Social Justice Report 1998 : Chapter 2: Non-Indigenous Community Responses

Social Justice Report 1998

Back to Contents

Chapter 2: Non-Indigenous
Community Responses

---

• Introduction
• Media
  coverage
• An
  apology
• Shame/guilt
• Criticisms
  of Bringing Them Home
• Genocide
• Compensation
• Native
  Title
• Other
  voices
• Contemporary
  separations
• How
  should non-Indigenous people respond?
• People's
  movement
• Sorry
  Day

---

Introduction

You would
be hard pressed to find a newspaper, television or radio station that
did not make mention of Sorry Day activities and National Reconciliation
events over the past week.

But it is
not until you put a human face to the issues, speak to someone to
whom these events are all-important, that they become more than politically
correct rhetoric.

Faye Moseley,
elder of the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council, is one such
woman. She opened her speech at Kurri Community Centre on Sorry Day
with the words: 'I am a stolen child'. Suddenly the label had a face.

She asked
the crowd to consider the importance of history to peoples all over
the world.

'History is
a very important part of culture,' she said. 'It doesn't feed us,
or provide us with shelter. It doesn't keep us warm at night and it
has little practical use, yet people in every culture in the world
value their history.'

For Faye,
history is the stories people of all nationalities tell the next generation
to explain who they are, where they come from and why they are here,
about pride and self-esteem, battles lost and won, hardships and survival.

'Those who
forget the past are condemned to repeat it.'

Emilie Manning,
'Helping to put a face to need for reconciliation', The Maitland
Mercury, 5 June 1998, p. 4

Radical though
it may be, I respectfully suggest to the House that an Aboriginal
man and an Aboriginal woman be invited to a joint sitting of this
parliament to tell their stories of unimaginable pain and anguish
that too few Australians have heard and even fewer understand. The
reason I suggest that is that, like that young member of the Liberal
Party who told me that he thought this was all a load of nonsense
until he actually heard it, I think there are many people in this
place who actually have to hear these stories told, not through the
prism of some of the activists in the reconciliation movement but
by the very people who lived this pain. The symbolism would be powerful,
and it might just play a catalytic role in healing wounds deeper than
the current national psyche can allow to easily heal.

Dr Brendan
Nelson, Federal Member for Bradfield, extract from debate in House
of Representatives, 2 June 1997, p. 4597, GRIEVANCE DEBATE

Twelve months on
since the release of Bringing Them Home, we can look back at
the public debate on the forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander children from their families, and reflect on the impact of
the Report and its implications for future understanding of issues affecting
Indigenous Australians. For the non-Indigenous community, Bringing
Them Home has challenged how we define ourselves and our country
as Australian. For many people it has meant a questioning and often
a denial of our contemporary responsibility as a nation; a reassessment
of what we were taught about our country's history; a challenging of
former and present leaders and decision-makers; and a greater awareness
of our collective legacy.

There have been
distinct patterns of debate since the launch of Bringing Them Home,
such as whether individuals and our national leader should apologise;
whether there should be a national Sorry Day; the understanding of words
such as 'guilt' and 'shame'; the Inquiry's finding of genocide; the
issue of compensation and reparation; the intersections with debates
about native title and reconciliation; and the reassessment of Australian
history and identity for which the Inquiry was viewed as a catalyst.

This chapter does
not seek to revisit or justify elements of the Inquiry or Bringing
Them Home. Rather it explores the diversity of responses by non-Indigenous
Australians over the 12 months since the Report was released. Using
letters to the editor and media reports of events in major and regional
newspapers as the primary sources, this chapter canvasses the variety
- and often the similarity - of reactions to what became widely known
as the stolen children or stolen generations Report.

From the time Bringing
Them Home became public property, many individuals and groups have
spoken out to acknowledge, to apologise and to attempt to address publicly
the injustices experienced by Indigenous Australians. This has been
a community movement, played out in regional and national media, influencing
public debate about Indigenous issues, as well as our Australian identity
for decades to come.

Even before Bringing
Them Home was tabled in Parliament, the existence of the Inquiry
itself and its background research and hearings began the process of
non-Indigenous Australians learning what Indigenous communities have
always known: that generations of Aboriginal children were forcibly
removed and alienated from their families under past laws, policies
and practices, specifically because they were Aboriginal. Over the last
30 years there has been an increasing awareness in the non-Indigenous
community of injustices experienced by Indigenous people. The strong
reactions to the findings of the Inquiry were not so much based on an
inability to conceive that such events took place but at the vast scale
of forcible removals and the often abusive experiences of those taken
from their families.

Reactions have
ranged from outrage and sadness to disbelief and dismissal of the findings
of the Report. Many non-Indigenous Australians could not understand
how such events could ever have taken place in this country, while others
strongly defended the actions and intentions of those who sanctioned
the forcible removal of Indigenous children. Some people felt that the
Report dwelt on the past, and others believed that the Inquiry had only
focused on negative experiences of removal. Overwhelmingly, however,
non-Indigenous Australians have gained an unprecedented insight into
the legacy of institutionalised racism for Indigenous Australians.

From many younger
Australians, or those born overseas, came a questioning of those who
were able to remember Aboriginal children being taken from their families
of 'how could you not have known?', or 'why didn't anybody do anything
to stop it?'.

Drusilla Modjeska,
the Australian writer who migrated to Australia with her family in the
1960s, spoke at the 1997 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards about
her experiences at a Women for Wik meeting in Sydney in July
last year. Although a group formed primarily in response to the ten
point plan in the wake of the High Court's Wik decision, this
community action group, like many others, saw the issues of native title
and the stolen children as inherently enmeshed.

When we left
the meeting, the friend I was with, who had grown up here in the fifties,
said that she was thinking of all those Germans who kept saying they
didn't know anything. She says she remembers, a whispy sort of child
memory, that she did know, and when she enquired she was told 'oh
well they're orphans', or 'they're neglected', or 'they're getting
an education'. (p. 4)

... the moment
at which I felt an acute kind of personal shame, or perhaps I should
say the moment at which I felt the stir of history, as if a dark bird
had flown over me and I'd been cast in its shadow, was when Jean Carter
spoke of being born on the salt pan at George's River. I felt it as
a shock: the enormous disjuncture between her Sydney and mine. And
I felt it most uncomfortably when she and Marlene Wilson both talked
about being taken to Bidura Children's Home in Glebe where they were
dipped in lye and had their clothes removed with tongs; and when they
talked of walking along Glebe Point Road calling out to the boys in
their crocodile on the opposite pavement for news of their brothers.

I lived in Glebe
when I first came to Sydney, twenty five years ago now; I was a student
on the then generous Commonwealth Scholarship, with no need to work
anywhere other than in the library. You could still rent a room for
ten dollars, food was cheap, it was the seventies, we all had heaps
of love affairs and nobody locked their back doors. Glebe was heaven.
To me. And almost certainly to the kooris who lived on Blackwattle
Bay in 1787. But not to the children in Bidura which was there when
I was a student; we walked past it, smooching along with books under
our arms. And it certainly wasn't heaven for Jean Carter and Marlene
Wilson who were there not so many years before, for no other reason
than the colour of their skin, separated from family, mother, culture,
land.

It is a shameful
story, and we all feel it in different ways. I felt it that day as
if another map had been laid over streets I'd mapped for myself in
the most egocentric and naive of ways. (p. 5)

... All of them,
all of you, all of us, are mapping and remapping our streets, our
country, our past. (p. 6)

Whether non-Indigenous
Australians need to re-learn, or to re-map, the history of their country,
and how they should go about doing that, has been widely debated since
the release of Bringing Them Home.

Many Australians
have denied the need to substantially re-evaluate the balance of Australian
history. There have been protests against the incorporation of the history
of forcible removal of Indigenous children into school curricula and
to the commemoration of a national Sorry Day. The process of acknowledging,
apologising and making reparation to those Indigenous people affected
has been regarded by some as a betrayal of conventional heroes and their
achievements: an unhealthy dwelling on negative aspects of Australia's
past, or privileging a 'black armband view of history'.

