The Anniversary of the National Apology to Stolen Generations is a yearly reminder of a “deep and distressing reality”, a children’s organisation says.
On February 13 2008, then-prime minister Kevin Rudd delivered the apology in federal parliament, acknowledging the trauma and grief suffered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by past government policies.
As many as one in three Indigenous children were taken from their families and communities, according to the Healing Foundation.
In a speech marking the anniversary of Kevin Rudd’s apology today, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it is a day “that mattered in the life of our nation”.
“Of all my days in parliament on which I look on with great pride, it remains the day of which I remain proudest,” he said at a national apology breakfast at Parliament House in Canberra.
“The apology was never intended as the end of the story, rather – as Prime Minister Rudd said – the beginning of a new chapter,” Mr Albanese said.
“We put behind us the old chapter that took from you the most profound of rights: to grow up safely in your own family and together we write a chapter of self-determination.”
First Nations organisation Children’s Ground said 17 years after the apology, the situation remains dire for Indigenous children.
Chair William Tilmouth said the anniversary is not a day he reflects upon with pride.
“It is a yearly reminder of the deep and distressing reality of on-going harm – of failed policies and actions resulting in more of our children than ever before being ‘taken into care’,” he said
Reconciliation Australia chief executive Karen Mundine described the apology as a “watershed moment” for reconciliation and truth-telling.
But she said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still “grossly over-represented at every stage of the child protection system”.
This includes in the New England, where children are forever removed from their families in part due to a lack of domestic violence and other social supports.
A Healing Foundation report, released on Wednesday, found only six per cent of the recommendations of the 1997 Bringing Them Home Report, which investigated the forced removal of children from their families, had been implemented.
“The lack of comprehensive implementation of recommendations from the ground-breaking Bringing Them Home report illustrates a vital component of truth-telling – that it must achieve change,” Ms Mundine said.
“The trauma experienced by Stolen Generation survivors in telling their stories in 1997 needs to be acknowledged with a package of assistance for the remaining elderly survivors.”
Don’t miss any of the important stories from around the region. Subscribe to our email list.