Elizabeth February 13th, 2008

For 11 years Howard’s government refused to say sorry for past injustices towards our Indigenous people. Today’s address by our new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is truly historic, and for the first time properly acknowledges the hardships that Aboriginal and Torres Trait Islanders have faced in the past, as well as the divide that still exists in the areas of health, life expectancy, education and opportunities.

This is probably the first time I have felt proud of our leadership in my adult history. I truly hope that this is the beginning of a new era for Australia, and that the healing process can now begin for those who have suffered the atrocities of our past governments.

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Photo by Spud Murphy

Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations – this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.

A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.

A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.

I want to share a poem that I came across yesterday, written by Camilla Percy from Public Polity. Follow the link to read about the experiences that led her to write this poem.

I think it serves as a reminder to us all that we can’t simply blame past generations for the damage done to our Indigenous people. We are all complicit in perpetuating the divide that exists between us. We are all responsible for, and capable of, contributing to the healing process.

From the white man to all Indigenous Australians – Why do I do what I do?

I am complicit in the violence of misrepresentation.
I want to be comfortable: my privilege unchallenged.
I say you are equal, ignoring what is institutionalised.
I cover my privilege with “we’re all the same”.

I continue to divide our histories
Because I want to forget the injustices of the past
I want the tragedies to be yours only.
It helps me to deny the injustices of today.

I essentialise you, portray you as one people with one culture
not recognising your many nations.
This gives me the power to make you what I please
while denying you the power to represent yourself.
I don’t want to listen to a story that might shake my foundations.

I call you traditional
and unknowingly denigrate your culture as past.
If it is fossilised, with only a few remaining who truly practise it, you are white when I want you to be and ‘we’re all the same’.

This is why the men who represent all of us say you are not sovereign
that you are citizens of this nation.
They choose to ignore that we are only citizens by your pain.

I have a notion of normal that is everything you are not.
I call you alien, an other, not part of the ‘us’
so I can push you to the edge of my consciousness as ‘too different’
and forget your disadvantage and my obligations to you.

I make you invisible.
I leave you out as though the Mabo decision was never made.
It makes me uncomfortable to acknowledge your place as ‘first’,
To think that I might have to do things differently if I truly embraced equity.

Why can’t I know you?
Because I don’t know myself.
My culture is invisible to me – it is normal, taken-for-granted, unquestioned.

But now that I’m a fish out of water
I can examine that which sustained me.
I can breathe the air of enlightenment.

• Australia , Current Affairs
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