Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

The InquiryOur life pattern was created by the government policies and are forever with me, asthough an invisible anchor around my neck. The moments that should be shared andrejoiced by a family unit, for [my brother] and mum and I are forever lost. The stolenyears that are worth more than any treasure are irrecoverable.Confidential submission 338, Victoria.Grief and loss are the predominant themes of this report. Tenacity and survivalare also acknowledged. It is no ordinary report. Much of its subject matter is sopersonal and intimate that ordinarily it would not be discussed. These matters haveonly been discussed with the Inquiry with great difficulty and much personal distress.The suffering and the courage of those who have told their stories inspire sensitivityand respect.The histories we trace are complex and pervasive. Most significantly the actionsof the past resonate in the present and will continue to do so in the future. The laws,policies and practices which separated Indigenous children from their families havecontributed directly to the alienation of Indigenous societies today.For individuals, their removal as children and the abuse they experienced at thehands of the authorities or their delegates have permanently scarred their lives. Theharm continues in later generations, affecting their children and grandchildren.In no sense has the Inquiry been ‘raking over the past’ for its own sake. The truthis that the past is very much with us today, in the continuing devastation of the livesof Indigenous Australians. That devastation cannot be addressed unless the wholecommunity listens with an open heart and mind to the stories of what has happened inthe past and, having listened and understood, commits itself to reconciliation. As theGovernor-General stated in August 1996,It should, I think, be apparent to all well-meaning people that true reconciliation between theAustralian nation and its indigenous peoples is not achievable in the absence ofacknowledgment by the nation of the wrongfulness of the past dispossession, oppression anddegradation of the Aboriginal peoples. That is not to say that individual Australians who hadno part in what was done in the past should feel or acknowledge personal guilt. It is simply toassert our identity as a nation and the basic fact that national shame, as well as national pride,can and should exist in relation to past acts and omissions, at least when done or made in thename of the community or with the authority of government …The present plight, in terms of health, employment, education, living conditions and selfesteem,of so many Aborigines must be acknowledged as largely flowing from whathappened in the past. The dispossession, the destruction of hunting fields and the devastationof lives were all related. The new diseases, the alcohol and the new pressures of living wereall introduced. True acknowledgment cannot stop short of recognition of the extent to whichpresent disadvantage flows from past injustice and oppression …Theoretically, there could be national reconciliation without any redress at all of thedispossession and other wrongs sustained by the Aborigines. As a practical matter, however,it is apparent that recognition of the need for appropriate redress for present disadvantageflowing from past injustice and oppression is a pre-requisite of reconciliation. There is, Ibelieve, widespread acceptance of such a need (Sir William Deane 1996 pages 19-21).