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Social Justice Report 1998 : Chapter 2: Non-Indigenous Community Responses

Social Justice Report 1998

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  • Chapter 2: Non-Indigenous
    Community Responses



    Introduction

    You would
    be hard pressed to find a newspaper, television or radio station that
    did not make mention of Sorry Day activities and National Reconciliation
    events over the past week.

    But it is
    not until you put a human face to the issues, speak to someone to
    whom these events are all-important, that they become more than politically
    correct rhetoric.

    Faye Moseley,
    elder of the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council, is one such
    woman. She opened her speech at Kurri Community Centre on Sorry Day
    with the words: 'I am a stolen child'. Suddenly the label had a face.

    She asked
    the crowd to consider the importance of history to peoples all over
    the world.

    'History is
    a very important part of culture,' she said. 'It doesn't feed us,
    or provide us with shelter. It doesn't keep us warm at night and it
    has little practical use, yet people in every culture in the world
    value their history.'

    For Faye,
    history is the stories people of all nationalities tell the next generation
    to explain who they are, where they come from and why they are here,
    about pride and self-esteem, battles lost and won, hardships and survival.

    'Those who
    forget the past are condemned to repeat it.'

    Emilie Manning,
    'Helping to put a face to need for reconciliation', The Maitland
    Mercury
    , 5 June 1998, p. 4

    Radical though
    it may be, I respectfully suggest to the House that an Aboriginal
    man and an Aboriginal woman be invited to a joint sitting of this
    parliament to tell their stories of unimaginable pain and anguish
    that too few Australians have heard and even fewer understand. The
    reason I suggest that is that, like that young member of the Liberal
    Party who told me that he thought this was all a load of nonsense
    until he actually heard it, I think there are many people in this
    place who actually have to hear these stories told, not through the
    prism of some of the activists in the reconciliation movement but
    by the very people who lived this pain. The symbolism would be powerful,
    and it might just play a catalytic role in healing wounds deeper than
    the current national psyche can allow to easily heal.

    Dr Brendan
    Nelson, Federal Member for Bradfield, extract from debate in House
    of Representatives, 2 June 1997, p. 4597, GRIEVANCE DEBATE

    Twelve months on
    since the release of Bringing Them Home, we can look back at
    the public debate on the forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
    Islander children from their families, and reflect on the impact of
    the Report and its implications for future understanding of issues affecting
    Indigenous Australians. For the non-Indigenous community, Bringing
    Them Home
    has challenged how we define ourselves and our country
    as Australian. For many people it has meant a questioning and often
    a denial of our contemporary responsibility as a nation; a reassessment
    of what we were taught about our country's history; a challenging of
    former and present leaders and decision-makers; and a greater awareness
    of our collective legacy.

    There have been
    distinct patterns of debate since the launch of Bringing Them Home,
    such as whether individuals and our national leader should apologise;
    whether there should be a national Sorry Day; the understanding of words
    such as 'guilt' and 'shame'; the Inquiry's finding of genocide; the
    issue of compensation and reparation; the intersections with debates
    about native title and reconciliation; and the reassessment of Australian
    history and identity for which the Inquiry was viewed as a catalyst.

    This chapter does
    not seek to revisit or justify elements of the Inquiry or Bringing
    Them Home
    . Rather it explores the diversity of responses by non-Indigenous
    Australians over the 12 months since the Report was released. Using
    letters to the editor and media reports of events in major and regional
    newspapers as the primary sources, this chapter canvasses the variety
    - and often the similarity - of reactions to what became widely known
    as the stolen children or stolen generations Report.

    From the time Bringing
    Them Home
    became public property, many individuals and groups have
    spoken out to acknowledge, to apologise and to attempt to address publicly
    the injustices experienced by Indigenous Australians. This has been
    a community movement, played out in regional and national media, influencing
    public debate about Indigenous issues, as well as our Australian identity
    for decades to come.

    Even before Bringing
    Them Home
    was tabled in Parliament, the existence of the Inquiry
    itself and its background research and hearings began the process of
    non-Indigenous Australians learning what Indigenous communities have
    always known: that generations of Aboriginal children were forcibly
    removed and alienated from their families under past laws, policies
    and practices, specifically because they were Aboriginal. Over the last
    30 years there has been an increasing awareness in the non-Indigenous
    community of injustices experienced by Indigenous people. The strong
    reactions to the findings of the Inquiry were not so much based on an
    inability to conceive that such events took place but at the vast scale
    of forcible removals and the often abusive experiences of those taken
    from their families.

    Reactions have
    ranged from outrage and sadness to disbelief and dismissal of the findings
    of the Report. Many non-Indigenous Australians could not understand
    how such events could ever have taken place in this country, while others
    strongly defended the actions and intentions of those who sanctioned
    the forcible removal of Indigenous children. Some people felt that the
    Report dwelt on the past, and others believed that the Inquiry had only
    focused on negative experiences of removal. Overwhelmingly, however,
    non-Indigenous Australians have gained an unprecedented insight into
    the legacy of institutionalised racism for Indigenous Australians.

    From many younger
    Australians, or those born overseas, came a questioning of those who
    were able to remember Aboriginal children being taken from their families
    of 'how could you not have known?', or 'why didn't anybody do anything
    to stop it?'.

    Drusilla Modjeska,
    the Australian writer who migrated to Australia with her family in the
    1960s, spoke at the 1997 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards about
    her experiences at a Women for Wik meeting in Sydney in July
    last year. Although a group formed primarily in response to the ten
    point plan in the wake of the High Court's Wik decision, this
    community action group, like many others, saw the issues of native title
    and the stolen children as inherently enmeshed.

    When we left
    the meeting, the friend I was with, who had grown up here in the fifties,
    said that she was thinking of all those Germans who kept saying they
    didn't know anything. She says she remembers, a whispy sort of child
    memory, that she did know, and when she enquired she was told 'oh
    well they're orphans', or 'they're neglected', or 'they're getting
    an education'. (p. 4)

    ... the moment
    at which I felt an acute kind of personal shame, or perhaps I should
    say the moment at which I felt the stir of history, as if a dark bird
    had flown over me and I'd been cast in its shadow, was when Jean Carter
    spoke of being born on the salt pan at George's River. I felt it as
    a shock: the enormous disjuncture between her Sydney and mine. And
    I felt it most uncomfortably when she and Marlene Wilson both talked
    about being taken to Bidura Children's Home in Glebe where they were
    dipped in lye and had their clothes removed with tongs; and when they
    talked of walking along Glebe Point Road calling out to the boys in
    their crocodile on the opposite pavement for news of their brothers.

    I lived in Glebe
    when I first came to Sydney, twenty five years ago now; I was a student
    on the then generous Commonwealth Scholarship, with no need to work
    anywhere other than in the library. You could still rent a room for
    ten dollars, food was cheap, it was the seventies, we all had heaps
    of love affairs and nobody locked their back doors. Glebe was heaven.
    To me. And almost certainly to the kooris who lived on Blackwattle
    Bay in 1787. But not to the children in Bidura which was there when
    I was a student; we walked past it, smooching along with books under
    our arms. And it certainly wasn't heaven for Jean Carter and Marlene
    Wilson who were there not so many years before, for no other reason
    than the colour of their skin, separated from family, mother, culture,
    land.

    It is a shameful
    story, and we all feel it in different ways. I felt it that day as
    if another map had been laid over streets I'd mapped for myself in
    the most egocentric and naive of ways. (p. 5)

    ... All of them,
    all of you, all of us, are mapping and remapping our streets, our
    country, our past. (p. 6)

    Whether non-Indigenous
    Australians need to re-learn, or to re-map, the history of their country,
    and how they should go about doing that, has been widely debated since
    the release of Bringing Them Home.

    Many Australians
    have denied the need to substantially re-evaluate the balance of Australian
    history. There have been protests against the incorporation of the history
    of forcible removal of Indigenous children into school curricula and
    to the commemoration of a national Sorry Day. The process of acknowledging,
    apologising and making reparation to those Indigenous people affected
    has been regarded by some as a betrayal of conventional heroes and their
    achievements: an unhealthy dwelling on negative aspects of Australia's
    past, or privileging a 'black armband view of history'.