Yet remembering
and commemorating Australians who have suffered in the past is by no
means an alien concept in this country. Reluctance to acknowledge and
pay respect to the stolen children then is quite inconsistent with the
clear support given to the importance of understanding the past in informing
the present in relation to other issues. Shortly after the tabling of
Bringing Them Home, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Queensland
National MP Bruce Scott, speaking about the depiction of Australian
prisoners of war in the film 'Paradise Road', said:

We must never
underestimate the importance of telling history as it really was.
... Current and future generations of Australians need to understand
history. It is only through the accurate recording of history that
we will ensure that it never happens again.

Ian McPhedran,
'Minister's history lesson irks ALP', quoted in The Canberra Times,
6 June 1997, p. 6

There has been
much debate about whether or not Bringing Them Home was an 'accurate
recording of history', particularly as a result of viewpoints published
by certain social commentators. [1] However, there
was little contention that past laws, policies and practices which forcibly
removed Indigenous children from their families have not been part of
Australia's official history, and that there were events that took place
that should never be allowed to happen again. While a distinct strain
of response to the Report was to contextualise the policies of removal
in the values of the times and to extenuate the extent of damage done,
there developed an increasing awareness throughout the non-Indigenous
Australian community concerning the importance of acknowledging and
apologising for Indigenous suffering.

I am sure
every parent must have some sympathy for families that were broken
up in this way. There are many other ethnic groups of people living
within the community that have had terrible wrongs done to them in
the past.

But Aboriginal
people are the original indigenous population of Australia and it
would be a good move towards reconciliation to admit that they as
a people have suffered.

The situation
that saw children removed from their parents is not the fault of individuals
today and Aboriginal people should understand that many white Australians
have not been told the truth about our history as a country.

Deborah Botica,
'Healing the wounds of the past', Kalgoorlie Miner, 19 June
1997

The personal stories
in Bringing Them Home of the experiences of Indigenous people
who had been taken away from their families became living history, the
voices of proof. It is perhaps one of the most important repercussions
of the Report that an environment was created for Indigenous Australians
to speak directly of their experience to other Australians.

Through personal
contact with Indigenous people who had been taken from their families,
many non-Indigenous Australians in the 12 months since the release of
Bringing Them Home began to gain a better understanding of the
discrimination experienced by Indigenous people, and an insight into
damage done by policies based on racial stereotypes which reinforced
and perpetuated the very stereotypes underpinning these policies.

This writer
should declare an interest. At primary school, my best mate was a
boy called Peter. We sang country songs as a duo, and spat on our
hands and told each other we'd always be brothers. But one day, he
disappeared. The next time I saw him, many years later, he was an
alcoholic. In the intervening years, he had been taken from his family,
fostered to a wealthy city family, placed in a leading private school
and given the benefit of social opportunity.

When he came
back, finally, he had little in common with the brothers and sisters
he hardly knew, and his mother was dead. And he was still an Aborigine,
unable to fit into the white world that had been fitted around him,
and which still did not accept him as an equal. Like many thousands
of others, he sank his loneliness and his grief and his anger in a
bottle.

Tony Wright,
'For Pete's sake, it's time to right the wrongs', The Sydney Morning
Herald, 21 May 1997, p. 5

The approach which
justified removal of Aboriginal children from their families - that
it was 'for their own good' - continued to prevail in some comment on
this issue. This rationale has been strongly repudiated by historical
analysis and recorded personal experiences that show the main principle
behind the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
was not concern for the individual child's well-being. The majority
of children were removed because they were Indigenous. It was thought
that Indigenous peoples of Australia were a 'dying race', and that children
of 'mixed descent', particularly those with fairer skin, could be assimilated
into the broader community.

However, most Australians
- as a child or a parent - readily understand that, irrespective of
race, the effects of past policies and practices which removed Indigenous
children from their families were harmful and misguided. In the debate
about the Inquiry's finding of genocide and the use of words such as
'shame' and 'guilt', there was a strong empathy for those Indigenous
Australians who were deprived of the right to grow up with their family,
and whose experiences had for so long had been silenced.

There was an immediate
public response to the stories of Bringing Them Home from individuals
all over the country who felt compelled to comment, to express their
own perspectives, and to apologise.

The mail has
become much easier to sort. Two piles - one for the broad topic of
Aboriginal and race letters, and the other for The Rest (the latter
being comparatively few). Wik and Mabo were knotty subjects. They
could be discussed in terms of principle but many found it difficult
to come to grips with what the court rulings would mean in practice.

No such difficulty
arises with the 'Stolen Children'. Every parent can understand the
aching void of having a child snatched from you. Everyone can imagine
what it would be like not knowing who your blood family was or where
to find it. There were no legal niceties in the letters, just words
from the heart. Space prevents us publishing the many individual apologies
from those who feel beholden to do so in the absence of a figurehead
apologising on behalf of the nation. We have given the gain-sayers
(they constitute about 1/8), those who have tended to say the separations
were a good thing in the long run, a disproportionate representation
on the letters page.

Geraldine
Walsh, Letters Editor, 'Postscript', The Sydney Morning Herald,
2 June 1997, p. 16

Overwhelmingly
the initial response to Bringing Them Home was one of empathy
and sorrow. Many non-Indigenous people felt compelled to express their
opinions and emotions in an unprecedented and public way. There were
those people who maintained the line that Indigenous children had benefited
from being removed from their families and communities, and this perspective,
as noted above, was given due attention in the media coverage of the
debate. However, the clear majority of opinions expressed in the major
and regional newspapers were in favour of an apology to Indigenous people.
[2]

Media coverage

There is no doubt
that the findings of the National Inquiry generated a substantial amount
of public interest and debate reflected in widespread and sustained
media coverage. The high media interest in Bringing Them Home
has not been restricted to Australia.

The Federal
Government has failed to understand the impact of issues such as the
stolen Aboriginal children or Pauline Hanson on Australia's image
abroad, according to international media services.

Wire service
Reporters have been run off their feet filing stories on race issues
with a particular focus on the stolen children and Pauline Hanson.
Those stories have the potential to reach up to two billion people.
According to the Canberra correspondent with the Associated Press
[a major international agency], Alan Thornhill, the stolen children
story was the biggest of the year.

Ian McPhedran,
'PM not in the foreign affairs race', The Canberra Times, 3
June 1997, p. 2

A detailed analysis
of the media coverage of Bringing Them Home after tabling [3]
considered the attitudes expressed in the print media, (editorials,
columns, opinion pieces, feature articles) in handling this issue. In
particular, it included an analysis of the proportion of media coverage
of the issue that was supportive, and the extent to which the media
considered the conclusions of the Report proved rather than controversial
or open to question. (p. i)

The role of the
media in shaping or reflecting public opinion is always arguable. However,
there is a defining role that daily newspapers across the country play
in raising awareness, informing readers of different perspectives, making
comment and providing a public forum in which the issues are discussed.

the probability
of achieving the objectives of educating the public, and creating
a higher level of sympathetic awareness to a problem or situation
within the community, will be greatly enhanced if the material contained
in the media Reports is sympathetic to the subject and indicates that
a high level of credibility can be placed on the information being
conveyed, and on the organisation and persons conveying that information.
(p. iii)

Newspapers surveyed
for the media analysis were the Australian/Weekend Australian,
the Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily Telegraph, the Canberra
Times, The Age, the Herald Sun, the Courier-Mail,
the Advertiser, the West Australian, the Mercury,
and the Australian Financial Review.

All the newspapers
examined carried editorials on the subject, often more than one. All
agreed that the assimilation policies were a blot on Australia's past,
virtually all called for a formal apology, and most were critical
of the Prime Minister when he gave only a personal apology at the
Reconciliation Convention. ...

