Moving Forward - Achieving Reparations for the Stolen Generations

Moving Forward - Achieving
Reparations for the Stolen Generations

Andrea Durbach, Director,
PIAC.

Welcome to Conference.



Thank you for warm welcome, Marjie Cook, and for the opportunity to
gather on your land over the next two days to consider the critical
issues of identity and justice for the Stolen Generations.

For too long now,
representatives of the current Federal government - most of whom are
far removed, both physically and emotionally, from the experiences of
the Stolen Generations - have offered an inept and dishonourable response
to the needs of the Stolen Generations. The Government has suggested
that a "statement of regret", an allocation of sixty-three
million dollars over 4 years aimed at so-called 'practical assistance',
and their subsequent denial of the very existence of the Stolen Generations
may suffice to allow us as a nation to turn our backs on the cruel legacy
of our indigenous past and move forward, blind to the future.

At the opening
of the Australian Reconciliation Convention in Melbourne in 1997, Dr
Alex Boraine, the Deputy Chairperson of the South African Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, responded to our Prime Minister, John Howard:

"It is wrong, " he said "to simply say, "Turn the
page." It is right to turn the page, but first you have to read
it, understand it and acknowledge it. Then you can turn the page. There
has to be a time of repentance, not of parading national shame, but
of establishing a coming together to acknowledge the failures and sins
of the past. I find it breathtaking," said Dr Boraine, "that
a government can refuse to acknowledge the damage that was done, the
damage that continues."

Our conference,
Moving Forward - achieving reparations for the Stolen Generations, is
in part a response to a Government that has failed and continues to
fail, to lead our country towards a future that understands and is transformed
by its past. Importantly, it is about taking responsibility so that
we can move forward; it is about acknowledging the magnitude of the
harm suffered and the enduring pain borne by the Stolen Generations
and it seeks to develop an innovative, compassionate and appropriate
mechanism for providing reparations to the Stolen Generations.

In the light of
the Federal Government's consistent refusal to apologise to the Stolen
Generations and provide redress for their harm, litigation has been
commenced, often as the only or inevitable option or last resort open
to the Stolen Generations to exact some justice from Government. However,
our experience of working with members of the Stolen Generations since
the tabling of the HREOC Report, Bringing them Home, in 1997,
in advising and representing Stolen Generations clients in litigation,
led us to doubt the capacity or the appropriateness of the legal system
in its archaic construction, to adequately assess and compensate for
the immeasurable damage which has arisen from the Stolen Generations
experience, damage which continues to manifest in present day Australian
life.

It is in this context
that PIAC, in consultation with representatives from the HREOC National
Inquiry Secretariat, Link-Up, ATSIC, the Aboriginal Legal Service, the
Aboriginal Medical Service, the NSW Dept of Aboriginal Affairs, the
Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and others, developed a proposal
for the establishment of a Stolen Generations Reparations Tribunal in
1997.

The proposal for
the establishment of a Stolen Generations Reparations Tribunal is not
a radical initiative. Examples of similar models of redress have been
developed and have existed in Australia for decades, such as statutory
compensation tribunals or schemes for victims of crime and war veterans.
Indeed, the Federal Government recently demonstrated its capacity to
provide redress to Australian Defence Force Prisoners of War of the
Japanese, by committing ex gratia payments of $25,000 to each Prisoner
of War, civilian internees and detainees of the Japanese or their surviving
spouses.

The proposal for
a Reparations Tribunal offers one practical measure which might, in
the words of former Governor-General, Sir William Deane, constitute
a vehicle of "redress for present disadvantage flowing from past
injustice". This conference brings together people from around
Australia and from Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the United
States of America, who will present their own experiences of healing
and reparations - all of which address a legacy of injustice and offer
additional ideas and models for how we in Australia can move forward
towards implementing a considered and viable response to the specific
needs of the Stolen Generations. A compassionate response to those who
suffered abuse and lost their language, their land, their culture and
ultimately, their identity.

Thank you to all
our overseas speakers, our Australian speakers and workshop presenters
and to you all, our guests, for coming from all over Australia and indeed
the world to join with us as we debate and develop a strategy in an
attempt to heal, in the words of Robert Manne, "the continuing
pain" that has taken hold with the "bewildering" removal
of child "from mother, family, community, world."

I wish you a constructive
and successful conference.