of apology, which will now remain on permanent display—and I thank the member for Warringah for joining us in that unveiling.

On Sorry Day we also acknowledge the significance of this parliament’s national apology to Indigenous Australians for what are now recognised as past injustices and mistreatment. When the Prime Minister offered the apology, he said it gave us the impetus:

… to deal with this unfinished business of the nation, to remove a great stain from the nation’s soul and, in a true spirit of reconciliation, to open a new chapter in the history of this great land …

The apology has also, I think, provided us with a very important part of the framework to enable us to deliver the very necessary practical, structural changes that are needed to see improvement in the lives of Indigenous Australians. We have set ourselves very, very tough and ambitious targets to close the life expectancy gap and to address child mortality, access to early education, educational attainment and employment outcomes. In the six months we have been in government we have in fact allocated $1.2 billion to this task—a task that is aimed at making communities safer, improving economic participation and including major programs of work for early childhood development, education, health, welfare reform, governance and leadership. It is really only through this major agenda for reform that we are going to see this gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples close.

We do know that healing the hurt will not happen overnight. For many of the families of stolen generations, the process has only just begun. For many of them, we know, it will be a very long journey. They will need the support and understanding of all of us here, as well as from other Australians. Today, Sorry Day, is just one way that we can all help in that healing and in the healing of the nation.