Many papers editorially
had trouble with some aspects of the Report, such as the use of the
word 'genocide' to describe the separation policy, and the subject
of compensation. However, there were many articles on the opinion
pages which supported, often very strongly, these elements of the
Report. (p. iv)

Most of the writers
- full-time journalists, regular columnists, and people who contributed
articles due to their expertise or interest in the subject - were sympathetic
towards and supportive of both the Report and the adverse effects that
forcible removal had on Indigenous people.

Across the newspapers
over the period which was analysed, the great majority of writers
of comment and opinion pieces accepted the truth of the material in
the Report, welcomed the bringing to light of the events described,
supported the idea of a formal apology and were critical, often scathingly,
of the Prime Minister when it was not given. (p. v)

Many commentators
also made the connection between understanding and acknowledging the
past forcible removal of Indigenous children and current issues such
as health, housing, education and reconciliation.

The inquiry
was needed to give the nation a better understanding of the continuing
social consequences of forced removal of children from their families.
The evidence and the Report show that governments routinely broke
up families, disrupted the continuity of Aboriginal heritage and created
lost generations of adults without awareness of their identities.
...

The best compensation
governments can offer to Aborigines is effectiveness in helping them
to overcome the shameful disadvantages in health, education, housing
and employment that make their communities the most deprived in the
nation. This is not a matter necessarily of more money, but of political
will and determination. A commitment by the Government to achieve
significant improvements should be part of the negotiations for reconciliation.

Editorial,
'Aboriginal progress is the answer', The West Australian, 26
May 1997, p. 12

The Prime Minister's
speech at the Reconciliation Convention after the tabling of Bringing
Them Home was a catalyst for much media debate:

Personally
I feel deep sorrow for those of my fellow Australians who suffered
injustices under the practices of past generations towards indigenous
people. Equally I am sorry for the hurt and trauma many here today
may continue to feel as a consequence of those practices.

In facing
the realities of the past, however, we must not join those who would
portray Australia's history since 1788 as little more than a disgraceful
record of imperialism, exploitation and racism. ... Australians of
this generation should not be required to accept guilt and blame for
past actions over which they had no control.

John Howard's
speech to the Reconciliation Convention, quoted in The Australian,
27 May 1997, p. 1

The problem
with such a conditional expression of sorrow is that the practice
of removing children from their parents is not something which was
done in the dim, dark past, but something which was pursued as government
policy until very recent times. The Stolen Children are still with
us, except now they are adults who were deprived of their childhoods,
their parents, their extended families and their culture. This is
not ancient history. And there is no convenient moral statute of limitations
for culpability over what was done.

Editorial,
'30 years on and still no reconciliation', The Canberra Times,
27 May 1997, p. 8

There is little
point in Mr Howard's comments of Monday that 'Australians of this
generation should not be required to accept guilt and blame for past
actions and policies over which they had no control.' There is little
to be lost from issuing an unconditional national apology for undoubted
past wrongs which linger in their effects today. Rather than looking
backward, this would provide a foundation from which to base a national
commitment to cooperatively address current problems.

Editorial,
'The business of reconciliation', Australian Financial Review,
28 May 1997, p. 22

The issue
is not, at this stage, about compensation. It is about expressing
white society's apology that, for most of this country, many Aboriginal
children and their parents were treated as little more than convenient
breeders.

It would be
a marvellous act, a sign of true white concern rather than mean spirit,
if the Parliament of Australia could find the words to frame an apology
for those deeds. Then both sides, black and white, could get down
to real negotiations with the assurance that printed in the Hansard,
for current and future generations, was one government clearly stating
that past actions were wrong.

Editorial,
'The value of making an apology', The Advertiser, 3 June 1997,
p. 10

The Federal
Government's Reported offer of $50 million to the Aboriginal community
is an unsatisfactory response to the tragedy of the 'stolen generations'.
It is a minor amount in the context of government expenditure and,
although welcome, meaningless against the backdrop of generations
of suffering.

The lesson
of the past 25 years is that the problems that beset the indigenous
people of Australia cannot be addressed by money alone. If that were
the case, the massive amounts spent over recent decades would have
given indigenous Australians the same standards of health, happiness
and opportunity enjoyed by all other citizens. ...

Some of the
language surrounding the 'stolen generations inquiry' and its revelations
has been unnecessarily emotive and difficult to digest for many Australians
who played no role in the events of previous years. Accusations of
genocide and the liberal use of words such as 'shame' contribute nothing
to sensible discussion and do nothing other than offend white Australians
and drive some of them into the arms of extremists.

However, it
is idle to pretend that great wrong was not done to Aboriginal children
removed from their families: at most times with the very best of motives.
The policies of yesteryear were harmful but they were well-intentioned,
if crude, attempts to give Aboriginal children a chance to advance
themselves in white Australian society. There is no reason for Australians
of today to feel or express sentiments of shame. The same arrogant
assumptions led to the removal of many white children from their families
and their subsequent adoption.

However, that
should not preclude us, through our Prime Minister, from acknowledging
those wrongs of the past, accepting that good intentions can have
unforeseen tragic results, and expressing our apologies. Anything
less would demean the $50 million to be offered by Mr Howard and be
a betrayal of the 'stolen generations' and generations of Australians
to come.

Editorial,
'Stolen Generations deserve apology' Courier Mail, 15 December,
1997, p. 10

The Prime Minister
continued his stance on an official apology throughout the community
debate leading up to Sorry Day on 26 May, 1998, and maintained the distinction
between addressing concrete issues such as health and housing and the
symbolic act of apologising.

Prime Minister
John Howard will today announce a $10 million expansion of the Army
assistance program for remote indigenous communities.

The announcement
coincides with the start of Reconciliation Week and follows the Government's
rejection of National Sorry Day.

Instead Mr
Howard repeated his commitment to Aboriginal health, housing and education
and today will double funds to a program he believes reflects this
approach.

'It is the
view of my Government that a formal national apology of the type sought
by others is not appropriate,' he said.

Helen McCabe,
'Reconciliation not sympathy: PM', The Mercury, 27 May 1998,
p. 19

An apology

Much of the debate
since the release of the Report has focused on whether or not non-Indigenous
Australians should apologise to Indigenous people stolen from their
families, and in particular, whether the Prime Minister should have
offered a national apology. The manner in which the Prime Minister delivered
his speech at the Reconciliation Convention in May 1997 sparked controversy,
and made him a personal target in the debate.

The strong feelings
about the Australian Government's response to Bringing Them Home
should not begin and end with a particular individual. The issues are
wider and more fundamental. There were, for a variety of reasons, many
other Australians who supported the Prime Minister's refusal to apologise
as elected leader of this country.

Acting in his capacity
as Prime Minister an official apology presented at the Reconciliation
Convention may have reshaped the environment of debate about this issue.
As it was, debate became sharply polarised over the issue of an apology,
and of a day of commemoration.

This polarisation
represented a loss in many ways. It was not only a loss of a particularly
apt symbolic moment, it also obscured the Government's own commitment
to concrete action in health, housing, employment and education by presenting
it as an alternative to any symbolic gesture of apology. The Prime Minister's
position on this was not one of isolation. Other politicians, commentators
and members of the public echoed the view that 'practical measures'
and an apology were somehow mutually exclusive.

In one of
the most significant speeches of his prime ministership, John Howard
yesterday laid out a practical program for reconciliation between
Aborigines and other Australians. It was a program based on cooperation
rather than confrontation, progress in areas such as Aboriginal health
rather than ideological grandstanding. ...

Many at the
Australian Reconciliation Convention in Melbourne booed and heckled
the Prime Minister during his speech yesterday. But many more Australians
outside that venue will applaud his commonsense commitment to real
change and disregard of superficial gestures.

Editorial,
'Black and white go together', The Daily Telegraph, 27 May
1997, p. 10

Many non-Indigenous
Australians remained divided over the issues of compensation and reparation,
but a great number of people - reflected in part in the level of support
of community events and letters to the editor - were united in the understanding
of the need for acknowledgement and apology in order to move on, to
begin to right the wrongs, and to attempt any kind of meaningful reconciliation.