    Yet remembering
    and commemorating Australians who have suffered in the past is by no
    means an alien concept in this country. Reluctance to acknowledge and
    pay respect to the stolen children then is quite inconsistent with the
    clear support given to the importance of understanding the past in informing
    the present in relation to other issues. Shortly after the tabling of
    Bringing Them Home, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Queensland
    National MP Bruce Scott, speaking about the depiction of Australian
    prisoners of war in the film 'Paradise Road', said:

    We must never
    underestimate the importance of telling history as it really was.
    ... Current and future generations of Australians need to understand
    history. It is only through the accurate recording of history that
    we will ensure that it never happens again.

    Ian McPhedran,
    'Minister's history lesson irks ALP', quoted in The Canberra Times,
    6 June 1997, p. 6

    There has been
    much debate about whether or not Bringing Them Home was an 'accurate
    recording of history', particularly as a result of viewpoints published
    by certain social commentators. [1] However, there
    was little contention that past laws, policies and practices which forcibly
    removed Indigenous children from their families have not been part of
    Australia's official history, and that there were events that took place
    that should never be allowed to happen again. While a distinct strain
    of response to the Report was to contextualise the policies of removal
    in the values of the times and to extenuate the extent of damage done,
    there developed an increasing awareness throughout the non-Indigenous
    Australian community concerning the importance of acknowledging and
    apologising for Indigenous suffering.

    I am sure
    every parent must have some sympathy for families that were broken
    up in this way. There are many other ethnic groups of people living
    within the community that have had terrible wrongs done to them in
    the past.

    But Aboriginal
    people are the original indigenous population of Australia and it
    would be a good move towards reconciliation to admit that they as
    a people have suffered.

    The situation
    that saw children removed from their parents is not the fault of individuals
    today and Aboriginal people should understand that many white Australians
    have not been told the truth about our history as a country.

    Deborah Botica,
    'Healing the wounds of the past', Kalgoorlie Miner, 19 June
    1997

    The personal stories
    in Bringing Them Home of the experiences of Indigenous people
    who had been taken away from their families became living history, the
    voices of proof. It is perhaps one of the most important repercussions
    of the Report that an environment was created for Indigenous Australians
    to speak directly of their experience to other Australians.

    Through personal
    contact with Indigenous people who had been taken from their families,
    many non-Indigenous Australians in the 12 months since the release of
    Bringing Them Home began to gain a better understanding of the
    discrimination experienced by Indigenous people, and an insight into
    damage done by policies based on racial stereotypes which reinforced
    and perpetuated the very stereotypes underpinning these policies.

    This writer
    should declare an interest. At primary school, my best mate was a
    boy called Peter. We sang country songs as a duo, and spat on our
    hands and told each other we'd always be brothers. But one day, he
    disappeared. The next time I saw him, many years later, he was an
    alcoholic. In the intervening years, he had been taken from his family,
    fostered to a wealthy city family, placed in a leading private school
    and given the benefit of social opportunity.

    When he came
    back, finally, he had little in common with the brothers and sisters
    he hardly knew, and his mother was dead. And he was still an Aborigine,
    unable to fit into the white world that had been fitted around him,
    and which still did not accept him as an equal. Like many thousands
    of others, he sank his loneliness and his grief and his anger in a
    bottle.

    Tony Wright,
    'For Pete's sake, it's time to right the wrongs', The Sydney Morning
    Herald
    , 21 May 1997, p. 5

    The approach which
    justified removal of Aboriginal children from their families - that
    it was 'for their own good' - continued to prevail in some comment on
    this issue. This rationale has been strongly repudiated by historical
    analysis and recorded personal experiences that show the main principle
    behind the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
    was not concern for the individual child's well-being. The majority
    of children were removed because they were Indigenous. It was thought
    that Indigenous peoples of Australia were a 'dying race', and that children
    of 'mixed descent', particularly those with fairer skin, could be assimilated
    into the broader community.

    However, most Australians
    - as a child or a parent - readily understand that, irrespective of
    race, the effects of past policies and practices which removed Indigenous
    children from their families were harmful and misguided. In the debate
    about the Inquiry's finding of genocide and the use of words such as
    'shame' and 'guilt', there was a strong empathy for those Indigenous
    Australians who were deprived of the right to grow up with their family,
    and whose experiences had for so long had been silenced.

    There was an immediate
    public response to the stories of Bringing Them Home from individuals
    all over the country who felt compelled to comment, to express their
    own perspectives, and to apologise.

    The mail has
    become much easier to sort. Two piles - one for the broad topic of
    Aboriginal and race letters, and the other for The Rest (the latter
    being comparatively few). Wik and Mabo were knotty subjects. They
    could be discussed in terms of principle but many found it difficult
    to come to grips with what the court rulings would mean in practice.

    No such difficulty
    arises with the 'Stolen Children'. Every parent can understand the
    aching void of having a child snatched from you. Everyone can imagine
    what it would be like not knowing who your blood family was or where
    to find it. There were no legal niceties in the letters, just words
    from the heart. Space prevents us publishing the many individual apologies
    from those who feel beholden to do so in the absence of a figurehead
    apologising on behalf of the nation. We have given the gain-sayers
    (they constitute about 1/8), those who have tended to say the separations
    were a good thing in the long run, a disproportionate representation
    on the letters page.

    Geraldine
    Walsh, Letters Editor, 'Postscript', The Sydney Morning Herald,
    2 June 1997, p. 16

    Overwhelmingly
    the initial response to Bringing Them Home was one of empathy
    and sorrow. Many non-Indigenous people felt compelled to express their
    opinions and emotions in an unprecedented and public way. There were
    those people who maintained the line that Indigenous children had benefited
    from being removed from their families and communities, and this perspective,
    as noted above, was given due attention in the media coverage of the
    debate. However, the clear majority of opinions expressed in the major
    and regional newspapers were in favour of an apology to Indigenous people.
    [2]

    Media coverage

    There is no doubt
    that the findings of the National Inquiry generated a substantial amount
    of public interest and debate reflected in widespread and sustained
    media coverage. The high media interest in Bringing Them Home
    has not been restricted to Australia.

    The Federal
    Government has failed to understand the impact of issues such as the
    stolen Aboriginal children or Pauline Hanson on Australia's image
    abroad, according to international media services.

    Wire service
    Reporters have been run off their feet filing stories on race issues
    with a particular focus on the stolen children and Pauline Hanson.
    Those stories have the potential to reach up to two billion people.
    According to the Canberra correspondent with the Associated Press
    [a major international agency], Alan Thornhill, the stolen children
    story was the biggest of the year.

    Ian McPhedran,
    'PM not in the foreign affairs race', The Canberra Times, 3
    June 1997, p. 2

    A detailed analysis
    of the media coverage of Bringing Them Home after tabling [3]
    considered the attitudes expressed in the print media, (editorials,
    columns, opinion pieces, feature articles) in handling this issue. In
    particular, it included an analysis of the proportion of media coverage
    of the issue that was supportive, and the extent to which the media
    considered the conclusions of the Report proved rather than controversial
    or open to question. (p. i)

    The role of the
    media in shaping or reflecting public opinion is always arguable. However,
    there is a defining role that daily newspapers across the country play
    in raising awareness, informing readers of different perspectives, making
    comment and providing a public forum in which the issues are discussed.

    the probability
    of achieving the objectives of educating the public, and creating
    a higher level of sympathetic awareness to a problem or situation
    within the community, will be greatly enhanced if the material contained
    in the media Reports is sympathetic to the subject and indicates that
    a high level of credibility can be placed on the information being
    conveyed, and on the organisation and persons conveying that information.
    (p. iii)

    Newspapers surveyed
    for the media analysis were the Australian/Weekend Australian,
    the Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily Telegraph, the Canberra
    Times
    , The Age, the Herald Sun, the Courier-Mail,
    the Advertiser, the West Australian, the Mercury,
    and the Australian Financial Review.

    All the newspapers
    examined carried editorials on the subject, often more than one. All
    agreed that the assimilation policies were a blot on Australia's past,
    virtually all called for a formal apology, and most were critical
    of the Prime Minister when he gave only a personal apology at the
    Reconciliation Convention. ...

    Many papers editorially
    had trouble with some aspects of the Report, such as the use of the
    word 'genocide' to describe the separation policy, and the subject
    of compensation. However, there were many articles on the opinion
    pages which supported, often very strongly, these elements of the
    Report. (p. iv)

    Most of the writers
    - full-time journalists, regular columnists, and people who contributed
    articles due to their expertise or interest in the subject - were sympathetic
    towards and supportive of both the Report and the adverse effects that
    forcible removal had on Indigenous people.

