Mr Acting Deputy Speaker Washer, can I take this opportunity to also congratulate you on your elevation to the Speaker’s panel.

It is without any reservation that I rise to speak in support of the Prime Minister’s motion of apology to members of the stolen generation. For many years, members of the stolen generations, as well as their families, communities and community leaders, have campaigned for an apology. They have sought an apology in recognition of the pain and suffering caused by past government policies that made it lawful to forcibly remove Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their mothers and fathers, thereby severing the sacred bond which exists between children and their parents and, in particular, between children and their mothers, tearing countless families apart and opening up new wounds for a community and people already heavily burdened by the violence of the past.

From the outset, I want to recognise the struggle and the enormous sacrifices that so many members of Australia’s Indigenous community have made and continue to make in their efforts to seek recognition and justice. The apology, which took place last Wednesday, is not about our benevolence as a parliament or as a nation in saying sorry. It is about the history of Indigenous struggle in this country, a struggle in which Indigenous Australians have continued to fight for agency against an often hostile response. And it is about the history of Indigenous suffering under successive government policies and laws that institutionalised discrimination. It is this struggle that has brought us to this point in our history as a nation, and it is this struggle that I would like to pay tribute to today.

Last week’s apology was a long time in the making and many of us believe that it was long overdue. One of the most significant turning points in this parliament’s move towards an apology was of course the 1997 Bringing them home report by Sir Ronald Wilson, the former High Court judge and president of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Bringing them home documented the removal of nearly 100,000 Indigenous children from their families between 1910 and 1970 as a result of laws and policies that made the practice of forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children lawful.

Whilst these laws have now been relegated to the past, the suffering they caused remains very much alive for many of our Indigenous community. Looking at the gallery as the Prime Minister and indeed the Leader of the Opposition were making their speeches of apology on behalf of the Australian parliament, what was so evident was the pain that members of the stolen generations and their families still felt, as well as the enormous importance they attach to an apology. Last Wednesday was a sombre and at the same time momentous day in which grief, pain, relief and joy all combined in a single moment that few of us will ever forget.

This apology is equally significant for non-Indigenous Australians and the way we have written our history across this great country. It is evident that a majority of Australians support the apology precisely because they recognise the wrongs of the past and understand the importance of reconciliation as a way for our nation to move forward. Many Australians watched last week’s apology at home, at work, in school or on large public screens set up across the country. What is telling is the way so many Australians sought to share this moment with others around them, whether they were close friends, work colleagues or even strangers. This was more than just wanting to share an important moment in Australia’s history; it was a collective expression of a nation’s willingness to recognise the suffering of fellow Australians and a recognition that moving forward as a nation meant moving forward together.

Last week’s apology was not about unfairly attributing individual blame to today’s generation of Australians for wrongs done in the past or forcing guilt on those who played no part in determining the policies that gave rise to the stolen generation; rather, last week’s apology was about a nation coming together in its willingness to acknowledge suffering, both past and present. It was about mutual respect. Last week’s apology was an act of recognition and an act of decency that helps to fill in some of the gaps in those official narratives that herald Australia’s birth and success as a modern nation whilst marginalising the history of Indigenous Australians. It is also an act of recognition and decency that helps bind us closer together as a nation, one that is willing to reflect honestly upon its past as a way of building for its future. We cannot be held directly responsible for past wrongs and to argue as such would be meaningless, but we have an obligation to be responsible for the Australia we live in today, for the privileges and opportunities we enjoy but that not all Australians have equal access to.

Present-day Australia is not immune from inequality, and no greater inequality exists than that between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Taking responsibility for the Australia we have inherited means recognising the inequalities that continue to cut across present-day Australia and taking action to end them. It is also part and parcel of striving for a better future for all Australians. This apology attests to our nation’s evolving character, and it is also a test of our resolve to close the gap that still exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in such fundamental areas as life expectancy, educational achievement, employment opportunities and so on.

Just as we struggle to close the gap between rich and poor and just as we struggle to make sure that gender is no longer an obstacle to individual opportunity and achievement, so we must continue to struggle to make sure that Indigenous Australians have the same opportunities in life that non-Indigenous Australians enjoy. This apology acts as an impetus to make sure that our words are matched by actions. Few underestimate the many challenges that lie ahead, but the Rudd government is committed to meeting them.

Our approach is one based on flexibility that recognises the different needs of different communities rather than tries to force a one-size-fits-all model. As the Prime Minister announced during his apology speech, over the next five years the government will make sure that every Indigenous four-year-old has access to early childhood education with proper preliteracy and prenumeracy programs. Education is the key pathway to building a secure future and creating individual opportunity. All the research shows that preschool education has significant advantages when it comes to educational successes later on in life. That is why the government has made this commitment to preschool education for all Indigenous four-year-olds. This is crucial if we are going to reverse the trend of lower school retention rates and poor educational attainment amongst sections of Australia’s Indigenous community. The government has also committed to finding 200 additional teachers in the Northern Territory and to working closely with state and territory governments to increase school attendance rates and ensure adequate classroom space, especially for Indigenous students in some remote areas.

A lot more also needs to be done in the area of health care, and the Rudd government has already started on the path to improving Indigenous healthcare services by upgrading remote health clinics and extending sexual assault counselling and renal dialysis services. This is about matching words with action. One of the government’s priorities is to expand detoxification and rehabilitation services across the Northern Territory to tackle the alcohol addiction problem.

I also welcome the bipartisan commission announced by the Prime Minister last week, whose initial brief will be to look at improving Indigenous housing and constitutional reform. These are just some of the undertakings of the Rudd government. They follow on from an apology that I hope leads to a new chapter in Indigenous affairs in this country and a further strengthening of the relationship that exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians based on mutual recognition and respect. Many in this place, in speaking to this motion, have posed the question: what if it was your children or grandchildren taken away from you? It is a question that should give us all an opportunity to pause for thought.

However, there is another question that goes to the very heart of the ethics that surround this difficult chapter in Australia’s history. It is a question that was posed by the famous sociologist Zygmunt Bauman in his book Modernity and the holocaust. Writing about how we approach the tragedy of past events, Bauman suggests that, rather than asking the question, ‘What if this happened to me?’ we should think seriously about whether we would act unjustly if ever put in a situation where the denial of justice was demanded of us, whether by our political leaders or by some other authority. It is a question whose ethical force does not lie in an emphatic no; rather, it is a question that we must necessarily keep asking ourselves, a question without end that serves as a way of warding off future injustices. Last week’s apology was an important turning point in Australia’s history, and I am very happy to have this opportunity to support this motion.