The reconciliation
compromise is assisted by an apology. It is mutually exclusive of
nothing else. It reinforces Howard's practical moves to attack disadvantage.
It is nonsense to say these approaches are mutually exclusive. ...

The past treatment
of indigenous people is, as Sir William Deane says, 'a matter of national
shame'. This is the fact; it is the history. Reconciliation is incomprehensible
without an acceptance of history. Howard insists that Australia must
look forward. But Australia cannot look forward until it confronts
its past. The reality is that many Australians are unaware of this
history or don't want to confront it.

Paul Kelly,
'Say sorry and heal the gash', The Australian, 28 May 1997,
p. 13

South Australians
have endorsed calls for a formal apology to the Aboriginal 'stolen
generation' - but have backed away from compensation.

An Advertiser
survey has shown that while 38 per cent of respondents do not believe
apologies are necessary, a 58 per cent majority supports apologising
to the stolen children. But only 16 per cent of those people believe
compensation should be paid. Four per cent were undecided on the issue.

The poll of
400 voters, conducted on Wednesday night, comes two weeks after State
Parliament formally apologised to the stolen children and their families
for government policies until the 1960s that saw the removal of Aboriginal
children from their homes.

The survey
showed more women (65 per cent) than men (52 per cent) believed an
apology was necessary. By age group, about 80 per cent of respondents
aged between 18 and 39 believed apologies should be made, and 40 per
cent of 18 to 24-year-olds also calling for compensation. In contrast,
49 per cent of people aged over 55 did not think apologies were needed,
compared with 47 per cent who did.

'Most back
apology, says poll', The Advertiser, 16 June 1997, p. 4

As ever, it
seems, 'apology' letters prevail over all others...

Geraldine
Walsh, Letters Editor, 'Postscript', The Sydney Morning Herald,
29 December 1997, p. 8

Shame/guilt

A core issue in
people's feelings about whether or not an apology should be made to
Indigenous Australians, either on a personal or collective level, turns
on the difference between the concepts of shame and guilt. There were
those who expressed the opinion that they personally had done nothing
wrong, so there was no need for them to apologise. There were many others
who felt strongly that publicly recognising collective shame is inherently
linked with sharing national pride.

Australia
is very much a reflection of the achievements of the past, a treasure
trove which generates great pride. No Australian, recounting why they
love their country, can do so without drawing on the examples set
by the nation's heroes. It is a pride which is part of a nation's
heritage is accepted as such. [sic] We do not lay claim as individuals
for the achievements which created this pride. This is as it should
be. If we can feel pride for the great moments of our past, and celebrate
them, isn't it reasonable that we should feel shame at the dark things
which occurred?

Feeling ashamed
for yesterday's actions by a nation does not mean each individual
of today is guilty of what happened. Such an apology does not mean
today's Australians can be blamed for shameful events; it means no
more than that they are sorry that these events occurred. An apology
is required by many of Australia's Aborigines. It is at the heart
of the hoped-for reconciliation between black and white Australians.

Mr Howard,
at the first national convention on reconciliation in Melbourne, made
a personal apology to Aborigines 'who suffered injustices under the
practices of past generations'. He should extend the scope of that
apology and make it on behalf of all Australians. If Mr Howard cannot
make such an apology, it should be made by the Federal Parliament.
Australia will be the better for it being offered. Shame and pride
are the opposite sides of the same coin. Our pride in our nation will
be shared by more people, will be more honest in its expression, will
be strengthened, when the shame of the past is openly acknowledged.

Editorial,
'Pride and shame', The Mercury, 28 May 1997, p. 18

In the wake of
the release of Bringing Them Home, there was a sense in many
of the letters to the editor in both the major and regional newspapers
of Australia being at a crossroads in its national identity. With Wik
and reconciliation also being widely debated, there was a demand from
many non-Indigenous Australians that these issues be addressed and resolved
so that future generations would not have to keep re-visiting them,
and that the nation could move into the next millennium united, rather
than divided.

Sir Ronald Wilson,
who for many came to represent the non-Indigenous face of Bringing
Them Home, spoke at the Reconciliation Convention about his own
journey during the process of the Inquiry, and the personal effect it
had on him. In particular, Sir Ronald conveyed the need for responses
to this Report to be from the Australian community as a whole, both
in acknowledging past wrongs and apologising as fundamental steps towards
reconciliation.

Let me speak
personally. I have been changed by my exposure to the stories of my
fellow Australians, Australians for whom I have now unbounded respect
because of their courage, their dignity, their suffering and through
it all their generosity of spirit. ...

I knew very
little about the stolen children when I took up this inquiry, but
as I heard more and more I recognised that the suffering has gone
so deep and is still being felt today that the stolen children issue
and its healing by a full hearted response from all Australians is
fundamental to the success of the reconciliation process.

The laws and
policies of non-Indigenous Australia divided the nation. Our denial
of that truth, our continued denial of that truth holds the division
in place and without our sincere and frank acknowledgement, without
a willingness to say we are sorry and to implement that sorrow in
deeds, coupled with a longing for reconciliation, we can not find
freedom from the shackles of a divided and deeply wounded nation.
It is in the national interest that we do so, it's the interest of
all individual Australians that we do so.

Sir Ronald
Wilson, then President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission,
speech to the Australian Reconciliation Convention, 27 May 1997

Criticisms of Bringing
Them Home

As was to be expected,
given its subject, there were strong criticisms of the Inquiry, its
findings and its Report. It was said that the Inquiry was biased, that
it only focused on the negative stories of removal; that it was not
representative of most people's experience; that it did not require
corroboration of witnesses' evidence; that it judged past legislation
and practices by current standards.

The 'stolen
generations' hype gives the impression that all those part-Aborigines
who were placed in foster care suffered emotionally from the experience.
No effort appears to be made to establish the conditions in which
they would have been raised in their natural families. ...

Like so many
debates today, we receive only the sensational side. The politically
incorrect view, no matter how factual, is rarely presented.

Ron Fischer,
'Stolen generations received new life', Wimmera Mail Times
(Horsham), 16 June 1997.

It is not the purpose
of this review of responses to Bringing Them Home to engage in
debate, to defend the methodology of the Inquiry or the findings of
the Report. However certain criticisms were directed to matters beyond
the control of the Inquiry: such as its scope.

Why did the
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the previous Labor
government confine the 'stolen generation' inquiry to the fate of
Aboriginal children, ignoring the deplorable history of white child
migration to Australia?...

It seems to
me that children brought to this country by an Australian government
scheme and who suffered the horrors and mismanagement of that scheme
are as deserving of an apology, monetary compensation and other assistance
as Aboriginal children who suffered separation.

Any Report
tabled by the Government which fails to address the travesties perpetrated
on white as well as black children will be flawed and properly condemned
as racially biased, favouring one section of the community - Aborigines
- for reasons of political correctness.

Gordon Walsh,
'More than one 'stolen generation' suffered', Letter to the editor,
The Courier Mail, 27 May 1997, p. 14

The Human Rights
and Equal Opportunity Commission did not determine the subject matter
of the Inquiry. The terms of reference set by the Attorney-General were
unambiguous in directing examination of matters affecting 'the separation
of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families'.
The rationale for this is clear in that while any child may be separated
from its family for a variety of reasons, only Indigenous children have
been subject to separation on the grounds of their race.

The failure to
prosecute those who may have committed criminal offences against children
within their care was another ground of criticism. Yet the Human Rights
and Equal Opportunity Commission does not have a prosecutorial function.
Where evidence received by the Inquiry disclosed the potential commission
of a criminal offence the pursuit of the matter appropriately lay with
the relevant State, Territory or Commonwealth police and prosecution
authorities.