    Across the newspapers
    over the period which was analysed, the great majority of writers
    of comment and opinion pieces accepted the truth of the material in
    the Report, welcomed the bringing to light of the events described,
    supported the idea of a formal apology and were critical, often scathingly,
    of the Prime Minister when it was not given. (p. v)

    Many commentators
    also made the connection between understanding and acknowledging the
    past forcible removal of Indigenous children and current issues such
    as health, housing, education and reconciliation.

    The inquiry
    was needed to give the nation a better understanding of the continuing
    social consequences of forced removal of children from their families.
    The evidence and the Report show that governments routinely broke
    up families, disrupted the continuity of Aboriginal heritage and created
    lost generations of adults without awareness of their identities.
    ...

    The best compensation
    governments can offer to Aborigines is effectiveness in helping them
    to overcome the shameful disadvantages in health, education, housing
    and employment that make their communities the most deprived in the
    nation. This is not a matter necessarily of more money, but of political
    will and determination. A commitment by the Government to achieve
    significant improvements should be part of the negotiations for reconciliation.

    Editorial,
    'Aboriginal progress is the answer', The West Australian, 26
    May 1997, p. 12

    The Prime Minister's
    speech at the Reconciliation Convention after the tabling of Bringing
    Them Home
    was a catalyst for much media debate:

    Personally
    I feel deep sorrow for those of my fellow Australians who suffered
    injustices under the practices of past generations towards indigenous
    people. Equally I am sorry for the hurt and trauma many here today
    may continue to feel as a consequence of those practices.

    In facing
    the realities of the past, however, we must not join those who would
    portray Australia's history since 1788 as little more than a disgraceful
    record of imperialism, exploitation and racism. ... Australians of
    this generation should not be required to accept guilt and blame for
    past actions over which they had no control.

    John Howard's
    speech to the Reconciliation Convention, quoted in The Australian,
    27 May 1997, p. 1

    The problem
    with such a conditional expression of sorrow is that the practice
    of removing children from their parents is not something which was
    done in the dim, dark past, but something which was pursued as government
    policy until very recent times. The Stolen Children are still with
    us, except now they are adults who were deprived of their childhoods,
    their parents, their extended families and their culture. This is
    not ancient history. And there is no convenient moral statute of limitations
    for culpability over what was done.

    Editorial,
    '30 years on and still no reconciliation', The Canberra Times,
    27 May 1997, p. 8

    There is little
    point in Mr Howard's comments of Monday that 'Australians of this
    generation should not be required to accept guilt and blame for past
    actions and policies over which they had no control.' There is little
    to be lost from issuing an unconditional national apology for undoubted
    past wrongs which linger in their effects today. Rather than looking
    backward, this would provide a foundation from which to base a national
    commitment to cooperatively address current problems.

    Editorial,
    'The business of reconciliation', Australian Financial Review,
    28 May 1997, p. 22

    The issue
    is not, at this stage, about compensation. It is about expressing
    white society's apology that, for most of this country, many Aboriginal
    children and their parents were treated as little more than convenient
    breeders.

    It would be
    a marvellous act, a sign of true white concern rather than mean spirit,
    if the Parliament of Australia could find the words to frame an apology
    for those deeds. Then both sides, black and white, could get down
    to real negotiations with the assurance that printed in the Hansard,
    for current and future generations, was one government clearly stating
    that past actions were wrong.

    Editorial,
    'The value of making an apology', The Advertiser, 3 June 1997,
    p. 10

    The Federal
    Government's Reported offer of $50 million to the Aboriginal community
    is an unsatisfactory response to the tragedy of the 'stolen generations'.
    It is a minor amount in the context of government expenditure and,
    although welcome, meaningless against the backdrop of generations
    of suffering.

    The lesson
    of the past 25 years is that the problems that beset the indigenous
    people of Australia cannot be addressed by money alone. If that were
    the case, the massive amounts spent over recent decades would have
    given indigenous Australians the same standards of health, happiness
    and opportunity enjoyed by all other citizens. ...

    Some of the
    language surrounding the 'stolen generations inquiry' and its revelations
    has been unnecessarily emotive and difficult to digest for many Australians
    who played no role in the events of previous years. Accusations of
    genocide and the liberal use of words such as 'shame' contribute nothing
    to sensible discussion and do nothing other than offend white Australians
    and drive some of them into the arms of extremists.

    However, it
    is idle to pretend that great wrong was not done to Aboriginal children
    removed from their families: at most times with the very best of motives.
    The policies of yesteryear were harmful but they were well-intentioned,
    if crude, attempts to give Aboriginal children a chance to advance
    themselves in white Australian society. There is no reason for Australians
    of today to feel or express sentiments of shame. The same arrogant
    assumptions led to the removal of many white children from their families
    and their subsequent adoption.

    However, that
    should not preclude us, through our Prime Minister, from acknowledging
    those wrongs of the past, accepting that good intentions can have
    unforeseen tragic results, and expressing our apologies. Anything
    less would demean the $50 million to be offered by Mr Howard and be
    a betrayal of the 'stolen generations' and generations of Australians
    to come.

    Editorial,
    'Stolen Generations deserve apology' Courier Mail, 15 December,
    1997, p. 10

    The Prime Minister
    continued his stance on an official apology throughout the community
    debate leading up to Sorry Day on 26 May, 1998, and maintained the distinction
    between addressing concrete issues such as health and housing and the
    symbolic act of apologising.

    Prime Minister
    John Howard will today announce a $10 million expansion of the Army
    assistance program for remote indigenous communities.

    The announcement
    coincides with the start of Reconciliation Week and follows the Government's
    rejection of National Sorry Day.

    Instead Mr
    Howard repeated his commitment to Aboriginal health, housing and education
    and today will double funds to a program he believes reflects this
    approach.

    'It is the
    view of my Government that a formal national apology of the type sought
    by others is not appropriate,' he said.

    Helen McCabe,
    'Reconciliation not sympathy: PM', The Mercury, 27 May 1998,
    p. 19

    An apology

    Much of the debate
    since the release of the Report has focused on whether or not non-Indigenous
    Australians should apologise to Indigenous people stolen from their
    families, and in particular, whether the Prime Minister should have
    offered a national apology. The manner in which the Prime Minister delivered
    his speech at the Reconciliation Convention in May 1997 sparked controversy,
    and made him a personal target in the debate.

    The strong feelings
    about the Australian Government's response to Bringing Them Home
    should not begin and end with a particular individual. The issues are
    wider and more fundamental. There were, for a variety of reasons, many
    other Australians who supported the Prime Minister's refusal to apologise
    as elected leader of this country.

    Acting in his capacity
    as Prime Minister an official apology presented at the Reconciliation
    Convention may have reshaped the environment of debate about this issue.
    As it was, debate became sharply polarised over the issue of an apology,
    and of a day of commemoration.

    This polarisation
    represented a loss in many ways. It was not only a loss of a particularly
    apt symbolic moment, it also obscured the Government's own commitment
    to concrete action in health, housing, employment and education by presenting
    it as an alternative to any symbolic gesture of apology. The Prime Minister's
    position on this was not one of isolation. Other politicians, commentators
    and members of the public echoed the view that 'practical measures'
    and an apology were somehow mutually exclusive.

    In one of
    the most significant speeches of his prime ministership, John Howard
    yesterday laid out a practical program for reconciliation between
    Aborigines and other Australians. It was a program based on cooperation
    rather than confrontation, progress in areas such as Aboriginal health
    rather than ideological grandstanding. ...

    Many at the
    Australian Reconciliation Convention in Melbourne booed and heckled
    the Prime Minister during his speech yesterday. But many more Australians
    outside that venue will applaud his commonsense commitment to real
    change and disregard of superficial gestures.

    Editorial,
    'Black and white go together', The Daily Telegraph, 27 May
    1997, p. 10

    Many non-Indigenous
    Australians remained divided over the issues of compensation and reparation,
    but a great number of people - reflected in part in the level of support
    of community events and letters to the editor - were united in the understanding
    of the need for acknowledgement and apology in order to move on, to
    begin to right the wrongs, and to attempt any kind of meaningful reconciliation.

    The reconciliation
    compromise is assisted by an apology. It is mutually exclusive of
    nothing else. It reinforces Howard's practical moves to attack disadvantage.
    It is nonsense to say these approaches are mutually exclusive. ...

