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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1602 ..
Motion
MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (10.39): I ask for leave to move a motion relating to the Bringing them home report.
Leave granted.
MRS CARNELL: Thank you very much. I move:
That this Assembly:
(1) apologises to the Ngun(n)awal people and other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the ACT for the hurt and distress inflicted upon any people as a result of the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families;
(2) assures the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this Territory that the Assembly regards the past practices of forced separation as abhorrent and expresses our sincere determination that they will not happen in the ACT;
(3) affirms its commitment to a just and proper outcome for both the grievances of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people adversely affected by those policies and the recommendations of the Bringing them home Report;
(4) acknowledges that the Government is negotiating a Regional Agreement with the Ngun(n)awal people in relation to the Ngunnawal Native Title claim in the ACT; and
(5) by this resolution seeks to take an important step in the healing process which is fundamental to reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the non-indigenous members of the ACT community.
Mr Speaker, it is with pleasure that I move the tabled motion, which I understand everyone agrees to, in response to the Bringing them home report. As you are aware, Bringing them home, the Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families, was presented to the Commonwealth Government in April 1997 by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The report was tabled in the Federal Parliament on 26 May 1997 and presents a compelling review of past and contemporary separation of indigenous children from their families.
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