... Because
the issues at stake in the 'stolen generations' inquiry are so important,
and because these involve a number of matters of ongoing and heated
contention, it was imperative that the Inquiry did everything in its
power to ensure that its accounts of past practices and its conclusions
were beyond any reasonable question. Otherwise the painful experiences
which the Inquiry sought to make known could be easily dismissed or
ignored, as could their contemporary implications. But the Commissioners
unwisely seem to have interpreted their role as being that of advocates,
providing the media with emotive commentaries on evidence as it was
presented and indicating that they would be promoting the findings
irrespective of the Government's views.

And, unfortunately,
anyone who expects to find a rigorous, sober and factual assessment
of the past in Bringing Them Home will be sorely disappointed. The
Report is a most unworthy and tendentious document.

Amongst its
many faults, it is poorly argued, it demonstrates considerable intellectual
and moral confusion, it applies inconsistent principles at different
times so as to create a 'damned if you do/damned if you don't' situation,
it misrepresents a number of sources and ignores crucial information,
and it readily makes major assertions which are either factually wrong
or unsupported by appropriate evidence. It is immaterial whether these
defects are a result of a deliberate attempt to distort, or whether
they stem from the Inquiry's inability to bring the requisite judgement
and analytical skills to its task. When accounts that purport to make
people aware of injustices misrepresent events, or omit relevant matters
for reasons of partiality, or make unfounded claims, they dishonour
the very people whose interests they claim to uphold. Bringing Them
Home betrays the Aboriginal victims of the past almost as surely as
would a Report which attempted to deny their experiences completely.

Ron Brunton,
'Betraying the Victims: the 'stolen generations' Report', IPA Backgrounder,
February 1998, Volume 10/1, pp. 2-3

In response to
Ron Brunton's analysis of Bringing Them Home, extracts of which
appeared in several major newspapers, there was much discussion about
the validity and accuracy of the Report and its political ramifications.

... The tremendous
emotional impact of the Report, the fact that it is an attempt to
tell a story that Australia long repressed, and that it is a call
to the nation to redress a great wrong, all make criticism of the
Report difficult and suspect. Yet, precisely because it is such an
important step in coming to terms with the past, and in achieving
reconciliation, it is important that it be subject to fair-minded
criticism. It is not the last word on a difficult and painful subject,
but a foundation which ensures that the voices of those who suffered
can never again be ignored.

In particular,
the Report is not a definitive and rounded treatment of the protection
and assimilation eras, and could not have been, given the Inquiry's
limited time and resources. Ordinary experience tells us, as indeed
the Report itself occasionally hints, that the problems perceived
by administrators, the motives which determined their responses, the
changing content and practical effects of their policies and practices
over the years, and the differences between jurisdictions, were more
complex and significant than the Report allows.

It is not
my task to review the Report, and my comments are simply to emphasise
that it is not as its uncritical champion that I have agreed to review
Ron Brunton's booklet, 'Betraying the Victims'.

I would be
the first to applaud a critical appraisal of the Report, pointing
out its limitations and sometimes excessive pretensions, and seeking
to open up and debate some of the important issues it takes for granted.
Why then do I find myself angered by 'Betraying the Victims'? To put
it bluntly, this booklet is a 'hatchet job' that, quite unfairly,
paints the Report as a dishonest piece of work that no self-respecting
person would have anything to do with. Far from opening up discussion
of the Report, it stifles it, polarising people into being either
for or against the Report. ...

The very pomposity
and repetitiveness of [the] claims [made in 'Betraying the Victims']
suggest that the purpose is not intellectual but political. ... [T]he
thrust of the booklet is not just to join issue on some of the Report's
arguments or conclusions, or to correct some alleged errors. It is
to damn the Report as unworthy of attention, to create such an atmosphere
of sleaze and suspicion around it that those who want to reject or
ignore it feel they can comfortably do so. Others will feel that they
cannot give credence to the Report without doing research they lack
the time or resources to undertake, so they, too, ignore it. The denigration
thus becomes an effective weapon for suppression of the whole Report.

Hal Wootten,
'Ron Brunton and Bringing Them Home', Indigenous Law Bulletin,
June 1998, volume 4/12, pp. 4-5

... In summary,
Brunton takes apart the 'stolen children' Report, Bringing Them Home,
and shows that despite having been chaired by a former High Court
judge, Sir Ronald Wilson, it has shown scant regard for evidence,
balance and the credibility of witnesses. While there is no doubt
that many of the witnesses wept when they recalled their childhood,
and the hearts of many were wrung, there is more than one cause of
adult misery than removal from one's parents. Again and again, Brunton
shows, the Report fails to distinguish between forcible removal, sending
away of children with consent of their parents, total removal and
partial (eg, returning to family at weekends) removal, detention imposed
for repeated delinquency preceding any removal, spells in hospitals
and schools, and the saving of children from physical and sexual abuse
within their own family and by others.

While the
evidence given by witnesses to the commission cannot be ignored, neither
can it for the most part be checked against other sources of evidence.
Most of the witnesses were anonymous. Little or no attempt was made
to cross check their evidence with what is on official record. ...

Everybody
accepts that many terrible things were done to our Aboriginal peoples
by European settlers and colonial societies. But to demand an apology
and compensation for a policy which has yet to have been established
to have been universal, without fair and judicious examination of
what actually happened, is conducive to neither reconciliation nor
the future welfare of Aborigines.

Padraic P.
McGuinness, 'We need a closer look at the stolen children', The
Sydney Morning Herald, 5 March 1998, p. 17

I agree with
the headline of Padraic McGuinness's article, 'We need a closer look
at the stolen children', but not with his comments on Bringing Them
Home. He needs to look more carefully at the Report himself, because
the quotes he has given from Brunton's book collapse on reading what
is actually written in the Report.

The inquiry
dealt only with 'forced removals'. Removals which occurred after the
free consent of parents or guardians were not considered. The children
were not 'returned for the weekends'. Throughout the Report extracts
from relevant government Reports, parliamentary debates and official
statistics are juxtaposed with the personal testimonies of the people
appearing before the commission.

The witnesses
were not 'anonymous' to the commissioners but their identity is protected
in the public domain of the written Report. Bringing Them Home records
only a fraction of what has happened to Aboriginal people in this
country; it is far from being 'overstated'.

Read Bringing
Them Home. Ask any Aboriginal family about their experience, and then
do a reality check on Ron Brunton's claims. Do take a closer look.

Rosemary Kinne,
'Look closely', The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 March 1998, p.
14

Genocide

Perhaps the most
contentious issue raised by Bringing Them Home was the finding
that the policies which forcibly removed Indigenous children from their
families constituted genocide.

Genocide is a crime
against humanity. The crime of genocide does not necessarily mean the
immediate physical destruction of the group. The Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which was adopted
by the United Nations in 1948 and ratified by Australia in 1949, defines
genocide in Article II:

In the present
Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial
or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members
of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm of members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the groups

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The Inquiry's examination
of historical documents found that the clear intent of removal policies
was to absorb, merge or assimilate children so that Aboriginal people,
as a distinct racial group, would disappear.

Policies and laws
may be genocidal even if they are not motivated by animosity or hatred.
The Inquiry found that a principal aim was to eliminate Indigenous cultures
as distinct entities. The fact that people may have believed they were
removing Indigenous children for 'their own good' was immaterial. The
removal remains genocidal.

For most Australians,
the popular understanding of the term 'genocide' conjures up images
only of deliberate, mass killings. In that context even those who acknowledged
that past practices of forcibly removing Indigenous children from their
families were destructive and racist, found it difficult to accept that
Australia had engaged in genocidal practices.

The commission,
unfortunately, does the cause of reconciliation over this issue a
serious disservice when it describes the removal programs as amounting
to genocide. ...

The effect
of this sort of extremist embellishment will be to make it easier
for unsympathetic people to reject the Report - and make it harder
to develop a political and community consensus that an act of reconciliation
is appropriate.

Editorial,
'Recognition of a past disgrace', The Australian, 21 May 1997,
p. 12

The story
of the separated families, now finally coming out, is, I think, the
one experience of theirs about which other Australians can feel the
way Aborigines do. ...

