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Extract from new book Secrets and Lies: The Shocking Truth of Recent Australian Aboriginal History, A Memoir.

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Reconciliation Week is commemorated from May 27 to June 3, from Recognition Day to Mabo Day. However, I think it should be an eight-day week starting on May 26, which is Sorry Day or Journey of Healing. This is what I will focus on here.

Newspaper reports came through today about the bodies of 215 First Nations children in Canada who were found buried near a residential church-run school. It had been run for nine decades until 1978. Overall, the residential school system is estimated to have separated 150,000 First Nations children from their families and at least 4,100 children died from disease or accident. This is tragic and a cause of great grief.

So, a brief look at the Australian situation. It was a policy of assimilation and breeding out the colour. I discuss it further in my White Australia Has A Black History book. It is in the living memory of many First Nations Australians of hiding from the police, who would forcefully take Aboriginal children from their families. Mothers would run after the cars in vain desperately trying to save their children. Many never saw their children again, and the children were sometimes falsely told their parents had died.

A few children benefited, but the overwhelming story was one of cruel treatment and loneliness away from family, community and country (land they were attached to). Many were physically and or sexually abused and put into virtual slave labour or working for a pittance. Not having the modelling of good parenting, it made it hard for them to parent the next generation. Survivor Geraldine Briggs say in the Lousy Little Sixpence film:

[A] lot of little girls died at Cootamundra. And that was run by the Aborigines Protection Board, you know, protecting Aborigines. But they were sending them out to work for sixpence a week. That’s what my sisters got, sixpence a week.

National Inquiry into the Stolen Generations

A National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families is established in May 1995 and takes evidence from 535 Indigenous people. In 1997 the Human Rights Commission releases its 689-page report accusing the government of genocide. It is called Bringing Them Home, and it calls the children “the Stolen Generation” though sometimes two or three generations had been removed. About 30,000 children are estimated to have been affected.

International law defines genocide as including the forcible removal of children to a different cultural group “with the intent to destroy, in whole or part, the group.”

The report calls for an official apology and financial compensation, because thousands of Aborigines are involved in family breakdowns, mental health issues, drug and alcohol abuse and violence linked to the assimilation policy. Successive federal governments do not support such compensation.

The report triggers an unprecedented debate on black-white relations in Australia and a campaign to discredit the claim that generations of Aboriginal children were stolen. Some sections of Australia cannot face the shame of our history.

Historian Robert Manne is a key defender of the claim, while historian Keith Windshuttle is a key denier. Manne does claim that the Bringing Them Home report’s numbers of three in ten Aboriginal children removed between 1910 and 1970 is wrong and it is closer to one in ten.

The ABC 7.30 Report arranges a debate on the Stolen Generation report with Manne, Associate Professor, La Trobe University and Ron Brunton on 29 March 2001. Brunton, an anthropologist, is working with the conservative think-tank, the Institute of Public Affairs, and writes a scathing critique of the Bringing Them Home report. There is a debate on the numbers involved and reasons for removal:

To interviewer Kerry O’Brien’s questioning, Brunton says,

“I don’t deny that there was the forced removal of children with no justification whatsoever.”

Manne asks,

“I was going to say, Ron, do you accept that the Commonwealth had a policy of breeding out the colour?”

Brunton replies,

“I accept there were a number of officials in the 1930’s who spoke in these terms.”

At another point in the interview, O’Brien asks:

“Ron Brunton, what judgment do you make in the end about, for instance, the chief protector in the NT between ’27 and ’39, Mr Cook, who could approve or veto marriages… between half-castes and full-bloods?”

Brunton replies,

“I think it’s appalling. I have made this point time and time again. I have said that we have to recognise that there was a degree of interference and surveillance of Aboriginal people that is absolutely unconscionable and Australians have to come to terms with that.”
(He agreed it was officially sanctioned).

Later in the interview, O’Brien asks Manne:

“Robert Manne, you acknowledged yourself that there were many well-meaning people involved in the process. Do you accept that an unknown number of children, significant or otherwise, who did benefit in terms of education or other opportunity, from leaving their families, whether they were removed, whether there was some consent, whether that consent was as a result of pressure or otherwise, whose lives might have been saved by their removal?”

Manne:

“Well, can I say about the well-meaning — the point I make about this is that there were very many well-meaning people and very many brutes involved. The well-meaning people could not emancipate themselves from the racism of the time, up till the mid-50s. So, you find even the finest people thinking it was right to segregate half-castes and full bloods.”

I suppose there were some people who benefited; there must have been. But by-and-large, the overwhelming majority of the Stolen Generations suffered terribly, because it’s not fine to be brought up in an institution when the colour of your skin is a matter for shame, and it’s not fine to not know from where you come or who your parents are. It’s a terrible thing.”

The White Australia Policy, the basis of Australian federation, has shades of eugenics. The first Prime Minister of Australia, Edmund Barton, declared,

“I don’t think the equality of man was ever intended to include racial equality.”

However, while race appears to be a significant issue, separate races do not really exist. There is more genetic variation within what we call races than between them. This was borne out by a worldwide study commissioned by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the 1950s.

Australian Reconciliation Convention

Norman and I go to the landmark Australian Reconciliation Convention 26-28th May 1997 (Reconciliation Week) in Melbourne where almost 1800 attend — Aborigines, government officials, religious leaders, lawyers, teachers, health workers, students, etc.