    The past treatment
    of indigenous people is, as Sir William Deane says, 'a matter of national
    shame'. This is the fact; it is the history. Reconciliation is incomprehensible
    without an acceptance of history. Howard insists that Australia must
    look forward. But Australia cannot look forward until it confronts
    its past. The reality is that many Australians are unaware of this
    history or don't want to confront it.

    Paul Kelly,
    'Say sorry and heal the gash', The Australian, 28 May 1997,
    p. 13

    South Australians
    have endorsed calls for a formal apology to the Aboriginal 'stolen
    generation' - but have backed away from compensation.

    An Advertiser
    survey has shown that while 38 per cent of respondents do not believe
    apologies are necessary, a 58 per cent majority supports apologising
    to the stolen children. But only 16 per cent of those people believe
    compensation should be paid. Four per cent were undecided on the issue.

    The poll of
    400 voters, conducted on Wednesday night, comes two weeks after State
    Parliament formally apologised to the stolen children and their families
    for government policies until the 1960s that saw the removal of Aboriginal
    children from their homes.

    The survey
    showed more women (65 per cent) than men (52 per cent) believed an
    apology was necessary. By age group, about 80 per cent of respondents
    aged between 18 and 39 believed apologies should be made, and 40 per
    cent of 18 to 24-year-olds also calling for compensation. In contrast,
    49 per cent of people aged over 55 did not think apologies were needed,
    compared with 47 per cent who did.

    'Most back
    apology, says poll', The Advertiser, 16 June 1997, p. 4

    As ever, it
    seems, 'apology' letters prevail over all others...

    Geraldine
    Walsh, Letters Editor, 'Postscript', The Sydney Morning Herald,
    29 December 1997, p. 8

    Shame/guilt

    A core issue in
    people's feelings about whether or not an apology should be made to
    Indigenous Australians, either on a personal or collective level, turns
    on the difference between the concepts of shame and guilt. There were
    those who expressed the opinion that they personally had done nothing
    wrong, so there was no need for them to apologise. There were many others
    who felt strongly that publicly recognising collective shame is inherently
    linked with sharing national pride.

    Australia
    is very much a reflection of the achievements of the past, a treasure
    trove which generates great pride. No Australian, recounting why they
    love their country, can do so without drawing on the examples set
    by the nation's heroes. It is a pride which is part of a nation's
    heritage is accepted as such. [sic] We do not lay claim as individuals
    for the achievements which created this pride. This is as it should
    be. If we can feel pride for the great moments of our past, and celebrate
    them, isn't it reasonable that we should feel shame at the dark things
    which occurred?

    Feeling ashamed
    for yesterday's actions by a nation does not mean each individual
    of today is guilty of what happened. Such an apology does not mean
    today's Australians can be blamed for shameful events; it means no
    more than that they are sorry that these events occurred. An apology
    is required by many of Australia's Aborigines. It is at the heart
    of the hoped-for reconciliation between black and white Australians.

    Mr Howard,
    at the first national convention on reconciliation in Melbourne, made
    a personal apology to Aborigines 'who suffered injustices under the
    practices of past generations'. He should extend the scope of that
    apology and make it on behalf of all Australians. If Mr Howard cannot
    make such an apology, it should be made by the Federal Parliament.
    Australia will be the better for it being offered. Shame and pride
    are the opposite sides of the same coin. Our pride in our nation will
    be shared by more people, will be more honest in its expression, will
    be strengthened, when the shame of the past is openly acknowledged.

    Editorial,
    'Pride and shame', The Mercury, 28 May 1997, p. 18

    In the wake of
    the release of Bringing Them Home, there was a sense in many
    of the letters to the editor in both the major and regional newspapers
    of Australia being at a crossroads in its national identity. With Wik
    and reconciliation also being widely debated, there was a demand from
    many non-Indigenous Australians that these issues be addressed and resolved
    so that future generations would not have to keep re-visiting them,
    and that the nation could move into the next millennium united, rather
    than divided.

    Sir Ronald Wilson,
    who for many came to represent the non-Indigenous face of Bringing
    Them Home
    , spoke at the Reconciliation Convention about his own
    journey during the process of the Inquiry, and the personal effect it
    had on him. In particular, Sir Ronald conveyed the need for responses
    to this Report to be from the Australian community as a whole, both
    in acknowledging past wrongs and apologising as fundamental steps towards
    reconciliation.

    Let me speak
    personally. I have been changed by my exposure to the stories of my
    fellow Australians, Australians for whom I have now unbounded respect
    because of their courage, their dignity, their suffering and through
    it all their generosity of spirit. ...

    I knew very
    little about the stolen children when I took up this inquiry, but
    as I heard more and more I recognised that the suffering has gone
    so deep and is still being felt today that the stolen children issue
    and its healing by a full hearted response from all Australians is
    fundamental to the success of the reconciliation process.

    The laws and
    policies of non-Indigenous Australia divided the nation. Our denial
    of that truth, our continued denial of that truth holds the division
    in place and without our sincere and frank acknowledgement, without
    a willingness to say we are sorry and to implement that sorrow in
    deeds, coupled with a longing for reconciliation, we can not find
    freedom from the shackles of a divided and deeply wounded nation.
    It is in the national interest that we do so, it's the interest of
    all individual Australians that we do so.

    Sir Ronald
    Wilson, then President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission,
    speech to the Australian Reconciliation Convention, 27 May 1997

    Criticisms of Bringing
    Them Home

    As was to be expected,
    given its subject, there were strong criticisms of the Inquiry, its
    findings and its Report. It was said that the Inquiry was biased, that
    it only focused on the negative stories of removal; that it was not
    representative of most people's experience; that it did not require
    corroboration of witnesses' evidence; that it judged past legislation
    and practices by current standards.

    The 'stolen
    generations' hype gives the impression that all those part-Aborigines
    who were placed in foster care suffered emotionally from the experience.
    No effort appears to be made to establish the conditions in which
    they would have been raised in their natural families. ...

    Like so many
    debates today, we receive only the sensational side. The politically
    incorrect view, no matter how factual, is rarely presented.

    Ron Fischer,
    'Stolen generations received new life', Wimmera Mail Times
    (Horsham), 16 June 1997.

    It is not the purpose
    of this review of responses to Bringing Them Home to engage in
    debate, to defend the methodology of the Inquiry or the findings of
    the Report. However certain criticisms were directed to matters beyond
    the control of the Inquiry: such as its scope.

    Why did the
    Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the previous Labor
    government confine the 'stolen generation' inquiry to the fate of
    Aboriginal children, ignoring the deplorable history of white child
    migration to Australia?...

    It seems to
    me that children brought to this country by an Australian government
    scheme and who suffered the horrors and mismanagement of that scheme
    are as deserving of an apology, monetary compensation and other assistance
    as Aboriginal children who suffered separation.

    Any Report
    tabled by the Government which fails to address the travesties perpetrated
    on white as well as black children will be flawed and properly condemned
    as racially biased, favouring one section of the community - Aborigines
    - for reasons of political correctness.

    Gordon Walsh,
    'More than one 'stolen generation' suffered', Letter to the editor,
    The Courier Mail, 27 May 1997, p. 14

    The Human Rights
    and Equal Opportunity Commission did not determine the subject matter
    of the Inquiry. The terms of reference set by the Attorney-General were
    unambiguous in directing examination of matters affecting 'the separation
    of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families'.
    The rationale for this is clear in that while any child may be separated
    from its family for a variety of reasons, only Indigenous children have
    been subject to separation on the grounds of their race.

    The failure to
    prosecute those who may have committed criminal offences against children
    within their care was another ground of criticism. Yet the Human Rights
    and Equal Opportunity Commission does not have a prosecutorial function.
    Where evidence received by the Inquiry disclosed the potential commission
    of a criminal offence the pursuit of the matter appropriately lay with
    the relevant State, Territory or Commonwealth police and prosecution
    authorities.

    ... Because
    the issues at stake in the 'stolen generations' inquiry are so important,
    and because these involve a number of matters of ongoing and heated
    contention, it was imperative that the Inquiry did everything in its
    power to ensure that its accounts of past practices and its conclusions
    were beyond any reasonable question. Otherwise the painful experiences
    which the Inquiry sought to make known could be easily dismissed or
    ignored, as could their contemporary implications. But the Commissioners
    unwisely seem to have interpreted their role as being that of advocates,
    providing the media with emotive commentaries on evidence as it was
    presented and indicating that they would be promoting the findings
    irrespective of the Government's views.