Bringing Them
Home has immense power as a cry of anguish but many flaws and imbalances
as history. It cannot be considered as more than raw material in the
process of public decision-making. Pedantic discussion - without considering
the question of ill-will - of whether removal of children from their
families constitutes 'genocide' under United Nations conventions is
sensationalism that detracts from the gravitas of the report. ...

This said,
the brutality of the assault on Aboriginal families should never again
escape public awareness and must surely influence future efforts at
reconciliation. Critical parliamentary study of Bringing Them Home
might appropriately culminate in a fervent expression of regret passed
unanimously by a joint sitting of the two houses.

Frank Devine,
'Yes, cry for the children but no more sackcloth and ashes', The
Australian, 2 June 1997, p. 13

... I am confident
that we will eventually have a more complicated history than is given
in the stolen generation report, and that it will somewhat redeem
this dark period of our history. We know already that the actors in
the program include those with a clear and brutal genocidal intention,
those whose intentions were not genocidal, and those whose intentions
were uncomplicatedly good. We do not know their proportions. Let us
hope that there are far more of the last category than Bringing Them
Home suggests. Even so, it will not alter the fact that a terrible
evil was committed against our indigenous peoples and that its rightful
name is genocide.

Raimond Gaita,
'Peace Crimes', The Weekend Australian, 5 July 1997, p. 24

Compensation

During the Inquiry
and after the report was released, many people - Indigenous and non-Indigenous
- said that what was required first and foremost was a recognition of
the racism of past laws, policies and practices that forcibly removed
Indigenous children from their families, an acknowledgement of their
devastating effects on the Indigenous community, and an apology. The
primary importance of recognition and apology was not intended to exclude
further, more tangible compensation. However, for many non-Indigenous
people acts of acknowledgement and apology became both paramount and
exclusive. Ironically for some the very depth of emotional trauma suffered
was taken to put the issue beyond compensation.

The issue of monetary
compensation remains highly contentious. While many non-Indigenous people
had no difficulty accepting that past policies and practices which removed
Indigenous children from their families were racist, it seems that the
issue of compensation taps into more deeply held prejudices about Indigenous
people. Myths about government handouts and 'special treatment' for
Aboriginal people have fed into the argument that compensation to the
stolen generations would be 'divisive'.

The report
is clearly well-intentioned but misguided in its recommendation that
a tribunal should be established to work out compensation payments
to people affected by the former policy.

Such payments
would expose Aborigines to the unfair but highly probable criticism
that they want to exploit their emotional traumas for financial gain.
There is already an unacceptable level of antagonism in Australian
society towards Aborigines because of the special help they get from
governments. The compensation plan would broaden and intensify this.
...

The best compensation
governments can offer to Aborigines is effectiveness in helping them
to overcome the shameful disadvantages in health, education, housing
and employment that make their communities the most deprived in the
nation. This is not a matter necessarily of more money, but of political
will and determination. A commitment by the Government to achieve
significant improvements should be part of the negotiations for reconciliation.

Editorial,
'Aboriginal progress is the answer', The West Australian, 26
May 1997, p. 12

The endless
outpourings of moral outrage over John Howard's refusal to say sorry
has again served to distract Australians from the fundamental issue
of compensation for the stolen generations of Aborigines.

No amount
of illusion over symbolic gestures should be allowed to disguise this.
The simple fact is that the quest for cold hard cash has driven the
stolen generations agenda ever since the week-long Going Home conference
in Darwin in 1994. ...

David Nason,
'No apology, just a big bill: Australia will be sorry indeed when
it must pay for the policies that created the Aboriginal stolen generations',
The Australian, 2 June 1998, p. 13

The Government
can't be expected to take blame for something a past government did.
...

This is not
to say that the majority of Australians, black or white, do not feel
sorry for injustices suffered by their fellow citizens. But saying
I feel sorry for you is different from saying I apologise.

The only reason
an apology is being pushed for is so that it can be relied on as an
admission of guilt and grounds for monetary compensation - make no
mistake about this.

If our politicians,
so-called Aboriginal leaders and other reconciliation enthusiasts
want something to cry about, or hold a minute's silence for, they
should get out and look at the appalling health conditions, lack of
housing and the shameful level of education among our black fellow
Australians.

G. Guidice,
'An apology means money', The West Australian, 13 June 1997,
p. 12

Native Title

Unlike native title,
the legal technicalities of which many non-Indigenous Australians find
overly complex and confusing, the issue of the stolen children affected
many people very strongly. They were able to make an act of personal
identification with the issue, and to recognise that both raise fundamental
questions of human rights.

Links between the
two have arisen. Many non-Indigenous people have come out strongly in
support of native title in the past 12 months through becoming involved
with the reconciliation movement because they felt strongly about the
stolen children. The activities of Women for Wik and ANTaR most clearly
demonstrate this linkage.

Even those
Australians overwhelmed by the complexities of Mabo and Wik could
not fail to grasp the human tragedy set in motion by the decisions
of state governments decades ago to remove Aboriginal children from
their families and forcibly assimilate them into white society. While
'terra nullius' and 'native title' remain for many people obscure
terms for lawyers and politicians to quibble over, it requires no
special insight to appreciate the anguish caused by the enforced break-up
of families. It is time for the Federal Government to acknowledge
the psychological and, in some cases, physical harm that was done
to the stolen generations and to offer them the nation's apology.

Editorial,
'A page of our history too dark to ignore', The Courier Mail,
24 May 1997, p. 22

Other voices

In the wake of
the Inquiry it was not just the voices of those who were stolen from
their families that affected non-Indigenous Australia, it was also those
of the non-Indigenous foster and adoptive parents, church and community
leaders speaking of their experiences.

Julie Lavelle's
pain as one of the 'stolen generation' (Herald, May 20) may never
be recognised by the Government, but as an adoptive mother I can acknowledge
her pain. I have seen it in my own children.

It has been
very difficult for me to accept that no matter what I did or how 'good'
a mother I tried to be, the loss my children felt would still be there.
My daughter has tried to fill the emptiness with things that almost
destroyed her. Thankfully her wonderful spirit has pulled her through.

Our children
have always known they are Aboriginal and adopted and we have tried
to bring them up to be proud of who they are, but the great tide of
ignorance and racism now being unearthed by Pauline Hanson has taken
its toll.

When we adopted
our children in 1977 and 1980, we believed their mothers wanted them
to be adopted. Now I am not so sure. I find the TV programs on the
'stolen generation' almost too painful to watch and I am filled with
guilt. However, I am also coming to believe that adoptive parents
were also victims of the system.

I want my
children to find their natural families, to clean the wound and fill
it with hope, and peace of mind. I acknowledge your pain, Julie, and
the pain of my children, and the pain of mothers who had their children
wrenched from them. And I acknowledge my own grief and pain as an
adoptive mother.

Sue Olsen,
'Time to right such terrible wrongs', Letter to the editor, The
Sydney Morning Herald, 22 May 1997, p. 14

There are Indigenous
people removed from their families and communities in circumstances
which fall outside the Inquiry's terms of reference, but their experiences
were similar to those of the stolen generations. These individuals serve
to highlight the fact that even without legislation specifically directed
at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, Indigenous people were
adversely affected by the child welfare system. Their experience raises
the question of the degree to which the practices of past removals continue
in current practice.

Contemporary separations

Much of the debate
following the tabling of Bringing Them Home focused on past removals.
The debate has overshadowed the large section of the Report on contemporary
separations of Indigenous children from their families and communities.
People find it easier to acknowledge and confront historical wrongs
which do not implicate them personally, rather than to take responsibility
for current discrimination, such as the vastly disproportionate rates
of Indigenous juvenile arrest and detention.

Acknowledging
the past for whatever reason is not about guilt, it is about history.

No self-respecting
democracy can deny its history. It is not a symptom of guilt to look
reality in the face, it is a symptom of guilt to look away and pretend
that it does not exist. How can anybody hope to gain an insight into
the present if they have no understanding of the past?

