Ministerial Statement: Anniversary of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations - Australian Parliament House, ACT
14 February 2022
PRIME MINISTER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. We gather to mark the 14th Anniversary of the Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples. And we do that, as we always do here, on Ngunnawal land.
We pay respect to the Ngunnawal people, and to all Indigenous Peoples of this continent - the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We honour them, and their Elders, past, present and emerging.
And today, around Australia, and indeed at sea and elsewhere, Indigenous Australians are serving in the Australian Defence Forces, keeping us safe. And I thank them, along with all who serve, and all those who are veterans, for their service.
I give my respects to the Minister for Indigenous Australians, and the Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians.
Future generations of Australians will visit this building and they’ll see their portraits. But we have a different privilege - one that allows us to say that we served with them.
And we also recognise Senator Dodson, Senator McCarthy, Senator Thorpe and Senator Lambie.
Mr Speaker, we are on a journey to make peace with our past. And it’s a difficult journey and it is an important one, to draw together the past, the present, and future, so we can truly be one and free.
We belong to a story - from time immemorial, a continent that contends with us all, and the work of building a strong, sovereign and vibrant democracy that gives us all a voice.
But we don’t seek to sugarcoat this story. We don’t turn aside from the injustices, contentions and abrasions. That’s what successful liberal democracies do. We must remember if we are to shape the future, and to do so wisely.
So as we do this at this time every year, we remember the Stolen Generations. Children taken from their parents. I say it again, children taken from their parents. No parent, no child could fail to understand the devastation of that, regardless of whatever their background is. Children taken from their parents. Families and communities torn apart. Again and again and again.
With that trauma, disconnection, and unquenching pain, came a national shame and a deep wound. Separated from country, from kinship, from family, from language, from identity. Becoming even strangers to themselves.
Fourteen years have passed since we had said sorry here in this place.
Sorry for the cold laws that broke apart families.
Sorry for the brutalities that were masked even under the guise of protection and even compassion.
Sorry for believing that Indigenous people were not capable of stewarding their own lives.
Sorry for the failure to respect, to understand, to appreciate.
Sorry for the lives damaged and destroyed.
So on this day, and every year since, we are right to remind ourselves of times past - not to re-ignite the coals of pain, or to bring division where there are the beginnings of healing, but to be mindful of the lessons learned. To turn again from the great Australian silence, and towards each other.
And to again say: we are sorry.
And as I said when I spoke in support of the original motion here in this place on the other side of the Chamber 14 years ago, sorry can never be given without any expectation of forgiveness. But there can be hope.
I said an apology “involves … standing in the middle ground exposed, vulnerable and seeking forgiveness”.
Forgiveness is never earned or deserved. It can never be justified on the simple weighing of hurts and grievance. Such measures will never rationally tip the balance in favour of forgiveness.
Forgiveness transcends all of that. It’s an act of grace. It’s an act of courage. And it is a gift that only those who have been wounded, damaged and destroyed can offer.
I also said fourteen years ago, “sorry is not the hardest word to say, the hardest is I forgive you”.
But I do know that such a path of forgiveness does lead to healing. It does open up a new opportunity. It does offer up release from the bondage of pain and suffering that no simple apology on its own can achieve.
And nor do I believe that such forgiveness is a corporate matter. It can only begin with the individual. And forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Nor does it mean that there are not consequences for actions, and the need for redress and restitution.
This is a hard conversation. I know that Danny Abdallah, who together with his wife Leila knows a lot about loss and grief, and they have begun this conversation with Indigenous community leaders through the i4Give you foundation that he has established in memory of their children Antony, Angelina and Sienna and their niece [Veronique].
Out of great tragedy and loss there can rise hope. And I wish them all the very best for these conversations.
Mr Speaker, our journey, though, continues. If the Apology itself was a milestone in that journey, each anniversary has been a yardstick of how far we have travelled since.