    And, unfortunately,
    anyone who expects to find a rigorous, sober and factual assessment
    of the past in Bringing Them Home will be sorely disappointed. The
    Report is a most unworthy and tendentious document.

    Amongst its
    many faults, it is poorly argued, it demonstrates considerable intellectual
    and moral confusion, it applies inconsistent principles at different
    times so as to create a 'damned if you do/damned if you don't' situation,
    it misrepresents a number of sources and ignores crucial information,
    and it readily makes major assertions which are either factually wrong
    or unsupported by appropriate evidence. It is immaterial whether these
    defects are a result of a deliberate attempt to distort, or whether
    they stem from the Inquiry's inability to bring the requisite judgement
    and analytical skills to its task. When accounts that purport to make
    people aware of injustices misrepresent events, or omit relevant matters
    for reasons of partiality, or make unfounded claims, they dishonour
    the very people whose interests they claim to uphold. Bringing Them
    Home betrays the Aboriginal victims of the past almost as surely as
    would a Report which attempted to deny their experiences completely.

    Ron Brunton,
    'Betraying the Victims: the 'stolen generations' Report', IPA Backgrounder,
    February 1998, Volume 10/1, pp. 2-3

    In response to
    Ron Brunton's analysis of Bringing Them Home, extracts of which
    appeared in several major newspapers, there was much discussion about
    the validity and accuracy of the Report and its political ramifications.

    ... The tremendous
    emotional impact of the Report, the fact that it is an attempt to
    tell a story that Australia long repressed, and that it is a call
    to the nation to redress a great wrong, all make criticism of the
    Report difficult and suspect. Yet, precisely because it is such an
    important step in coming to terms with the past, and in achieving
    reconciliation, it is important that it be subject to fair-minded
    criticism. It is not the last word on a difficult and painful subject,
    but a foundation which ensures that the voices of those who suffered
    can never again be ignored.

    In particular,
    the Report is not a definitive and rounded treatment of the protection
    and assimilation eras, and could not have been, given the Inquiry's
    limited time and resources. Ordinary experience tells us, as indeed
    the Report itself occasionally hints, that the problems perceived
    by administrators, the motives which determined their responses, the
    changing content and practical effects of their policies and practices
    over the years, and the differences between jurisdictions, were more
    complex and significant than the Report allows.

    It is not
    my task to review the Report, and my comments are simply to emphasise
    that it is not as its uncritical champion that I have agreed to review
    Ron Brunton's booklet, 'Betraying the Victims'.

    I would be
    the first to applaud a critical appraisal of the Report, pointing
    out its limitations and sometimes excessive pretensions, and seeking
    to open up and debate some of the important issues it takes for granted.
    Why then do I find myself angered by 'Betraying the Victims'? To put
    it bluntly, this booklet is a 'hatchet job' that, quite unfairly,
    paints the Report as a dishonest piece of work that no self-respecting
    person would have anything to do with. Far from opening up discussion
    of the Report, it stifles it, polarising people into being either
    for or against the Report. ...

    The very pomposity
    and repetitiveness of [the] claims [made in 'Betraying the Victims']
    suggest that the purpose is not intellectual but political. ... [T]he
    thrust of the booklet is not just to join issue on some of the Report's
    arguments or conclusions, or to correct some alleged errors. It is
    to damn the Report as unworthy of attention, to create such an atmosphere
    of sleaze and suspicion around it that those who want to reject or
    ignore it feel they can comfortably do so. Others will feel that they
    cannot give credence to the Report without doing research they lack
    the time or resources to undertake, so they, too, ignore it. The denigration
    thus becomes an effective weapon for suppression of the whole Report.

    Hal Wootten,
    'Ron Brunton and Bringing Them Home', Indigenous Law Bulletin,
    June 1998, volume 4/12, pp. 4-5

    ... In summary,
    Brunton takes apart the 'stolen children' Report, Bringing Them Home,
    and shows that despite having been chaired by a former High Court
    judge, Sir Ronald Wilson, it has shown scant regard for evidence,
    balance and the credibility of witnesses. While there is no doubt
    that many of the witnesses wept when they recalled their childhood,
    and the hearts of many were wrung, there is more than one cause of
    adult misery than removal from one's parents. Again and again, Brunton
    shows, the Report fails to distinguish between forcible removal, sending
    away of children with consent of their parents, total removal and
    partial (eg, returning to family at weekends) removal, detention imposed
    for repeated delinquency preceding any removal, spells in hospitals
    and schools, and the saving of children from physical and sexual abuse
    within their own family and by others.

    While the
    evidence given by witnesses to the commission cannot be ignored, neither
    can it for the most part be checked against other sources of evidence.
    Most of the witnesses were anonymous. Little or no attempt was made
    to cross check their evidence with what is on official record. ...

    Everybody
    accepts that many terrible things were done to our Aboriginal peoples
    by European settlers and colonial societies. But to demand an apology
    and compensation for a policy which has yet to have been established
    to have been universal, without fair and judicious examination of
    what actually happened, is conducive to neither reconciliation nor
    the future welfare of Aborigines.

    Padraic P.
    McGuinness, 'We need a closer look at the stolen children', The
    Sydney Morning Herald
    , 5 March 1998, p. 17

    I agree with
    the headline of Padraic McGuinness's article, 'We need a closer look
    at the stolen children', but not with his comments on Bringing Them
    Home. He needs to look more carefully at the Report himself, because
    the quotes he has given from Brunton's book collapse on reading what
    is actually written in the Report.

    The inquiry
    dealt only with 'forced removals'. Removals which occurred after the
    free consent of parents or guardians were not considered. The children
    were not 'returned for the weekends'. Throughout the Report extracts
    from relevant government Reports, parliamentary debates and official
    statistics are juxtaposed with the personal testimonies of the people
    appearing before the commission.

    The witnesses
    were not 'anonymous' to the commissioners but their identity is protected
    in the public domain of the written Report. Bringing Them Home records
    only a fraction of what has happened to Aboriginal people in this
    country; it is far from being 'overstated'.

    Read Bringing
    Them Home. Ask any Aboriginal family about their experience, and then
    do a reality check on Ron Brunton's claims. Do take a closer look.

    Rosemary Kinne,
    'Look closely', The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 March 1998, p.
    14

    Genocide

    Perhaps the most
    contentious issue raised by Bringing Them Home was the finding
    that the policies which forcibly removed Indigenous children from their
    families constituted genocide.

    Genocide is a crime
    against humanity. The crime of genocide does not necessarily mean the
    immediate physical destruction of the group. The Convention on the
    Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
    , which was adopted
    by the United Nations in 1948 and ratified by Australia in 1949, defines
    genocide in Article II:

    In the present
    Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with
    intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial
    or religious group, as such:

    (a) Killing members
    of the group;

    (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm of members of the group;

    (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
    to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

    (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the groups

    (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

    The Inquiry's examination
    of historical documents found that the clear intent of removal policies
    was to absorb, merge or assimilate children so that Aboriginal people,
    as a distinct racial group, would disappear.

    Policies and laws
    may be genocidal even if they are not motivated by animosity or hatred.
    The Inquiry found that a principal aim was to eliminate Indigenous cultures
    as distinct entities. The fact that people may have believed they were
    removing Indigenous children for 'their own good' was immaterial. The
    removal remains genocidal.

    For most Australians,
    the popular understanding of the term 'genocide' conjures up images
    only of deliberate, mass killings. In that context even those who acknowledged
    that past practices of forcibly removing Indigenous children from their
    families were destructive and racist, found it difficult to accept that
    Australia had engaged in genocidal practices.

    The commission,
    unfortunately, does the cause of reconciliation over this issue a
    serious disservice when it describes the removal programs as amounting
    to genocide. ...

    The effect
    of this sort of extremist embellishment will be to make it easier
    for unsympathetic people to reject the Report - and make it harder
    to develop a political and community consensus that an act of reconciliation
    is appropriate.

    Editorial,
    'Recognition of a past disgrace', The Australian, 21 May 1997,
    p. 12

    The story
    of the separated families, now finally coming out, is, I think, the
    one experience of theirs about which other Australians can feel the
    way Aborigines do. ...

    Bringing Them
    Home has immense power as a cry of anguish but many flaws and imbalances
    as history. It cannot be considered as more than raw material in the
    process of public decision-making. Pedantic discussion - without considering
    the question of ill-will - of whether removal of children from their
    families constitutes 'genocide' under United Nations conventions is
    sensationalism that detracts from the gravitas of the report. ...