How can we,
as a nation, hope to move forward if we continue to say, 'I was not
there, I was not responsible'? It is now on our shoulders because
it will be our great grandchildren who will blame us for not being
responsible when the opportunity arose.

No doubt the
same words will be spoken: 'I was not there, I was not responsible'.

A. Weston,
'No denials', Letter to the editor, The West Australian, 10
June 1997, p. 12

How should non-Indigenous
people respond?

Since the release
of Bringing Them Home, many non-Indigenous Australians have been
looking for ways to personally respond to the issue of the stolen children
and injustices experienced by Indigenous people in general.

Today I sent
a sympathy card to the parents and the children of the stolen generation,
care of Mr Mick Dodson, inquiry commissioner, the Human Rights and
Equal Opportunity Commission.

I sent it
on the premise that if a neighbour lost a parent or a child, I would
send a card to indicate that they had my sincerest sympathy in the
hope that they would be comforted by my support.

At no time
would my neighbours assume that this meant that I was in any way responsible
for their loss. Nor would I be expected to compensate them in any
way. But I would give them any assistance within my means to help
them through their sorrow so that they could progress through the
grieving process.

There is very
little that I, as an individual, can do to assist with the reconciliation
process. However, if many other like-minded individuals also sent
a sympathy card, c/- Mr Dodson, the Aboriginal community will hear
as offering our sympathy and our emotional support.

The Prime
Minister is between a rock and a hard place. He has offered his sympathy
as an individual, but, as PM, he will be damned if he does and damned
if he doesn't. This is not a political issue, it is a social issue.
Perhaps a show of sympathy and support will help our society progress
to the next step.

I shall also
ask schools if they will inquire about the possibility of Aboriginal
elders coming to the classroom to educate our children in regard to
Aboriginal culture in the hope that the reconciliation process will
flow more freely in the next generation. We can't erase the past,
but perhaps by educating our children about the destructive ramifications
on the Australian community we may prevent it from happening again.

Perhaps the
Aboriginal elders will then follow our lead and with education help
their community to overcome its ingrained prejudices against our white
society so that their children will be free to live in both cultures
with success.

I hope that
somewhere out there are other individuals who want Australia to have
a better future and who are prepared to give this idea a chance to
work.

Michelle Dodd,
'Send a sympathy card', Letter to the editor, The West Australian,
11 June 1997, p. 13

Many Australians
have sent messages of sympathy and letters of apology to the Human Rights
and Equal Opportunity Commission since the release of Bringing Them
Home. In particular people wanted to respond personally to former
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Mick
Dodson, and former President, Sir Ronald Wilson, who were closely identified
publicly with the Report and the individuals who spoke about their experiences
to the Inquiry.

People's movement

The responses of
many non-Indigenous people to Bringing Them Home have constituted
a strong and active people's movement.

People power
to urge the holding of a national 'sorry day' is one way for us ordinary
people to respond to the stolen children Report. ...

We can say
'sorry' in a meaningful way to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders
who have been separated from their cultures, their lands, their communities
and their families, without having to feel personally guilty for what
has been (and still continues to be) inflicted on them by our public
institutions. ...

Where the
people lead, the leaders will follow.

M. Lane, 'We'll
have to lead our leaders', Letter to the editor, The Canberra Times,
1 November 1997, p. 6

Liberal backbencher
Peter Nugent joined forces with two Opposition colleagues yesterday
to launch a public fund to help implement the recommendations of the
stolen children Report. He denied the fund was needed because of Government
neglect.

The brainchild
of Labor senator Margaret Reynolds, the fund would provide counselling
and education for the children forcibly removed from their families,
their descendants, and the broader community, Mr Nugent said.

'We look to
government to do its part as well, but clearly you can't expect government
to do everything, and I think there is a responsibility on the broader
community to get involved, and I think this gives them an opportunity
to do just that.'

Aban Contractor,
'Stolen children bring all parties together', The Canberra Times,
28 August 1997, p. 5

Many events organised
by individuals in their local community had a powerful effect on the
Indigenous and non-Indigenous people involved.

Perth car
dealer Denis McInerney has a one-word answer to any suggestion that
churches and governments are doing enough to make amends for the damage
done in trying to assimilate indigenous people into Western culture
- bull....

'They are
part of what happened and they have an obligation to stand up and
right the wrongs of the past,' he said.

The head of
McInerney Ford is one of the community members who have joined forces
under the banner of the Stolen Generations Action Group to ensure
former human rights and equal opportunity commissioner Sir Ronald
Wilson's Bringing Them Home Report does not gather dust.

'Lobby group
urges church, State action', The West Australian, 16 February
1998, p. 10

There was
standing room only as 350 people crowded into the Uniting Church hall
on Tuesday evening to hear Mick Dodson, Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Social Justice Commissioner, and Barbara Nicholson, a local
Indigenous woman, speak of the past policies of forcibly removing
Indigenous children from their families and to share stories of their
own removal.

The meeting
was organised in order to present Mr Dodson with a petition that had
been signed by over 2,500 local residents to formally apologise for
the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their family homes.
The apology was signed in the spirit of sincere contrition and national
reconciliation, the signatures having been collected since the release
of the 'Stolen Children' Report - Bringing Them Home - in May this
year. The Report has so far failed to elicit an apology from the Federal
Government.

Southern
Highlands News, 5 December 1997

We, the undersigned
citizens of the Southern Highlands, in the absence of national leadership
wish to express to the Aboriginal people of Australia our deepest
shame and sincere regret for the harm and distress caused by the policies
and actions of previous governments and religious and community groups
in the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their family homes.
We extend this heartfelt apology in a spirit of sincere contrition
and national reconciliation.

Statement
of apology by the Southern Highlands community, 2 December 1997

Don't use
me as an excuse, Mr Howard. I am one of the 40 per cent of Australians
born overseas.

On December
2, at a public meeting in Bowral, I stood up before Mick Dodson, Betty
Little and other Aboriginal people and said I was sorry for the pain
all Aboriginal people suffered these past 200 years.

This was not
an admission of guilt but an expression of empathy for their suffering.
I will only feel guilt if now, having learned about the stolen generations
and the dispossession of their lands, I do nothing to help Aboriginal
people overcome the past and build a better future.

I became an
Australian out of affection and pride in my new country. Right now,
Mr Howard, I feel I want to renounce that citizenship.

Jane Pollard,
'Sincere apologies cost nothing', letter to the editor, The Sydney
Morning Herald, 15 December, 1997, p. 16

Sorry Day

Just how emotive
can one two-syllable word be?

In the case
of 'sorry' it can prompt a gamut of feelings from profound sorrow,
sadness and regret to bitterness, anger and in some cases, disdain.
At least that was the response from Herald readers last week during
the big Sorry Day debate which dominated the page for four days.

Readers were
divided between those who called for an apology over the Stolen Children
so that reconciliation could be achieved between black and white Australians
and those who doggedly maintained that they were in no way responsible
for the actions of others and that no apology was needed or justified.
One feeling was that those who removed children acted only out of
the best intentions. Another suggestion was that Aborigines themselves
should express forgiveness for injustices done against them as a step
towards reconciliation.

In the end,
more people wrote in favour of Sorry Day than against it.

Kerry Myers,
Letters Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June 1998, p.
18

Although Sorry
Day was the subject of a recommendation in Bringing Them Home
directed at the Federal Government, the original idea and the result
came from the community. The idea initially came from Link-Up (NSW),
and in the absence of Federal Government endorsement of the recommendation,
national and regional committees of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people
made it happen on 26 May 1998. The Commission was not formally involved
in the planning of Sorry Day, and the decision for the day to be held
on the anniversary of the tabling of Bringing Them Home was a
decision of the National Sorry Day Committee. [4]

The national Sorry
Day reignited much of the community debate about the stolen children.

I have received
a letter from the East Waikiki Primary School explaining that an assembly
will be held to commemorate the 'First National Sorry Day' at the
school.

