Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Sorry Day still highlights need for ongoing efforts
The power and meaning embodied in this year’s National Sorry Day should motivate us to maintain our national efforts to achieve healing for members of the Stolen Generations and their families and to make headway in developing a national compensation scheme, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma said today.
“This year’s Sorry Day is a time to reflect on how far, as a nation, we have travelled on the road to healing,” Commissioner Calma said.
“The National Apology to the Stolen Generations in February last year brought the nation together and focused our hearts and minds on the common goal of healing and reconciliation.
“And we have just welcomed $26.6 million over four years for the national Indigenous Healing Foundation and an increase of $13.8 million over three years to Link Up Services in the recent Federal Budget.
“But a healing foundation is only one half of the solution – compensation is the other half.
“The nation’s mood now is light-years away from the reluctance and denial of the past and I believe the time is right for us to sit down and talk seriously about the crucial next step in reparations and healing for members of the Stolen Generations – compensation.”
Commissioner Calma called for a tribunal or common fund to be considered (as is the case in Tasmania) instead of a potential future involving protracted legal battles.
“We have seen what can be achieved through the Redress Schemes in WA and Qld and the Boarding Schools Compensation Scheme in Canada, so it is not an unachievable objective.
“Stolen Generations members are getting older and more frail. We need to act soon so that they do not miss out on compensation that could assist them in their later years.”
He said compensation for members of the Stolen Generations was a key recommendation of the (then) Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s Bringing them home report from 1997.
“There is an ongoing need for a complex range of support services and programs to fully address the consequences of the forcible removal policies of the past, and to confine its impact to past generations,” Mr Calma said.
“National Sorry Day reminds us that healing is an ongoing process that requires committed effort.”
Media contact: Louise McDermott on (02) 9284 9851 or 0419 258 597.