Up until last year, the process of Closing the Gap - with its targets and measures - was how we judged that distance. It was a process born of sincere resolve and intentions, with no lack of money or will or work.
But because of a misguided faith in telling over listening, our targets were unmet, our ambitions unfulfilled, partnership not achieved.
So last year, we shifted course. And together with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, In particular the Coalition of Peaks led by Pat Turner, we made a new National Agreement, a new partnership, a genuine partnership to drive change.
And so we now have a shared plan in place. One that does not just address the very real actions and responsibilities of the Commonwealth Government, but also those of state and territory governments as well.
If we are to ever close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, it will be because we have, we must work together as equal partners if we’re ever to close that gap. That’s the journey we’re on now.
And progress is being made - 93 per cent of Indigenous children are now enrolled in early childhood education. That is an increase from 77 per cent in 2016.
And in just the last three years, 23,000 Commonwealth contracts have been awarded to Indigenous businesses. Businesses like the ones we celebrated with Members of this Chamber only last Friday night, at the annual Ethnic Business Awards.
Like Ben Schaber from Alice Springs who turned his life around by getting out of prison, getting into a job, getting into a trade, and now running his own specialised welding and engineering business in the Territory and providing these same very opportunities to other Indigenous Australians. Ben is an inspiration.
And he was joined by Ray Pratt from DICE, who won this year’s award, who leads a successful energy and electrical engineering business powering up remote communities in the Territory. And there’s Leah Cameron from Marrawah Law in Far North Queensland where she’s generating social impact for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. And there’s James Curran from MOEC Water and Energy, constructing pipelines across Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
Indigenous owned and run businesses getting the job done on closing the gap.
Part of that journey, though, also includes redress for the wrongs of the past. Early last year I met with the Healing Foundation and survivors of the Stolen Generations and I promised then that I would look at the very important issues of redress.
In August last year I was very pleased keep this promise and announce a $378.6 million package for a financial and wellbeing redress scheme for living Stolen Generations members who were removed as children from their families in the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory prior to their respective self-government and the Jervis Bay Territory.
Mr Speaker, in normal times, we look up to the glass galleries above us and see school children from across Australia. They come to Canberra to learn about the country and their place in it. To learn our story.
To visit the Parliament and learn about our freedoms. The War Memorial to learn about the price of those freedoms. The High Court to understand we are a country of laws, the rule of law. And Questacon and the various galleries to speak to their imagination.
But nowhere have we told the story of the heritage and history of this continent’s Indigenous people in a way that it should be done. So in January, the Government committed to establishing a new cultural precinct in the heart of the Parliamentary Triangle, to be called ‘Ngurra.’
‘Ngurra’ is a word in many languages. It means country. It means home and it means belonging. Ngurra - among the instruments and institutions of modern Australia - will be a home for Indigenous belonging, experience, knowledge and value in the heart of our nation.
As well, it will be a promised resting place, in the very heart of our nation’s capital, for our oldest stories. The proposal is put forward by AIATSIS and that they have consulted on and continue to consult on, has been adopted in its entirety by the Government, including the Budget that they have sought for it.
This is another important step in our journey. It’ll tell stories long after all of us who are here have long departed, and it’ll speak to generations and generations, as the War Memorial has to so many younger generations now. It will tell those stories in truth and honesty, in compassion, in love, in patriotism, in pride for our country.
There are many more steps still, Mr Speaker. To this end, we continue the work of the Indigenous Voice Co-design - to ensure it is truly a voice owned by Indigenous Australians, from the ground up - relevant to local communities, connected to local communities - not from the top down.
Mr Speaker, this anniversary will always be a day of poignant reflection, and I look forward to the contributions of the Leader of the Opposition and the Minister for Indigenous Australians and the Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians. A poignant reflection that can give birth to hope as well.
Hope for a reconciled nation - its people at one with their past and with each other - and open to shaping their future together.
That is what we continue to work for, and that is what we pledge ourselves to do so once again.