Would someone
please let me know why this is being held at a primary school? There
are children aged between five and 12 who are being forced to participate
in a function which has nothing to do with them. They can't understand
or care what it is all about.

Most of the
children who attend this particular school are of migrant or mixed
parentage and their ancestors had nothing to do with the infamy that
was carried out by a racist government. They are all pure Australians,
but for these children to be made to stand up and say sorry is absolutely
appalling and tantamount to being discriminated against by the [Western
Australian] Government which, as the letter says, fully endorses such
an action.

I will not
allow my child to participate in such an assembly and from the reaction
of more than 70 per cent of the parents who have complained to the
headmaster, neither will they allow their children to participate.
...

The Government
has a Sorry Book which can be signed by anybody who cares to. Surely
a better idea would be to circulate this book to all schools and have
those who want to express their sorrow sign it rather than have baby
students, such as my daughter, participate in what can only be described
as a vote-seeking, headline-grabbing exercise?

S. Dale, 'Sorry
Day assembly at a primary school?', Letter to the editor, The West
Australian, 25 May 1998, p. 12

It was with
disbelief that I read the letter from S. Dale about Sorry Day. It
is the attitudes of people like them that our children and our children's
children will be apologising for in the future.

Surely, even
if we don't directly owe the Aboriginal people a personal apology
for what our ancestors did, just think for a moment about what you
may have done.

Maybe they
deserve an apology for every time you crossed the street in the city
to avoid them or every time you sat on the other side of the train
to avoid making eye contact. What about all of the racist jokes you
have laughed at or all of the times you have made some comment about
the Aboriginal dole bludgers buying booze.

It is our
generation that should be sorry. We can't hide behind the facade,
which our ancestors did, of not knowing any better. We know that the
Aboriginal people deserve better than they get, but so long as people
like S. Dale are depriving their children of taking part in educational
activities such as Sorry Day, nothing is really going to change.

Kerren O'Dea,
'We can't hide any longer', Letter to the editor, The West Australian,
27 May 1998, p. 12

The commission's
report suggests that there should be an annual 'sorry day'. This is
unrealistic: it is asking too much to expect governments to display
their shame continually; they, with some reason, will want to put
the problems of the past behind them and move on with the business
of governing. If 'sorry day' is to become a regular occasion, it can
only be as a community event.

Editorial,
'Recognition of a past disgrace', The Australian, 21 May 1997,
p. 12

So honest
John's Government has rejected an annual Day of Sorrow... even before
tabling the Stolen Children Report for popular discussion.

Well, to hell
with the politicians. Let mainstream Australians join in a voluntary
Day of Sorrow - or Day of Acknowledgement if you prefer. Take leave
without pay for one day a year to gather in the streets and acknowledge
the devastation our governments wrought on our fellow citizens from
1883 to 1969.

The day is
not a grovel for the past but an opportunity to celebrate a bright,
united future 'for all of us'.

Paul Mason,
'Three little words: we are sorry', Letter to the editor, The Sydney
Morning Herald, 24 May 1997, p. 40

The 'sorry
book' for the Aboriginal people tells a story of its own. It tells
of a race of people demanding an apology from another race of people
for something that happened long ago that only the people involved
in the original 'offence' can possibly correct or apologise for.

Instead of
seeking an apology from a prime minister of a country who has absolutely
nothing to do with what happened (therefore being vindicated of any
need to say sorry on behalf of the people of history), I wonder if
there is another answer to the problem?

If the Aboriginal
community so desperately desires a release from a wrong to their people
some years ago so as to build a bridge of unity between races, why
does it not think of the obvious answer which would show the nations
of the world how to live in unity and in peace?

The solution
- the leaders of the Aboriginal communities should publicly declare
to the world and themselves that they forgive the people who offended
them and robbed them. This would show two things: That the Aboriginal
race deserves respect and recognition as a people and that the people
transgressed against will not flow down a path of bitterness or resentment
but will rather embrace today and let the past die. ...

Yes, the Aboriginal
people were blatantly abused - to demand an apology shows nowhere
near as much maturity as would be displayed with a public declaration
of forgiveness. The world would applaud with respect.

D. Barnes,
'Forgiveness is a beautiful solution', Letter to the editor, The
West Australian, 30 January 1998, p. 13

Criticisms of the
call for an apology to the stolen generations often seek to polarise
the issue as an Indigenous/non-Indigenous one. This disregards the strong
support from many non-Indigenous Australians for personal and national
apologies. Indeed, the most strident calls for a national apology appear
to come from the non-Indigenous community.

It is astounding
that so many objected to the concept of 'sorry books'.

None of my
ancestors actively participated in the deaths or oppression of Aboriginal
Australians, but they did belong to a society that permitted such
atrocities to occur.

I am sorry
that up until 1968, the year before my birth, Aboriginal Australians
were not permitted to vote.

I am sorry
that children were systematically removed from their homes, simply
because of the colour of their skin and economic status.

I am sorry
that a society in which my ancestors lived enslaved, raped and murdered
countless Aboriginal Australians.

Finally, I
am sorry that there are still people today who believe they have nothing
to apologise for. I truly feel sorry for these people.

Melissa Baker,
'Plenty to apologise for', Letter to the editor, The Daily Telegraph,
2 February, 1998

Sorry books
for the blacks! Fine. But if sorry books for the whites aren't also
available at councils and elsewhere, then this approach is indefensibly
a very sorry one-sided handshake and, transparently, very discriminatory
and Deane, very transparently, is not for all Australians.

S.A. Millar,
'What about sorry books for the whites?', Letter to the editor, The
Australian Financial Review, 20 April 1998, p. 18

Essendon footballers
will wear black armbands in support of the Aboriginal stolen generation
when they meet Melbourne at the MCG on Saturday.

The gesture
is seen by players as part of the reconciliation process and the apology
by white Australians to Aborigines.

'Footballers
to mark Sorry Day', Northern Territory News, 20 May 1998, p.3

Football commentator
Eddie McGuire said it didn't matter that present generations were
not responsible for the acts.

'We've got
people who are fellow Australians who have been aggrieved and I think
it's just a good way for all Australians together as one nation to
apologise to those people who did suffer,' he said.

'We want to
say sorry', Herald Sun, 22 May 1998, p. 18

The decision,
which at heart was a grassroots one, to mark the first anniversary
of the release of the Human Rights Commission report on the 'stolen
generations' (Bringing Them Home) with a Sorry Day produced controversy
and, it must be said, division. But that does not mean that it was
a futile exercise. On the contrary, the fact that Sorry Day itself
became a discussion that dominated much of the week will have focused
attention on past policies towards indigenous Australians and on the
more general issue of black-white relations. From that kind of attention
often come insight and agreement. The division over Sorry Day has
not vindicated the Federal Government's decision against an apology
on behalf of the nation to the stolen generations. Nor has it justified
that position.

Editorial,
'Hardest word', The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 May 1998, p.
46

---

1.
For example, see Brunton, R. 'Betraying the Victims: the 'stolen generations'
Report', IPA Backgrounder, February 1998, Volume 10/1; and McGuinness,
P. P., 'We need a closer look at the stolen children', The Sydney
Morning Herald, 5 March 1998, p. 17.

2.
For example, see also 'Most back apology, says poll', The Advertiser,
16 June 1997, p. 4; and Mervyn Smythe and Associates, 'An analysis of
the media coverage of Bringing Them Home: The Report of the National
Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Children from their Families', conducted for the Human Rights and Equal
Opportunity Commission, funded by the Australian Institute for Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Studies, June 1998.

3.
Mervyn Smythe and Associates, 'An analysis of the media coverage of
Bringing Them Home: The Report of the National Inquiry into the
Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their
Families', conducted for the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission,
funded by the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Studies, June 1998.

4.
Carol Kendall and Greg Thompson chaired the National Sorry Day Committee.
A transcript of the Sorry Day statement is found in Appendix 3.

3
April 2003.