The anniversary comes a week after a recent major review of the Closing the Gap agreement where the Productivity Commission warned that policies meant to improve life for First Nations people will fail without fundamental government changes. 

The government is scheduled to table their annual report today on the progress of the policies and programs tied to the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. This report will analyse progress from 2023. The government will also present the next Closing the Gap Implementation plan to outline the new actions they’re taking to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians. 

“The entrenched inequality experienced by many Indigenous Australians is completely unacceptable,” said Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney. “And unfortunately, actions so far have not led to the change needed.”

“The first Productivity Commission Review on the National Agreement on Closing the Gap makes it clear that all governments need to do better– states, territories and the Commonwealth,” she said. “We’ll work with the Coalition of Peace and across governments to consider the findings of the report.”

Marking today’s significant anniversary, Burney met with members of the Stolen Generations and their families in Canberra.

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The national program amplifying the voices of the Stolen Generation– The Healing Foundation– has said that as the government’s annual progress report on Closing the Gap policies is handed down today, “we must recognise that Stolen Generations survivors are a ‘gap within the gap’, a statistical indicator of truth not reconciled.”

As Stolen Generations survivors age, urgency grows,” the Foundation said in a statement. 

“We must ensure consistent and adequate compensation is seen by survivors in their lifetime. And with many survivors sadly passing away, there is no time to waste.”

“We invite Australians to stand alongside Stolen Generations survivors as we renew our call for the counting of actions, not anniversaries.”

Labor announces $707m job program for Indigenous Australians

The Albanese Government has also announced it will invest $707 million in a new Remote Jobs program that will create 3,000 jobs over the next three years.  

This new program is meant to replace the widely-criticised Community Development Program (CDP). 

Speaking to these developments, Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy told the ABC that the CDP is currently the sole employment opportunity for most First Nations people in remote areas, but over the last 5-10 years, it’s had “some really serious problems”.

“When we came to government, we said we needed to look at the CDP program and abolish it because we recognised it didn’t have superannuation, it didn’t have holiday leave– it didn’t have all the entitlements that come with supporting workers.”

“So this is our first step,” she says, adding that the Prime Minister’s announcement today is “significant” as they embark on the future of this Remote Job program. 

The government says the program will start in the second half of this year, and will be “grounded in self determination”, allowing communities to decide what jobs are created, such as in community services and the care sector, hospitality and tourism, horticulture and retail.

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This article contains mentions of the Stolen Generations, and policies using outdated and potentially offensive terminology when referring to First Nations people.

May 26 is National Sorry Day. On this day, we commemorate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were forcibly removed from their families under government policies during the Assimilation era (officially 1910-70).

Those children stolen from their families have become known as the Stolen Generations. Many survivors have provided an account of the violence they endured and the ongoing pain they experience as they try to find their families. While some have managed to find their families, many have not. This has left an indelible pain that resonates in all aspects of their lives.

While this is a national day of commemoration, shamefully, it barely rates a mention in the media. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities however, never forget. How can we, when so many of our families have been impacted by this legacy?

The exact number of children who were removed may never be known. However, there are very few families who have been left unaffected. In some families, children from three or more generations were taken.

On this day, we acknowledge the ongoing grief and loss experienced by many individuals and families, and we recognise the pain and intergenerational trauma that continues.

Oppression and discrimination of past government policies

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been subject to various government policies that resulted in oppressive and discriminatory conditions. In what has been referred to as “The Killing Times” massacres of Aboriginal people occurred from 1788 to 1928. The survivors of this frontier violence were then subject to “protection” policies.

During this era, “protectors” were appointed, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations were segregated onto reserves, missions and government settlements.

This time of “protection” was not an era of benevolence. Beginning in the late 19th century, the “protection” era involved controlling every aspect of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s lives. This included forced confinement, institutionalisation and forcible child removals.

An official policy of assimilation was established in 1937. The policy was defined at the 1961 Native Welfare Conference of Federal and State Ministers in these terms:

The policy of assimilation means that all Aborigines (sic) and part-Aborigines (sic) are expected to attain the same manner of living as other Australians and to live as members of a single Australian community, enjoying the same rights and privileges, accepting the same customs and influenced by the same beliefs as other Australians.

But this was never the case. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had no say on this policy, nor any freedom to decline it. The notion they were ever intended to enjoy the same rights and privileges as white folk is a lie.

National Sorry Day

The first National Sorry Day was held on May 26 1998, one year after the tabling of the report from the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families. The inquiry examined the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and communities. A key recommendation of the report was that reparations be made.

Almost a decade after that, on February 13 2008, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered an apology to members of the Stolen Generations. This is often heralded as a historic day, and indeed it was important for people who had been impacted by being forcibly removed from their families to finally have a government tell the truth. Rudd, however, firmly stated the government had no intention to consider compensation.

