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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1607 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

Mr Speaker, there is a sad side to the story today when children from Third World countries are adopted to parents from another country and another culture, because those children lose their culture and their country. But that is a trade-off because in their native land they would not fare well in an orphanage. They lose their country but they gain parents. They gain a family, they gain love, they gain closeness and they gain care. For the loss of their birth country, they gain a family that truly wants them. In the case of the Aboriginal babies and the toddlers and the young children, they lost all round. Most of the children lost their families to live in an orphanage. They lost their culture to be left in limbo. Divorced from their natural land and people, they were certainly not accepted into white society. In fact, these Aboriginal children became cheap or free labour in most cases, which suited the economic needs of colonisation and made Aboriginal land available for clearing, farming, mining and settling.

The long-term effects of these policies and practices are still with us. All the social and health problems suffered by Aboriginal people today can be linked to the disruption of their lives through being forcibly taken from their families. There is a study referred to in the report which was conducted in Melbourne in the mid-1980s and which revealed that Aboriginal people who were forcibly removed as children are less likely to have undertaken post-secondary education; much less likely to have stable living conditions and more likely to be geographically mobile; three times more likely to say that they had no-one to call on in a crisis; less likely to be in a stable, confiding relationship with a partner; twice as likely to report having been arrested by police and having been convicted of an offence; three times as likely to report having been in gaol; less likely to have a strong sense of their Aboriginal cultural identity; more likely to have discovered their Aboriginality later in life and less likely to know about their Aboriginal cultural traditions; and twice as likely to report current use of illicit substances, and much more likely to report intravenous use of illicit substances.

Mr Speaker, the reason we are apologising today to the Aboriginal people whose lives have been damaged by forcible removal is that we must acknowledge that a wrong was done, and we must pay public tribute to the survivors and those who have not survived. One recommendation from the report is that ATSIC, in consultation with the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, arrange for a national "Sorry Day" to be celebrated each year to commemorate the history of forcible removal and its effects. This would commemorate Aboriginal survival and would have the same recognition as Anzac Day. Commemoration is important, not only for the victims but also for society as a whole.

Another recommendation is that State and Territory governments ensure that primary and secondary school curricula include substantial compulsory modules on the history and continuing effects of forcible removal. This is something that is very close to my own heart as I have been convinced for some time that our school curriculum needs to include the real Australian history, which includes all the atrocities. Indeed, proposals to the inquiry included the rewriting of school textbooks and official histories to include the policies and practices of separation, and education with respect to the issues and effects of separation for those working with Aboriginal people, including the judiciary, solicitors, doctors, social service workers, health workers, teachers and prison workers.

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