Governor Davey’s Proclamation Board Cup
Address to the Tasmanian House of Assembly, 13 August 1997
Mr Speaker, Premier, honourable members, this is a historic occasion. It is a welcome gesture of the Government and the Parliament to apologise for what must be seen as one of the most tragic events in my people’s history. I believe it is the first time any Aborigine in Tasmania has entered the Chamber of the Parliament in session and I believe it is the first time anywhere in Australia an Aboriginal delegation has been invited to address the Parliament in session.
The policy of removal of Aboriginal children from their people was born out of ignorance, ignorance for the basic human rights of Aboriginal children to be raised by their people. It was a policy of genocide, make no bones about it. The policy was deliberate and calculated to make Aborigines like white people. To make us ashamed of who we are. To deny our heritage and our families. That we stand before you today as the proudest of Aborigines you have ever seen or heard is evidence the genocide policy could not work. Today’s response by this Parliament is a sign of community maturity; of the State of Tasmania facing up to the responsibilities of harm caused to Aborigines by official policy instead of hiding behind notions of popular history.
The apology presented shows leadership to the rest of the country. We applaud the move and can only hope the Prime Minister is man enough to follow suit. My brother, Derek, and Tanya Harper are both with me. They can speak of the hurt, the pain caused by the government policy aiming to try to make us white. We are Aboriginals and we are proud of it. It is true we grapple with the effects of being denied access to the love and affection of our parents, our brothers, our sisters, our grandparents, cousins and our community. We were denied access to our culture but we are heartened by today’s events.
Honourable members, there are many more Aboriginals in our position. Many are traumatised from being removed from their families. We are not talking about the past. We are talking about the present. They need help. They are entitled to help. Surely some form of compensation is not too much to ask. Those who suffered trauma, personal shock or stress from accidental injury are quite properly compensated. Why would those who suffer the same, but as a result of deliberate harm, not be compensated? Mr Speaker, whoever was responsible for the removal of our Aboriginal children either knew or should have known the harm that was bound to be caused. We look forward to special legislation on this matter being debated in this Parliament.
Mr Speaker, please allow me a moment to talk of the effect on me and my people of the policy of genocide. I do this not to harp on the pain of the past but to drive home the point that we must not ignore the facts of history or gloss over them. We must acknowledge the past and learn from it. Me and my brother and my sisters Nola and Dale were born to Joyce Lavinia Peardon of Flinders Island. Out of the four children my mother gave birth to, two baby girls and one baby boy were removed. My brother and I were escorted off Flinders Island by plane and then taken to Launceston to be placed in foster care followed by institutions, my brother spending the majority of his time at the northern boys’ home. I myself was shuffled around in institutions.
It is hard for me to explain to you as individual people or as a group of this Parliament how it feels to be huddled in a corner, to be told you are not loved; to be told you are nobody, the colour of your skin is different, you are dirty. The loneliness, the crying at home of a night. Not a home. Just somebody expected to do the chores. I do not think the wider community stopped to think of the mental, the physical, the sexual assaults that were put upon the children of my people and my parents.
I would like to make it very clear that the three of us that stand before you and my other sister who is not present, our mothers were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for neglect of children under the old Welfare Act. I would like today to ask you respectfully to consider those two women, both of them are now deceased.
I have been more fortunate than others. My family have been reunited in one sense. A couple of months ago I took my brother Derek back to home country, Cape Barren Island, to meet for the first time the only living relative of my mother, Uncle Reuben Mansell, who is now 84 years old. For some of the other children it is not so fortunate. Bringing us together is meaningless to a lot of the children. Mothers, fathers, uncles, aunties have not been sighted by some of the kids and will never be sighted.
Mr Speaker, in recent years this Parliament has shown leadership on land rights, fishing rights and passing laws which respect our traditional right to protect our dead. Those practical steps have done a lot more to assist meaningful reconciliation than could any bucketful of empty phrases. For the steps taken by the members of Parliament we thank you.
While it is true that those of us snatched from our community are a special case there is a growing need for a plan, a policy for my people’s future. We have little bits of land, we need more, when will we get it? Our people are being prosecuted in the courts for practicing their culture, when will that stop?
Finally, Mr Speaker and honourable Premier and members, on behalf of all my people I wish to warmly accept in the spirit in which it was given the apology for the wrongs of the past, the hurt caused by the official policy of removal of Tasmanian Aboriginal children from their families. Thank you.