While there is yet to be a national reparation scheme, various states and territories have developed reparation strategies to provide monetary compensation to members of the Stolen Generations. Sadly, many members of the Stolen generations have passed before they could receive reparations and there is no mechanism to pay it forward to their families.

‘Sorry’ means you don’t do it again

When Rudd delivered his apology 14 years ago, there were 9,070 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care in Australia. That number has since risen to about 18,900, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children now represent more than 41% of all children in out-of-home care.

Aboriginal journalist Allan Clarke has referred to the growing number of our children in out-of-home care as a terrible crisis that has continued since Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were first snatched from their families almost a century ago.

Commemorations such as Sorry Day serve as a permanent link between present and past generations – committing them to memory and assigning them with importance, meaning and purpose.

National Sorry Day commemorates not only the past but the continuity of injustice borne by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. All the “sorrys” in the world won’t provide justice, support or compensation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were forcibly removed from their families. Remembering this significant day is the least we can do.

Bronwyn Carlson, Professor, Indigenous Studies and Director of The Centre for Global Indigenous Futures, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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On February 13, 2008, then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said “we are sorry” to members of the Stolen Generations. This was a significant moment in the shameful history of Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The Apology represented a formal acknowledgement that the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children was based on racist policies that caused unspeakable harm to our communities.

Children were forced off their lands. They were disconnected from their kin, Country, traditional languages and culture.

Today on Sorry Day, 13 years since the Apology, our Elders, families and communities still grieve these losses. And many families are being repeatedly traumatised by contemporary child removal practices. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are nearly 10 times more likely than non-Indigenous children to be in out-of-home care.

To find new ways to confront this problem and promote community-identified solutions, the Ngulluk Koolunga Ngulluk Koort (Our Children, Our Heart) project conducted consultations with over 100 Elders and senior Aboriginal community members in Perth.

The Elders and community members repeatedly expressed concerns they were not being consulted or included in decisions being made about child protection interventions.

Families still being separated

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children have a right to be kept safe and free from harm. Removing them from their families has been proven to have devastating consequences. They are vulnerable to a lifetime of grief and loss, shattered identities, poor health outcomes and intergenerational trauma.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families involved with the child protection system represent some of the most marginalised and stigmatised members of our community. We are witnessing child removals across multiple generations, yet policymakers are not making connections between the past harms of the Stolen Generations and the current problems families are experiencing.

This leaves little room to redress the harm that past policies have inflicted.

We need a new strategy for creating a more responsive and just child protection system.

This requires a public debate about the thresholds for child removal and for clearly defining what it means to be a “good enough” parent to maintain guardianship of a child. And we need to reassess what actually constitutes risky parenting.

There is a lack of national leadership and coordinated, inclusive and culturally secure practice in the child protection system. Decisions are no longer made explicitly based on race, but there are enduring problems with how the actions taken by authorities affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families.

The role of Elders bringing families together

In the Ngulluk Koolunga Ngulluk Koort project, most of the Elders were either part of the Stolen Generations themselves, or have directly experienced the effects of that era.

They called for a recognition of the harm these past policies caused, and for this to be used as a foundation for formulating future policies and practices. They highlighted the deep distrust of “the welfare” (child protection services) that continues to flow through communities.

The Elders also discussed the ongoing disregard of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child placement principle. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are disproportionately being placed with non-Indigenous carers, despite the placement principle’s recommendation against this.

As part of the project, the Elder co-researchers developed principles and practice recommendations of their own.

These call for child protection services to harness resources from the vast social networks that exist in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and communicate respectfully with these community members. By doing this, trust can begin to be restored to families and damaged relationships can begin to heal. Hope can be cultivated, and the need for removing children in the future can be reduced.

What the Elders call for resonates with the concept of responsive regulation. This means that regulators — in this case the child protection authority — need to take into account the cultures, behaviours and environments of the people they are regulating.

Responsive regulation promotes restorative practices that are relationship-centred and geared toward solving problems. These practices involve future-focused conversations that draw on the skills and insights that exist in communities.

Principles of responsive regulation and those developed by the Elders offer a counter-balance to the current formalistic approaches of child protection services, such as mandatory reporting, forensic investigations, court hearings, timelines for termination of parental rights, and the adoption of children in care.

Nationally, we need a greater commitment to using family group conferencing forums that prioritise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander decision-making.

Elders have deep knowledge from lived experience and their voices must be heard. Their principles and practice recommendations, as well as their values and beliefs about raising strong children, give us a pathway to positive change.

The Elders advocate community-led, place-based solutions to child protection concerns. They stress this is the only way we can move forward and repair the harms from past policies that have wreaked havoc in our communities. We must do better for our children.

Sharynne Hamilton, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Aboriginal Health, Telethon Kids Institute; Brad Farrant, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in Early Childhood Development, The University of Western Australia, and Sarah Maslen, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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