The Stolen Generation

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Paul Keating, Prime Minister 1991 - 1996 "The point of this Year of the World's Indigenous Peoples is to bring the dispossessed out of the shadows, to recognise that they are part of us, and that we cannot give Indigenous Australians up without giving up many of our most deeply held values, much of our own identity – and our own humanity. Isn't it reasonable to say that if we can build a prosperous and reasonably harmonious multicultural society in Australia, surely we can find just solutions to the problems which beset the first Australians – the people to whom the most injustice has been done. The starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians... We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases, the alcohol. We committed 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? As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us. The message should be that 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." The full text of this 1992 speech on Out of the Shadows

John Howard, Prime Minister 1996 - [In response to the Bringing Them Home Report] "I have said on many occasions that personally I am very sorry for any ill treatment or any discrimination against the Aboriginal people of Australia, no matter when it occurred. I don't have any personal difficulty at all in saying that. I just believe though that the proposition that there should be a formal national apology in relation to events that when occurring were sanctioned by the law of the time, and were thought at the time by many people, however ineptly and we now believe, to have been in the best interests of the community. Now I think that to get into formal national apologies in circumstances like that is just not appropriate.... I think once you get into the area of formal national apologies it raises all sorts of other implications and establishes all sorts of precedents. And I think that there are a lot of people in Australia who understand that my reluctance and unwillingness to do that does not suggest, in any way, that I am insensitive and lack compassion. It is just a view as to what is appropriate". Full text of interview with Dennis Grant 18/12/97 "In phrasing something like [a formal apology] you must pay regard to the sensitivities of many people who in the past thought that they were doing the right thing in being involved in policies and practises affecting indigenous people, which by today's standards are no longer acceptable and, indeed, are regarded as quite unacceptable". Full text of interview with Matt Peacock, 27/8/99 "Two years after the so-called stolen generations report both Houses of Federal Parliament have passed a motion expressing deep and sincere regret to indigenous Australians for the hurt and trauma they suffered in the past.... Is this an apology?" Mike Munro speaking to John Howard. "Well, it's a deep and sincere regret" Full text of interview with Mike Munro, 26/8/99 Prime Minister John Howard yesterday stood firm in his refusal to offer an apology to the stolen generation after the Catholic Church "apologised unreservedly" for its part in the forcible removal of indigenous children from their families. Mr Howard, who has spoken of a "national regret", yesterday said he was unaware of the Pope's apology. 'I don't know of that possible gesture and until I do and out of deference to his Holiness I won't make a comment,' he said. 'Of course my view is unaltered.' Source: The Age, 24/11/01, p. 9

Munyall Melissa Davis-Drake: 'Earlier this year, Mr Keating received much applause when he acknowledged the sins of previous governments, sanctioned by the Crown, of stealing the children and babies from their families. He and his Government could easily prove he was not merely giving hollow lip service to the situation by making records available to the public, hence giving the people back to each other. The good will this simple act would generate cannot be over-stated. Morally, ethically the people have the right to know. Put your actions where your words are Mr Keating. Give the babies back.' Source: The Koori Mail, Letter to the Editor, 08/09/93

Gough Whitlam, Labour Prime Minister, 1972 – 1975 When Gough Whitlam became Prime Minister in 1972, it was the first time since 1910 that Labour had come to office without having to deal with either world war or economic depression. The Whitlam government was committed to a wide range of social reforms. They were determined to improve the conditions of disadvantaged groups in society, particularly Aboriginal people: "If there is one achievement for which I hope we will be remembered, if there is one cause for which future historians will salute us, it is this: that the government I lead removed the stain from our national honour and brought back justice and equality to our Aboriginal people". Dennis, L. Australia since 1890, Addison Wesley Longman Australia, 1999, p.220 In a speech to Murdoch University law students in 1997 (at 81 years of age), Gough Whitlam reflected on the deficiencies of the Australian political system and consitution, especially with regard to human rights for the Stolen Generation: "In the States and Territories parents were powerless to know the whereabouts of their children and to protect them from exploitation and abuse. The policy continued until the end of the 1960s. If the Federal Parliament had promptly enacted the (United Nations) Genocide Convention, the policy would have been ended 20 years earlier... In December 1991 the Commonwealth Criminal Law Committee... recommended that legislation be enacted on the lines of the UK Genocide Act 1989. The Keating Government did not introduce such legislation and the Howard Government has not introduced it."From a speech at Murdoch University, 1997.

The Secretariat of the National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care ('SNAICC') resolved at its national conference in 1990 to demand a national inquiry into the removal issue. On 4 August 1991, National Aboriginal and Islander Children's Day, SNAICC in conjunction with high profile Aboriginal entertainers, Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter, publicly launched a demand for an inquiry. They issued a media release stating: "This issue is a 'blank spot' in the history of Australia. The damage and trauma these policies caused are felt everyday by Aboriginal people. They internalise their grief, guilt and confusion, inflicting further pain on themselves and others around them. It is about time the Australian Government openly accepted responsibility for their actions and compensate those affected." Unfinished Business: The Australian Stolen Generations

Antonio Buti, Senior Lecturer from the Murdoch University School of Law writes: The Law Commission of Canada specifies the following as necessary elements of a meaningful apology: - acknowledgement of the wrong done; - accepting responsibility for the wrong that was done; - the expression of sincere regret or remorse; - assurance that the wrong will not recur; - reparation through concrete measures. For reconciliation to progress, an apology acceptable to the 'Stolen Generations' is necessary. An apology is necessary for the restoration of dignity for the 'Stolen Generations' and to aid their healing process. Unfinished Business: The Australian Stolen Generations

The Hon. Sandra Kanck, Deputy Leader Australian Democrats I move: That this Council recommends to the commonwealth government that it should – Follow the lead of the South Australian Parliament and express its deep and sincere regret at the forced separation of Aboriginal children from their families and homes; and Apologise for disputing the veracity of the term `stolen generation' and adopt that expression as the appropriate nomenclature for referring to the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their parents during the twentieth century. This motion is prompted by a simple truth: that the forced removal of children from their parents on the basis of race is profoundly offensive and that, in the light of revelations that this practice was systematic and widespread, an unqualified apology is an appropriate starting point for reconciling past injustices. Extract from Hansard, Legislative Council, 5 April 2000

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