    This said,
    the brutality of the assault on Aboriginal families should never again
    escape public awareness and must surely influence future efforts at
    reconciliation. Critical parliamentary study of Bringing Them Home
    might appropriately culminate in a fervent expression of regret passed
    unanimously by a joint sitting of the two houses.

    Frank Devine,
    'Yes, cry for the children but no more sackcloth and ashes', The
    Australian
    , 2 June 1997, p. 13

    ... I am confident
    that we will eventually have a more complicated history than is given
    in the stolen generation report, and that it will somewhat redeem
    this dark period of our history. We know already that the actors in
    the program include those with a clear and brutal genocidal intention,
    those whose intentions were not genocidal, and those whose intentions
    were uncomplicatedly good. We do not know their proportions. Let us
    hope that there are far more of the last category than Bringing Them
    Home suggests. Even so, it will not alter the fact that a terrible
    evil was committed against our indigenous peoples and that its rightful
    name is genocide.

    Raimond Gaita,
    'Peace Crimes', The Weekend Australian, 5 July 1997, p. 24

    Compensation

    During the Inquiry
    and after the report was released, many people - Indigenous and non-Indigenous
    - said that what was required first and foremost was a recognition of
    the racism of past laws, policies and practices that forcibly removed
    Indigenous children from their families, an acknowledgement of their
    devastating effects on the Indigenous community, and an apology. The
    primary importance of recognition and apology was not intended to exclude
    further, more tangible compensation. However, for many non-Indigenous
    people acts of acknowledgement and apology became both paramount and
    exclusive. Ironically for some the very depth of emotional trauma suffered
    was taken to put the issue beyond compensation.

    The issue of monetary
    compensation remains highly contentious. While many non-Indigenous people
    had no difficulty accepting that past policies and practices which removed
    Indigenous children from their families were racist, it seems that the
    issue of compensation taps into more deeply held prejudices about Indigenous
    people. Myths about government handouts and 'special treatment' for
    Aboriginal people have fed into the argument that compensation to the
    stolen generations would be 'divisive'.

    The report
    is clearly well-intentioned but misguided in its recommendation that
    a tribunal should be established to work out compensation payments
    to people affected by the former policy.

    Such payments
    would expose Aborigines to the unfair but highly probable criticism
    that they want to exploit their emotional traumas for financial gain.
    There is already an unacceptable level of antagonism in Australian
    society towards Aborigines because of the special help they get from
    governments. The compensation plan would broaden and intensify this.
    ...

    The best compensation
    governments can offer to Aborigines is effectiveness in helping them
    to overcome the shameful disadvantages in health, education, housing
    and employment that make their communities the most deprived in the
    nation. This is not a matter necessarily of more money, but of political
    will and determination. A commitment by the Government to achieve
    significant improvements should be part of the negotiations for reconciliation.

    Editorial,
    'Aboriginal progress is the answer', The West Australian, 26
    May 1997, p. 12

    The endless
    outpourings of moral outrage over John Howard's refusal to say sorry
    has again served to distract Australians from the fundamental issue
    of compensation for the stolen generations of Aborigines.

    No amount
    of illusion over symbolic gestures should be allowed to disguise this.
    The simple fact is that the quest for cold hard cash has driven the
    stolen generations agenda ever since the week-long Going Home conference
    in Darwin in 1994. ...

    David Nason,
    'No apology, just a big bill: Australia will be sorry indeed when
    it must pay for the policies that created the Aboriginal stolen generations',
    The Australian, 2 June 1998, p. 13

    The Government
    can't be expected to take blame for something a past government did.
    ...

    This is not
    to say that the majority of Australians, black or white, do not feel
    sorry for injustices suffered by their fellow citizens. But saying
    I feel sorry for you is different from saying I apologise.

    The only reason
    an apology is being pushed for is so that it can be relied on as an
    admission of guilt and grounds for monetary compensation - make no
    mistake about this.

    If our politicians,
    so-called Aboriginal leaders and other reconciliation enthusiasts
    want something to cry about, or hold a minute's silence for, they
    should get out and look at the appalling health conditions, lack of
    housing and the shameful level of education among our black fellow
    Australians.

    G. Guidice,
    'An apology means money', The West Australian, 13 June 1997,
    p. 12

    Native Title

    Unlike native title,
    the legal technicalities of which many non-Indigenous Australians find
    overly complex and confusing, the issue of the stolen children affected
    many people very strongly. They were able to make an act of personal
    identification with the issue, and to recognise that both raise fundamental
    questions of human rights.

    Links between the
    two have arisen. Many non-Indigenous people have come out strongly in
    support of native title in the past 12 months through becoming involved
    with the reconciliation movement because they felt strongly about the
    stolen children. The activities of Women for Wik and ANTaR most clearly
    demonstrate this linkage.

    Even those
    Australians overwhelmed by the complexities of Mabo and Wik could
    not fail to grasp the human tragedy set in motion by the decisions
    of state governments decades ago to remove Aboriginal children from
    their families and forcibly assimilate them into white society. While
    'terra nullius' and 'native title' remain for many people obscure
    terms for lawyers and politicians to quibble over, it requires no
    special insight to appreciate the anguish caused by the enforced break-up
    of families. It is time for the Federal Government to acknowledge
    the psychological and, in some cases, physical harm that was done
    to the stolen generations and to offer them the nation's apology.

    Editorial,
    'A page of our history too dark to ignore', The Courier Mail,
    24 May 1997, p. 22

    Other voices

    In the wake of
    the Inquiry it was not just the voices of those who were stolen from
    their families that affected non-Indigenous Australia, it was also those
    of the non-Indigenous foster and adoptive parents, church and community
    leaders speaking of their experiences.

    Julie Lavelle's
    pain as one of the 'stolen generation' (Herald, May 20) may never
    be recognised by the Government, but as an adoptive mother I can acknowledge
    her pain. I have seen it in my own children.

    It has been
    very difficult for me to accept that no matter what I did or how 'good'
    a mother I tried to be, the loss my children felt would still be there.
    My daughter has tried to fill the emptiness with things that almost
    destroyed her. Thankfully her wonderful spirit has pulled her through.

    Our children
    have always known they are Aboriginal and adopted and we have tried
    to bring them up to be proud of who they are, but the great tide of
    ignorance and racism now being unearthed by Pauline Hanson has taken
    its toll.

    When we adopted
    our children in 1977 and 1980, we believed their mothers wanted them
    to be adopted. Now I am not so sure. I find the TV programs on the
    'stolen generation' almost too painful to watch and I am filled with
    guilt. However, I am also coming to believe that adoptive parents
    were also victims of the system.

    I want my
    children to find their natural families, to clean the wound and fill
    it with hope, and peace of mind. I acknowledge your pain, Julie, and
    the pain of my children, and the pain of mothers who had their children
    wrenched from them. And I acknowledge my own grief and pain as an
    adoptive mother.

    Sue Olsen,
    'Time to right such terrible wrongs', Letter to the editor, The
    Sydney Morning Herald
    , 22 May 1997, p. 14

    There are Indigenous
    people removed from their families and communities in circumstances
    which fall outside the Inquiry's terms of reference, but their experiences
    were similar to those of the stolen generations. These individuals serve
    to highlight the fact that even without legislation specifically directed
    at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, Indigenous people were
    adversely affected by the child welfare system. Their experience raises
    the question of the degree to which the practices of past removals continue
    in current practice.

    Contemporary separations

    Much of the debate
    following the tabling of Bringing Them Home focused on past removals.
    The debate has overshadowed the large section of the Report on contemporary
    separations of Indigenous children from their families and communities.
    People find it easier to acknowledge and confront historical wrongs
    which do not implicate them personally, rather than to take responsibility
    for current discrimination, such as the vastly disproportionate rates
    of Indigenous juvenile arrest and detention.

    Acknowledging
    the past for whatever reason is not about guilt, it is about history.

    No self-respecting
    democracy can deny its history. It is not a symptom of guilt to look
    reality in the face, it is a symptom of guilt to look away and pretend
    that it does not exist. How can anybody hope to gain an insight into
    the present if they have no understanding of the past?

    How can we,
    as a nation, hope to move forward if we continue to say, 'I was not
    there, I was not responsible'? It is now on our shoulders because
    it will be our great grandchildren who will blame us for not being
    responsible when the opportunity arose.

