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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1608 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

I believe, too, that every school curriculum should include not only cross-curriculum perspectives on Aboriginal studies but also explicit studies on Aboriginal culture. We are on Aboriginal land. We must respect that fact, and there is no better way to know this land than to understand the ways of the traditional owners.

Mr Speaker, in the calling of a round table meeting yesterday to finalise the wording of an apology motion, I was heartened by the willingness, on at least this one occasion, of all members of this Assembly to work together. To me, it indicated that Aboriginal reconciliation is a high priority for members of this Assembly and that this apology is just the beginning of that process.

MS REILLY (11.07): I rise to support this motion. As I started the process on the anniversary of the 1967 referendum which recognised Aboriginal people, I am glad to see finally that we have a motion before the Assembly. The 1967 referendum took place 30 years ago. I am sure that many of the people who were involved in getting that referendum up are amazed that some of the issues surrounding that referendum are still being discussed today as we, as a community, try to work towards full recognition of the rights of Aboriginal people.

I cannot emphasise enough how important it is for us, as Legislative Assembly members, as elected members for the ACT, to apologise to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This is more than a symbolic gesture because what we are saying is that we recognise the past and we want to go forward into the future. We need to apologise for the past attitudes and policies that led to the removal of children from their families, that denied them their culture and that alienated them from their land. Any understanding of Aboriginal culture will indicate the importance of land and their connection to the land. Many Aboriginal people in Australia were denied this access. Many of them had to search for years before they could find out where they came from. The stories people have read and discussed are heart-rending. We must ensure that this does not happen again.

What we are really talking about when we look at the issues around the Bringing them home report is genocide, because under those policies of the past we refused people access to their culture and to their language. Actions taken at that time cannot be seen as parallels to other actions within our community such as the bringing of young British children to Australia, because they were not denied their language or their culture in the way that Aboriginal people were. As some other members have spelt out today, some of the actions that were taken ensured that Aboriginal people did not know where they came from, did not know their own language, and did not know their own families.

I apologise. I apologise for the past mistakes of governments and various departments and other public organisations in our community. It is important that we confront this truth of our past. Without confronting this truth we cannot go forward into the future to reach a truly integrated society. With the Centenary of Federation coming up at the end of this century, this is a good time to work towards recognising everybody in this community and their right to have a place in this society.

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