Apology

Every now and then life deals you a moment which overloads your emotions.

You’re not sure whether to cry or cheer or run and hide just to catch your breath.

That’s how I felt standing on the sixth floor of NAB’s Melbourne headquarters when watching Kevin Rudd’s apology to my people’s stolen generation.

Continue reading "It’s not just government working at closing the gap" »

When Kevin Rudd delivered an apology to the indigenous people in 2008, he committed himself and his government to a series of practical measures, designed to lift many aborigines from appalling conditions of poverty and abuse.

He promised a new bipartisan approach under the leadership of himself and the Leader of the Opposition. Subsequently, he promised the report on this great moral challenge on the first sitting day of each Parliamentary year.

Today these solemn promises can be seen for what they were: hyperbole from a Prime Minister who regularly makes grand statements but fails to follow-up on many of them.

Continue reading "The apology that turned out to be just words" »

The former Democrats Senator Andrew Murray, one of the driving forces behind today’s apology to the “Forgotten” Australians recently told Kevin Rudd that while many apologies had been made by state governments, churches and charities to the children abused and neglected in care in this country “some were better apologies than others.”

There was a pretty strong sense in the Great Hall of Parliament House this morning that this apology was one of the “better” ones, how ever you might define it.

For a start you could hear it. “Sconey”, 40, from South Australia, told The Punch when the SA Government apologised the speakers didn’t work.

Continue reading "What makes a good apology?" »

In 1957 a little girl’s life was changed forever.

She was three years old when her family was torn apart, when she was separated from her brothers and sisters and sent to St Catherine’s Orphanage, in Geelong.

For the next thirteen years she lived in constant fear of being punished for every minor indiscretion and with the empty feeling of a childhood deprived of love.  She wouldn’t see her brother again for forty years.  Hers is one of half a million stories.

Continue reading "For Leonie, for Vera, for everyone who suffered" »

- This is the speech given by Labor MP and Punch contributor Richard Marles this afternoon on the Forgotten Australians. The Punch will run some of the MPs’ addresses this week.

Today we have heard just a few of the half a million stories of the Forgotten Australians, each as sad and as powerful as the last. Collectively they represent a well of pain and a great wrong which today our nation acknowledged.

Among those are the stories of the co-founders of Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) - Joanna Penglase and Leonie Sheedy. These two were the driving force behind the original Senate inquiry. They have been the driving force behind the National Apology.

Their shoulders have provided support for a multitude of Forgotten Australians. Their ears have heard a thousand stories and in the process provided relief. They are great Australians.

Continue reading "Acknowledging the anguish of those we forgot" »

Breaking the news to Leonie Sheedy that our national Government was to apologise to the Forgotten Australians and the former Child Migrants unequivocally rates as the best day in my short parliamentary life.

As she screamed with a mixture of disbelief, joy and relief the enormity of what this will mean to the 500,000 Forgotten Australians and the 7,000 Child Migrants was palpable.

Leonie’s emotions were overwhelming and they overwhelmed mine. It was impossible not to join in the tears.

Continue reading "How do you make up for a lack of parental love?" »

A few weeks ago I made a stupid and offensive joke in a piece written in the immediate aftermath of the drawn opening Ashes Test.

It involved the alleged time-wasting tactics of the English side in the dying moments of the game, and referred to a private SMS exchange with a friend of mine which joked about the appearance of 12th man Bilal Shafayat.

While I wrote in the piece that the text message was clearly offensive - and had construed the piece as a self-deprecating look at the stupid behaviour of sports fans – the decision to publish this private SMS was of itself the truly stupid aspect of the article. This is because it was not only insulting and demeaning to a decent man and sporting professional in Bilal Shafayat, but anyone else who faces ridicule on the basis of their appearance.

Continue reading "My apology to Bilal Shafayat" »

Aboriginal reconciliation hit the headlines again this week with an extraordinary call for all non-indigenous Australians to make restitution for the crimes of theft and genocide – or leave the country.

Dr Peter Adam said that atoning for the sins of the past required such a radical solution.

‘‘No recompense could ever be satisfactory because what was done was so vile, so immense, so universal, so pervasive, so destructive, so devastating and so irreparable,’’ Dr Adam said in a speech to the NSW Baptist Union.

Continue reading "The priest who turned back the clock on reconciliation" »