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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 2369 ..

Serjeant-at-Arms: Members, Mr John Williams-Mozley, representing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Consultative Council.

MR WILLIAMS-MOZLEY: Mr Speaker, may I first of all observe Aboriginal protocol by paying my respects to the traditional owners of this country, the Ngunnawal people. Having done that, I wish to acknowledge and commend the actions of the Legislative Assembly in offering an apology to those Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the ACT who have suffered as a result of the past practices of forced separation from their families. I would also like to express my sincere thanks to the Assembly for providing the opportunity today here in this place for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to speak from experience about the policies and practices of forced separation.

Mr Speaker, I have read the Hansard transcript of 17 June, when a motion was moved in response to the Bringing them home report. As the Chief Minister stated in moving the motion, it marked an important and historic step in the healing and reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous members of the ACT community. What was of even greater significance to me, however, was the unconditional agreement by all members of the Assembly in commending the motion and their attendant comments which showed not only a great deal of knowledge and understanding of the issues - human, social, cultural and political - emanating from the inquiry's report but also their ready acceptance that true reconciliation will never be achieved in this country without acknowledging the past.

Mr Speaker, the story of forced removal within my family began in 1946 when my mother was removed. It is in my memory, my brothers' and sisters' memories and those of my niece and nephews who were also removed. They are not historical, distant or remote memories. We cannot consign them to the past, as some people would prefer us to do. They are lived and relived every day of our lives. Nor are they isolated incidents or the aberrations of a few. My family's story is a familiar and common one within the broader indigenous community. However, like so many aspects of Aboriginal Australia, our stories have been hidden or excluded from public view for so long.

The National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families was an important and earnest attempt to provide the Australian community with the facts as they relate to the extent and nature of this country's assimilation policies. And, even though the impact of the inquiry's findings has led this Assembly to describe such practices as abhorrent, determining that they will not happen in the ACT, there is still a prevailing attitude in the broader community that what was done was done "with the best intentions" and "in the best interests of the child".

Notwithstanding the argument now being offered that previous assimilation policies should not be viewed by today's standards or values, I continue to have great difficulty in understanding how such reasoning is used to nullify the facts elicited from the inquiry which, in essence, substantiated that the policies of forced removal were an act of genocide, as defined in the 1949 Genocide Convention; that such policies incorporated gross violations of human rights by persons in authority; that such policies denied Aboriginal people substantive common law legal rights; and that such policies effected the loss of culture and identity.

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