    No doubt the
    same words will be spoken: 'I was not there, I was not responsible'.

    A. Weston,
    'No denials', Letter to the editor, The West Australian, 10
    June 1997, p. 12

    How should non-Indigenous
    people respond?

    Since the release
    of Bringing Them Home, many non-Indigenous Australians have been
    looking for ways to personally respond to the issue of the stolen children
    and injustices experienced by Indigenous people in general.

    Today I sent
    a sympathy card to the parents and the children of the stolen generation,
    care of Mr Mick Dodson, inquiry commissioner, the Human Rights and
    Equal Opportunity Commission.

    I sent it
    on the premise that if a neighbour lost a parent or a child, I would
    send a card to indicate that they had my sincerest sympathy in the
    hope that they would be comforted by my support.

    At no time
    would my neighbours assume that this meant that I was in any way responsible
    for their loss. Nor would I be expected to compensate them in any
    way. But I would give them any assistance within my means to help
    them through their sorrow so that they could progress through the
    grieving process.

    There is very
    little that I, as an individual, can do to assist with the reconciliation
    process. However, if many other like-minded individuals also sent
    a sympathy card, c/- Mr Dodson, the Aboriginal community will hear
    as offering our sympathy and our emotional support.

    The Prime
    Minister is between a rock and a hard place. He has offered his sympathy
    as an individual, but, as PM, he will be damned if he does and damned
    if he doesn't. This is not a political issue, it is a social issue.
    Perhaps a show of sympathy and support will help our society progress
    to the next step.

    I shall also
    ask schools if they will inquire about the possibility of Aboriginal
    elders coming to the classroom to educate our children in regard to
    Aboriginal culture in the hope that the reconciliation process will
    flow more freely in the next generation. We can't erase the past,
    but perhaps by educating our children about the destructive ramifications
    on the Australian community we may prevent it from happening again.

    Perhaps the
    Aboriginal elders will then follow our lead and with education help
    their community to overcome its ingrained prejudices against our white
    society so that their children will be free to live in both cultures
    with success.

    I hope that
    somewhere out there are other individuals who want Australia to have
    a better future and who are prepared to give this idea a chance to
    work.

    Michelle Dodd,
    'Send a sympathy card', Letter to the editor, The West Australian,
    11 June 1997, p. 13

    Many Australians
    have sent messages of sympathy and letters of apology to the Human Rights
    and Equal Opportunity Commission since the release of Bringing Them
    Home
    . In particular people wanted to respond personally to former
    Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Mick
    Dodson, and former President, Sir Ronald Wilson, who were closely identified
    publicly with the Report and the individuals who spoke about their experiences
    to the Inquiry.

    People's movement

    The responses of
    many non-Indigenous people to Bringing Them Home have constituted
    a strong and active people's movement.

    People power
    to urge the holding of a national 'sorry day' is one way for us ordinary
    people to respond to the stolen children Report. ...

    We can say
    'sorry' in a meaningful way to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders
    who have been separated from their cultures, their lands, their communities
    and their families, without having to feel personally guilty for what
    has been (and still continues to be) inflicted on them by our public
    institutions. ...

    Where the
    people lead, the leaders will follow.

    M. Lane, 'We'll
    have to lead our leaders', Letter to the editor, The Canberra Times,
    1 November 1997, p. 6

    Liberal backbencher
    Peter Nugent joined forces with two Opposition colleagues yesterday
    to launch a public fund to help implement the recommendations of the
    stolen children Report. He denied the fund was needed because of Government
    neglect.

    The brainchild
    of Labor senator Margaret Reynolds, the fund would provide counselling
    and education for the children forcibly removed from their families,
    their descendants, and the broader community, Mr Nugent said.

    'We look to
    government to do its part as well, but clearly you can't expect government
    to do everything, and I think there is a responsibility on the broader
    community to get involved, and I think this gives them an opportunity
    to do just that.'

    Aban Contractor,
    'Stolen children bring all parties together', The Canberra Times,
    28 August 1997, p. 5

    Many events organised
    by individuals in their local community had a powerful effect on the
    Indigenous and non-Indigenous people involved.

    Perth car
    dealer Denis McInerney has a one-word answer to any suggestion that
    churches and governments are doing enough to make amends for the damage
    done in trying to assimilate indigenous people into Western culture
    - bull....

    'They are
    part of what happened and they have an obligation to stand up and
    right the wrongs of the past,' he said.

    The head of
    McInerney Ford is one of the community members who have joined forces
    under the banner of the Stolen Generations Action Group to ensure
    former human rights and equal opportunity commissioner Sir Ronald
    Wilson's Bringing Them Home Report does not gather dust.

    'Lobby group
    urges church, State action', The West Australian, 16 February
    1998, p. 10

    There was
    standing room only as 350 people crowded into the Uniting Church hall
    on Tuesday evening to hear Mick Dodson, Aboriginal and Torres Strait
    Islander Social Justice Commissioner, and Barbara Nicholson, a local
    Indigenous woman, speak of the past policies of forcibly removing
    Indigenous children from their families and to share stories of their
    own removal.

    The meeting
    was organised in order to present Mr Dodson with a petition that had
    been signed by over 2,500 local residents to formally apologise for
    the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their family homes.
    The apology was signed in the spirit of sincere contrition and national
    reconciliation, the signatures having been collected since the release
    of the 'Stolen Children' Report - Bringing Them Home - in May this
    year. The Report has so far failed to elicit an apology from the Federal
    Government.

    Southern
    Highlands News
    , 5 December 1997

    We, the undersigned
    citizens of the Southern Highlands, in the absence of national leadership
    wish to express to the Aboriginal people of Australia our deepest
    shame and sincere regret for the harm and distress caused by the policies
    and actions of previous governments and religious and community groups
    in the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their family homes.
    We extend this heartfelt apology in a spirit of sincere contrition
    and national reconciliation.

    Statement
    of apology by the Southern Highlands community, 2 December 1997

    Don't use
    me as an excuse, Mr Howard. I am one of the 40 per cent of Australians
    born overseas.

    On December
    2, at a public meeting in Bowral, I stood up before Mick Dodson, Betty
    Little and other Aboriginal people and said I was sorry for the pain
    all Aboriginal people suffered these past 200 years.

    This was not
    an admission of guilt but an expression of empathy for their suffering.
    I will only feel guilt if now, having learned about the stolen generations
    and the dispossession of their lands, I do nothing to help Aboriginal
    people overcome the past and build a better future.

    I became an
    Australian out of affection and pride in my new country. Right now,
    Mr Howard, I feel I want to renounce that citizenship.

    Jane Pollard,
    'Sincere apologies cost nothing', letter to the editor, The Sydney
    Morning Herald
    , 15 December, 1997, p. 16

    Sorry Day

    Just how emotive
    can one two-syllable word be?

    In the case
    of 'sorry' it can prompt a gamut of feelings from profound sorrow,
    sadness and regret to bitterness, anger and in some cases, disdain.
    At least that was the response from Herald readers last week during
    the big Sorry Day debate which dominated the page for four days.

    Readers were
    divided between those who called for an apology over the Stolen Children
    so that reconciliation could be achieved between black and white Australians
    and those who doggedly maintained that they were in no way responsible
    for the actions of others and that no apology was needed or justified.
    One feeling was that those who removed children acted only out of
    the best intentions. Another suggestion was that Aborigines themselves
    should express forgiveness for injustices done against them as a step
    towards reconciliation.

    In the end,
    more people wrote in favour of Sorry Day than against it.

    Kerry Myers,
    Letters Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June 1998, p.
    18

    Although Sorry
    Day was the subject of a recommendation in Bringing Them Home
    directed at the Federal Government, the original idea and the result
    came from the community. The idea initially came from Link-Up (NSW),
    and in the absence of Federal Government endorsement of the recommendation,
    national and regional committees of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people
    made it happen on 26 May 1998. The Commission was not formally involved
    in the planning of Sorry Day, and the decision for the day to be held
    on the anniversary of the tabling of Bringing Them Home was a
    decision of the National Sorry Day Committee. [4]

    The national Sorry
    Day reignited much of the community debate about the stolen children.

    I have received
    a letter from the East Waikiki Primary School explaining that an assembly
    will be held to commemorate the 'First National Sorry Day' at the
    school.

