Unfinished Business - Reparations and Reconciliation
Address by Shelley Reys, Co-Chair, Reconciliation Australia
At the outset, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we are meeting on here today the Tharawal people. I acknowledge their ancient and continuing cultures, and the role they play in the life of this region. I also acknowledge those gone before us and those here today, who have suffered at the hands of assimilation policies.
I. Introduction
As Phil said during his introduction I am the co-chair, together with Fred Chaney, of Reconciliation Australia. Reconciliation Australia is the new and independent organisation established to provide and encourage an ongoing national focus and leadership for the process of reconciliation following the cessation of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation on 31 December 2000.
Now that the Council has ended its work, our organisation certainly has some core responsibilities for addressing the unfinished business of reconciliation. The issue we are here to discuss this morning is a central part of this.
This unfinished business is the business of all Australians, as with every element of Australia's journey toward true reconciliation it lies in the hands of the people -and of all governments, peak bodies and community organisations which represent them and are responsible to them. It's a challenge for all of us because getting it right is vital to our future together and to our nation's sense of identity, purpose and pride.
In the last six months of last year, we saw one million Australians walk for reconciliation in cities and towns across the length and breadth of our land. Together they walked across bridges in the largest public demonstration for a cause in Australia's history.
The bridge walks were a symbolic act. They symbolized that together we can cross the divides between Indigenous Australians and the wider community through reflection of how far we've come & the unfinished business we're yet to deal with. These divides stem from our history which like it or not, we share together is not just history, it is Australian history. But together we can right the wrongs, and together we can work to bring about that true reconciliation which so many Australians want.
That outpouring of public support we saw last year showed that reconciliation truly had become a people's movement with a relentless momentum. The challenge for all of us now is to translate that momentum into tangible outcomes which will make a real difference to the lives and circumstances of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Such outcomes will be the measure of our progress towards true reconciliation.
Unfortunately, over the last few years, certainly in the four years since the tabling of the Bringing Them Home Report, we have seen public debate which has done more to reopen the wounds of the past rather than heal them. There is nothing to be gained from semantic debate about the words "stolen", "removed", or "separated". As all of us here well know, we cannot allow mere semantics to distract us from the issue itself. Playing with words does not change the fact that too many Indigenous people continue to suffer tremendous grief as a result of government policies and practices of the past.
How many people is irrelevant but if it was only one in ten people as the Federal government stated last year, by most accounts, this would equate to one person in every family and tens more from every community.
The Prime Minister has been noted as saying that he does not wish to argue about "what may or may not have happened" but to look to the future for the answers.
I agree and disagree...let me explain.
What all Australians need to do is, by virtue of the facts (as displayed in the Bringing Them Home Report and others), admit that these events took place as Dumisa highlighted. We need to then understand that these events took place on the basis of race, not on the basis of unfit family members. In many cases, the welfare boards did not assess Indigenous families' abilities to care for the child, but presumed and preempted an outcome based on their heritage. This is important to note.
Loss of contact with parents for whatever reason is a tragedy and where it occurred without regard to the direct welfare of the child, it is a very unhappy part of our history. It is often said that our children are our future. How we treat our children, & how we allow them to be treated, reveals much about ourselves, and our values as a society.
Part of this acknowledgement is to also acknowledge that the effects of such removal are still being felt today - from those who survived it, and those who are survived by their parents whose culture is fragmented by the loss of language and family. To question whether it may or may not have happened retards this country's ability to deal with the matter, and so retards its progress towards true reconciliation. This is why the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation always strongly stated that a formal national apology, in the light of our shared history, would be a crucial element of reconciliation.
So what we need to do, as a nation, is move beyond the question of "did it happen" and move on to "we acknowledge it happened, how can we heal ourselves and each other so that the pain is less of a wound in our side, pinching and aggravating our ability to walk forward".
For Indigenous people, we need to come to terms with the fact that this government is not ready to offer an apology, that a government sometime in our future will, and in the meantime find a way to move forward. We need to find ways of dealing with our pain in the absence of an apology.
For our many supporters in the wider community, they too need to find a way of dealing with their pain. I've met many non-Indigenous people who are now aware that they or their families took part in the removal of Indigenous children from their families either knowingly or unknowingly, and as a result, feel ashamed, betrayed and sorry. Many feel overwhelmed and even embarrassed that Indigenous people are gracious enough to continue to talk through these issues with them, in spite of the pain and suffering.
It is not a question of guilt. While we all have varied experience, I have not met many Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who would like other Australians to feel guilty (one of the virtues of our inclusive and generous culture I suspect), but instead ask for basic acknowledgement of the facts, as a means of establishing a path to reconciliation.
Reconciliation Australia recently released its first three year strategic plan which provides the framework by which we seek to inject substance into the term reconciliation and to ensure that progress is measured by real changes in the relationships between Indigenous peoples and the wider community.
1. To achieve social & economical independence for indigenous Australians
2. Strengthen the PM
And to acknowledge the past and build a framework for a shared future. We have developed a range of strategies aimed at achieving this goal - the strategy most relevant to today's discussion is titled healing the past, building the future. This strategy acknowledges that any quest for reconciliation has to be based on an understanding of the tragic history of Aboriginal child removal and the general recognition in Australia of what this episode signifies for both Indigenous people and other Australians.
We have committed ourselves to support and, where appropriate, participate in developing alternatives to litigation that advance the journey of healing for those people who are directly affected.
On issues as important as this Reconciliation Australia will take its lead, as we all should, from those most affected by the process of forced removal. We will be guided by the outcomes of this conference, the results of the consultation project undertaken by PIAC, ATSIC and the National Sorry Day Committee, and the feedback from our own extensive networks.
One of our directors, Jackie Huggins, sits on the Stolen Generations Reference Group convened by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and Jackie has provided the Board with guidance on the issue to date and will continue to do so.
I understand that during yesterday's discussions and for the remainder of today you have all been asked to consider issues such as defining reparations, the functions and role of a reparations tribunal and eligibility criteria. None of these are easy issues and none can be considered in isolation of a whole range of other important considerations.
While the process may be difficult we can all take heart from the fact that there are positive and constructive models already developed in other parts of the world that may guide us on our journey. You would be aware, perhaps from presentations made yesterday, of how the Canadians are going about healing the pain arising from the experiences of what they called "Residential Schools".
As a result of these experiences the Canadian Government has supported the development of a set of detailed guiding principles (developed by those Indigenous peoples and others most directly affected) to undertake a process of restoration and reconciliation through alternative dispute resolution.
This approach has now been successfully piloted in many parts of Canada and the results are reputedly very effective in many cases.
Obviously we can't just automatically transplant such approaches here, but perhaps we can think about and learn from this and other such innovative approaches to ensure that the process we decide on achieves real results.
I believe there
is a way forward.
With political goodwill, with community goodwill. With a 'whole of Australia'
approach. If we can transform that goodwill into something tangible
- something that translates good words & sentiment into action -
then a process of healing can begin. True reconciliation is our ability
to turn words into action, this should not be something we merely hope
for, but deserve.
I thank you.