This is the culmination of a year of consultation and education events around the nation of which we are a part. While it is successful in many ways, the Melbourne conference is overshadowed by the opening address of then-Prime Minister John Howard:

“In facing the realities of the past, … We must not join those who would portray Australia’s history since 1788 as little more than a disgraceful record of imperialism… such an approach will be repudiated by the overwhelming majority of the Australians who are proud of what this country has achieved although inevitably acknowledging the blemishes of its past history.”

Describing what happened to Indigenous people as a mere blemish, the Prime Minister dismisses centuries of dispossession and violence as insignificant, and does it at a conference aimed to bring reconciliation. It is also the anniversary of the release of the Bringing Them Home report. Many Indigenous delegates in the audience turn their backs on John Howard in protest.

Nevertheless, much healing of relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people occurred, and delegates reached fresh understandings. One commentator wrote,

“But most telling I think is the sheer integrity of the Indigenous leaders… and people who can find it in their hearts to forgive. To witness the peace and tranquillity emanating from those leaders, rather than the anger and rage emanating from our political masters, made me truly humbled in their presence.”

The Apology

As the debate continues, an election dramatically removes John Howard and his government from power. He had opposed the saying of sorry. The first item on the agenda for the incoming ALP government under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is to apologise to the stolen generation of Aboriginal people. This is a bipartisan event in parliament with the new Leader of the Opposition, Brendon Nelson. The tide has turned.

Norman’s Grandfather

Aborigines come from all over Australia to sit in Parliament House to hear the apology, wiping the tears from their eyes. Norman’s grandfather, Thomas Miller, was taken from his mother in Nyleta, north Queensland in 1905 when he was about five years old.

His mother was a full-blood Aboriginal woman, and his father was Scottish. He was taken not only from his mother but his brothers and sisters. They were taken too, but the children were split up. He never saw his mother again, and in adult life, he was always searching for his brothers and sisters, finally finding some of them. It was too hard for him to talk much about it.

Removal of My Son’s Grandparents

So, Norman stands in for his family in Canberra during the apology, and I am with him. When we arrive, we line up at the doors to Parliament House and meet Lydia and Marilyn Miller, my stepdaughters from my marriage to Mick.

The Queensland government removed Mick’s father to the penal settlement of Palm Island as a young man. Mick’s mother, Cissie Sibley, was sent there with her parents. Her father, George Sibley had been “cheeky,” in other words, was assertive and so had to be punished. It was a common thing in those days.

While Mick’s parents, my son Michael’s grandparents, were not stolen from their families as children, they were removed from family members, their land and their community to live in a penal settlement, an authoritarian, harsh, government-controlled environment.

The Nation Stands Still

It was 13 February 2008. Our local Member of Parliament, Jim Turnour, organises for Norman and me to be sitting in the parliamentary gallery for the apology and to attend the reception afterwards. The gallery is full. The Great Hall, which can seat about 1,000, is overflowing. The lawns in front of Parliament House are crowded, and schools and offices around the nation stop to watch and listen on TV.

The only other thing that stops the nation is the Melbourne Cup horse race every year, as we are a nation of horse race enthusiasts and gamblers. The only other thing that generates such excitement as the apology did is football matches which regularly fill stadiums. But this was the Parliament House of our nation — not dry old politics that day — and not a dry eye either.

It is such a momentous moment in the history of our nation when Kevin Rudd says sorry, Brendon Nelson says sorry, the country says sorry. A wave of tears is shed across the nation, washing away much pain, much hurt, much sorrow. Many non-Indigenous Australians stand with our government and share in saying sorry. It is not the end of the story, but a journey of healing starts, which is ongoing and real. Some Aboriginal people hold up signs saying, “We forgive you.” Others say they are finally able to move on.

It is truly a historic moment, and it holds out a vision of what Australia can be. It is a new beginning. A page in history has been turned and a life-changing moment is experienced by many as tears flow around the nation.

From Sorry to Journey of Healing Painting

Norman is also an artist, and he paints a large canvas to record the apology. His wish is for it to sit in Parliament House to commemorate the event. We have some difficulty organising this, however. Then we attend the Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast in February 2011 and meet and became friends with Kevin Rudd’s sister, Loree, a devout Catholic.

Loree organises for Norman to present the painting to Kevin Rudd, who by then is Foreign Minister after a leadership challenge. Norman presents the painting to him on the anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report’s release, 26 May 2011. It is an important moment for Norman, who wants to recognise and honour Kevin Rudd for what he has done.

26 May is celebrated each year as part of Reconciliation Week. Initially known as Sorry Day after the Bringing Them Home report came out, it changes to Journey of Healing Day so that people can work through their healing and move on.

Kevin Rudd tries to move the nation on from the history wars, and is largely able to do so. His apology becomes the nation’s apology. He inspires other governments to apologise to their Indigenous people.
There are arguments saying we should have practical, not symbolic gestures towards reconciliation. We need both.

Kevin Rudd follows the apology with upgrading the Closing the Gap program to reduce the considerable disparity in socio-economic indicators between Indigenous and other Australians. In the 10-year review of Closing the Gap in 2018, many of the targets are not met, so they are refreshed and more targets added.

The government is now working with a coalition of peak Indigenous organisations to bring about better future outcomes. This includes targets to reduce the high level of incarceration of Indigenous adults and youth.

The Journey of Healing continues. We need to pray for and give practical assistance to the healing process.

See my book Secrets and Lies for further revealing information. It is currently only 99c on pre-order.