Speech to commemorate the 14th anniversary of the Apology to the Stolen Generations

Monday, 14 January

House of Representatives

CANBERRA

I acknowledge that this parliament sits, and I give this speech, on the lands of the Ngunawal and the Ngambri peoples, and I honour the ongoing contributions of their elders past and present to the world's oldest continuing culture. I thank the Prime Minister, the minister and my friend the Leader of the Opposition for their words today, and I recognise my dear friends Senator McCarthy and Senator Dodson who are watching on.

We are here to remember that speech given by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. I know that there are many Australians who remember that day with absolute clarity. I certainly do. They remember the way it felt and the way it made them think about our country and its future.

It was not only a document or speech to parliament; it was a cultural moment shared by this country.

It was, of course, also a speech in a place and time.

It was a day of great ceremony. First Nations leaders and members of the stolen generations from around the country were here, in the galleries and on those chairs near the door.

But there were no First Nations people seated among the members in that parliament. There was no First Nations member to give a speech to mark the first or second anniversary.

It wasn't until the member for Hasluck arrived in 2010, more than a century after Federation, with his story and the story of his mother, that there was a First Nations member in this place—of course, after Senator Bonner in the other place. It would take another election for Nova Peris to join the Senate as the first First Nations woman ever elected to our parliament.

We should never leave unstated just how long the reconciliation journey has been in our country.

The apology was not the work of one person only. It was not the sentence that ends the story.

It was a way marker in a century of work—a marker that shows how far we have come, what we can achieve and how much further we have to travel.

William Cooper, Pearl Gibbs, Jack Patten, William Ferguson, Aunty Marge Tucker and others—leaders who got us to the Day of Mourning—erected a marker, proud and tall. They weren't acknowledged as citizens at that time in this country, and they had to seek permission from the Board of Protectors to exercise basic human rights, but they got that marker up anyway.

Charles Perkins and other freedom riders laid down another marker as they showed that ongoing discrimination was not a thing overseas; it was, in fact, here in our own country. With other leaders like Faith Bandler and Jessie Street, the light that they shone on their path helped us to find our way together to voting yes in the '67 referendum on counting Aboriginal people in the census.

Sometimes the big markers are set by our country. At other times it's four people and an umbrella. That's how Michael Anderson, the late Billy Craigie, the late Bertie Williams and the late Tony Currie founded the Tent Embassy. 50 years later, only Michael survives, but the Tent Embassy and its message remain.

30 years ago, in a park in Redfern, Paul Keating understood the power of truth in our reconciliation journey. I was there. Crucially, that journey is a journey of imagination.

Sometimes people find fiction is the entry to their imagination. In my inaugural speech in the New South Wales parliament, I spoke about the message of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and the message was putting yourself in someone else's shoes, as the minister has told us about today.

The member for Grayndler spoke about Senator Dodson hiding in the long grass, watching as the welfare officers took away his mates.

Put yourself in the shoes of that little boy, not just in that moment but in the earlier moments of his life that meant he knew he'd need to run and hide—and the girl that helped you, Senator Dodson, in the first place.

Imagine what it was like for those who had nowhere to run.

Put yourself in the shoes of a three-year-old, wrapped in the love of a large family, to have that love ripped away.

Put yourself in the shoes of parents loving, caring and now grieving.

As Paul Keating said in that speech, these things could happen because of failure to imagine these things being done to us.

Australia likes to think it is better at imagining now, and in some ways it is—sometimes.

Imagine what living in a remote community is like, with 15 or 20 people in a three-bedroom house. What that's like?

Imagine not having enough RATs to go around when local services are failing because there aren't any staff to step up when those on the front line have to isolate, and when less than half of the community is vaccinated.

Every day, I hold my breath and hope, because that failure could mean the end for far too many who carry our culture and language. Our elders are our libraries. They are our internet. They cannot be replaced.

The Bringing them home report shone a clear, unwavering light on truth that had been kept in the dark for too long. The truths spoken of were not things past; they were truths embodied in living people.

John Howard did not see this as a moment for change. He saw the moment for change Bringing them home demanded as something to be weathered, not grasped.

Determination is a great quality in a leader. Stubbornness is not.

350,000 people walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and 300,000 marched in Melbourne. Australia was ready to set another marker down and march on together on our reconciliation journey.

We had to hold our breath and wait because the Prime Minister would not let us breathe and was determined to hold us back.

It wasn't until we chose a government and a leader that knew ignoring our past, ignoring the lived reality of so many, was not an option, that the country exhaled and that we could take the next steps in the journey of reconciliation.

In 2008, we had a government and a leader that could see the world wearing another's shoes. I was really interested in hearing, Prime Minister, that you spoke in that debate.

Australia chose a government that could imagine. As Paul Keating said, 'It seems to me that if we can imagine the injustice we can imagine its opposite.'

And so Kevin Rudd apologised to the stolen generations for the hurt our country did to us, our families and our nation's soul.

Last year, I spoke about Aunty May Robinson and how we fell into each other's arms in the foyer of the parliament. She was carrying a photograph of her mother as an eight-year-old girl. She said, 'Linda, I brought Mummy with me today.'

The Apology gave us the Closing the Gap strategy, our national acknowledgement that structural change is necessary—the Prime Minister spoke about that today—and our national commitment to achieve that change.

 The Apology recognised that a moment of change demands that we step confidently forward together. It was a speech of truth that set us free to exhale. But it is what we do with that freedom that matters, as my friend the leader of the Labor Party said.

The next steps of walking together are up to us. Another moment of change is here.

The Uluru statement is clear and points us to our next steps. Voice, treaty and truth are all within our stride if we want to take them.

Now is not the moment to rest. Now is the moment to stride on.

The time is here to give First Nations people our voice in the decisions made about us. Do we think that our government could leave First Nations culture exposed to COVID? No. Would First Nations people be forced by overcrowding to isolate in tents and sheds? Will we still suffer the ongoing epidemic of suicide amongst our young people?

A Labor government will not force this country to hold its breath again. We'll move on a referendum to get the Indigenous voice established in the Constitution. We will establish the Makarrata commission for treaty and truth. 

These steps in the Uluru statement are fundamental, necessary and urgent, but they are not radical. They do not arrive out of the blue. They are not a storm to be weathered. They are the next steps in our reconciliation journey—a journey over a century long, a journey Aboriginal people started decades before we were counted as citizens.

The Apology recognised the journey we have taken. It recognised how far we have to go. It is up to us as a parliament, as a people, to resolutely take the next steps and lay down our own marker.

We can do this. We must.

ENDS

Authorised by Paul Erickson, ALP, Canberra