    Would someone
    please let me know why this is being held at a primary school? There
    are children aged between five and 12 who are being forced to participate
    in a function which has nothing to do with them. They can't understand
    or care what it is all about.

    Most of the
    children who attend this particular school are of migrant or mixed
    parentage and their ancestors had nothing to do with the infamy that
    was carried out by a racist government. They are all pure Australians,
    but for these children to be made to stand up and say sorry is absolutely
    appalling and tantamount to being discriminated against by the [Western
    Australian] Government which, as the letter says, fully endorses such
    an action.

    I will not
    allow my child to participate in such an assembly and from the reaction
    of more than 70 per cent of the parents who have complained to the
    headmaster, neither will they allow their children to participate.
    ...

    The Government
    has a Sorry Book which can be signed by anybody who cares to. Surely
    a better idea would be to circulate this book to all schools and have
    those who want to express their sorrow sign it rather than have baby
    students, such as my daughter, participate in what can only be described
    as a vote-seeking, headline-grabbing exercise?

    S. Dale, 'Sorry
    Day assembly at a primary school?', Letter to the editor, The West
    Australian
    , 25 May 1998, p. 12

    It was with
    disbelief that I read the letter from S. Dale about Sorry Day. It
    is the attitudes of people like them that our children and our children's
    children will be apologising for in the future.

    Surely, even
    if we don't directly owe the Aboriginal people a personal apology
    for what our ancestors did, just think for a moment about what you
    may have done.

    Maybe they
    deserve an apology for every time you crossed the street in the city
    to avoid them or every time you sat on the other side of the train
    to avoid making eye contact. What about all of the racist jokes you
    have laughed at or all of the times you have made some comment about
    the Aboriginal dole bludgers buying booze.

    It is our
    generation that should be sorry. We can't hide behind the facade,
    which our ancestors did, of not knowing any better. We know that the
    Aboriginal people deserve better than they get, but so long as people
    like S. Dale are depriving their children of taking part in educational
    activities such as Sorry Day, nothing is really going to change.

    Kerren O'Dea,
    'We can't hide any longer', Letter to the editor, The West Australian,
    27 May 1998, p. 12

    The commission's
    report suggests that there should be an annual 'sorry day'. This is
    unrealistic: it is asking too much to expect governments to display
    their shame continually; they, with some reason, will want to put
    the problems of the past behind them and move on with the business
    of governing. If 'sorry day' is to become a regular occasion, it can
    only be as a community event.

    Editorial,
    'Recognition of a past disgrace', The Australian, 21 May 1997,
    p. 12

    So honest
    John's Government has rejected an annual Day of Sorrow... even before
    tabling the Stolen Children Report for popular discussion.

    Well, to hell
    with the politicians. Let mainstream Australians join in a voluntary
    Day of Sorrow - or Day of Acknowledgement if you prefer. Take leave
    without pay for one day a year to gather in the streets and acknowledge
    the devastation our governments wrought on our fellow citizens from
    1883 to 1969.

    The day is
    not a grovel for the past but an opportunity to celebrate a bright,
    united future 'for all of us'.

    Paul Mason,
    'Three little words: we are sorry', Letter to the editor, The Sydney
    Morning Herald
    , 24 May 1997, p. 40

    The 'sorry
    book' for the Aboriginal people tells a story of its own. It tells
    of a race of people demanding an apology from another race of people
    for something that happened long ago that only the people involved
    in the original 'offence' can possibly correct or apologise for.

    Instead of
    seeking an apology from a prime minister of a country who has absolutely
    nothing to do with what happened (therefore being vindicated of any
    need to say sorry on behalf of the people of history), I wonder if
    there is another answer to the problem?

    If the Aboriginal
    community so desperately desires a release from a wrong to their people
    some years ago so as to build a bridge of unity between races, why
    does it not think of the obvious answer which would show the nations
    of the world how to live in unity and in peace?

    The solution
    - the leaders of the Aboriginal communities should publicly declare
    to the world and themselves that they forgive the people who offended
    them and robbed them. This would show two things: That the Aboriginal
    race deserves respect and recognition as a people and that the people
    transgressed against will not flow down a path of bitterness or resentment
    but will rather embrace today and let the past die. ...

    Yes, the Aboriginal
    people were blatantly abused - to demand an apology shows nowhere
    near as much maturity as would be displayed with a public declaration
    of forgiveness. The world would applaud with respect.

    D. Barnes,
    'Forgiveness is a beautiful solution', Letter to the editor, The
    West Australian
    , 30 January 1998, p. 13

    Criticisms of the
    call for an apology to the stolen generations often seek to polarise
    the issue as an Indigenous/non-Indigenous one. This disregards the strong
    support from many non-Indigenous Australians for personal and national
    apologies. Indeed, the most strident calls for a national apology appear
    to come from the non-Indigenous community.

    It is astounding
    that so many objected to the concept of 'sorry books'.

    None of my
    ancestors actively participated in the deaths or oppression of Aboriginal
    Australians, but they did belong to a society that permitted such
    atrocities to occur.

    I am sorry
    that up until 1968, the year before my birth, Aboriginal Australians
    were not permitted to vote.

    I am sorry
    that children were systematically removed from their homes, simply
    because of the colour of their skin and economic status.

    I am sorry
    that a society in which my ancestors lived enslaved, raped and murdered
    countless Aboriginal Australians.

    Finally, I
    am sorry that there are still people today who believe they have nothing
    to apologise for. I truly feel sorry for these people.

    Melissa Baker,
    'Plenty to apologise for', Letter to the editor, The Daily Telegraph,
    2 February, 1998

    Sorry books
    for the blacks! Fine. But if sorry books for the whites aren't also
    available at councils and elsewhere, then this approach is indefensibly
    a very sorry one-sided handshake and, transparently, very discriminatory
    and Deane, very transparently, is not for all Australians.

    S.A. Millar,
    'What about sorry books for the whites?', Letter to the editor, The
    Australian Financial Review
    , 20 April 1998, p. 18

    Essendon footballers
    will wear black armbands in support of the Aboriginal stolen generation
    when they meet Melbourne at the MCG on Saturday.

    The gesture
    is seen by players as part of the reconciliation process and the apology
    by white Australians to Aborigines.

    'Footballers
    to mark Sorry Day', Northern Territory News, 20 May 1998, p.3

    Football commentator
    Eddie McGuire said it didn't matter that present generations were
    not responsible for the acts.

    'We've got
    people who are fellow Australians who have been aggrieved and I think
    it's just a good way for all Australians together as one nation to
    apologise to those people who did suffer,' he said.

    'We want to
    say sorry', Herald Sun, 22 May 1998, p. 18

    The decision,
    which at heart was a grassroots one, to mark the first anniversary
    of the release of the Human Rights Commission report on the 'stolen
    generations' (Bringing Them Home) with a Sorry Day produced controversy
    and, it must be said, division. But that does not mean that it was
    a futile exercise. On the contrary, the fact that Sorry Day itself
    became a discussion that dominated much of the week will have focused
    attention on past policies towards indigenous Australians and on the
    more general issue of black-white relations. From that kind of attention
    often come insight and agreement. The division over Sorry Day has
    not vindicated the Federal Government's decision against an apology
    on behalf of the nation to the stolen generations. Nor has it justified
    that position.

    Editorial,
    'Hardest word', The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 May 1998, p.
    46


    1.
    For example, see Brunton, R. 'Betraying the Victims: the 'stolen generations'
    Report', IPA Backgrounder, February 1998, Volume 10/1; and McGuinness,
    P. P., 'We need a closer look at the stolen children', The Sydney
    Morning Herald
    , 5 March 1998, p. 17.

    2.
    For example, see also 'Most back apology, says poll', The Advertiser,
    16 June 1997, p. 4; and Mervyn Smythe and Associates, 'An analysis of
    the media coverage of Bringing Them Home: The Report of the National
    Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
    Children from their Families', conducted for the Human Rights and Equal
    Opportunity Commission, funded by the Australian Institute for Aboriginal
    and Torres Strait Islander Studies, June 1998.

    3.
    Mervyn Smythe and Associates, 'An analysis of the media coverage of
    Bringing Them Home: The Report of the National Inquiry into the
    Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their
    Families', conducted for the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission,
    funded by the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
    Islander Studies, June 1998.

    4.
    Carol Kendall and Greg Thompson chaired the National Sorry Day Committee.
    A transcript of the Sorry Day statement is found in Appendix 3.

    3
    April 2003.