This is the Stolen Generations Alliance media page. Scroll down to read several recent newspaper articles from Australia and overseas. Click here for some radio interviews.

In 1998, the Moderator of the United Church of Canada, the Rt Rev Bill Phipps, made this statement:

"As Moderator of The United Church of Canada, I wish to speak the words that many people have wanted to hear for a very long time. On behalf of The United Church of Canada, I apologize for the pain and suffering that our church's involvement in the Indian Residential School system has caused. We are aware of some of the damage that this cruel and ill-conceived system of assimilation has perpetrated on Canada's First Nations peoples. For this we are truly and most humbly sorry.

"To those individuals who were physically, sexually, and mentally abused as students of the Indian Residential Schools in which The United Church of Canada was involved, I offer you our most sincere apology. You did nothing wrong. You were and are the victims of evil acts that cannot under any circumstances be justified or excused.

"We know that many within our church will still not understand why each of us must bear the scar, the blame for this horrendous period in Canadian history. But the truth is, we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors, and therefore, we must also bear their burdens."

Our burdens include dishonouring the depths of the struggles of First Nations peoples and the richness of your gifts. We seek God's forgiveness and healing grace as we take steps toward building respectful, compassionate, and loving relationships with First Nations peoples.

We are in the midst of a long and painful journey as we reflect on the cries that we did not or would not hear, and how we have behaved as a church. As we travel this difficult road of repentance, reconciliation, and healing, we commit ourselves to work toward ensuring that we will never again use our power as a church to hurt others with attitudes of racial and spiritual superiority.

"We pray that you will hear the sincerity of our words today and that you will witness the living out of our apology in our actions in the future."

 

The Age, 23 June 2007, by Gregory Phillips
Another tricky Howard ruse

Far from being a radical saviour concerned with the protection of Aboriginal children from sexual abuse in the Northern Territory, the Prime Minister is mostly concerned with painting all Aborigines as being useless crooks and abusers. That way, he can put up a smokescreen to justify the weakening of Aboriginal communal rights to land under the guise of economic development.

Nobody denies that sexual abuse and alcoholic dysfunction in Indigenous communities is a massive problem. Many Aboriginal people have long advocated for better services to deal with the issues, and have strongly asserted that alcoholism and sexual abuse are not a part of Aboriginal culture. It is, in fact, a learned behaviour. Where did Aboriginal people learn it from? It is partly a hangover of the missionary days only twenty and thirty years ago, where sexual violence was routinely perpetrated by police, pastoralists and missionaries on Aboriginal people, and where the church often forced people to marry against their social and cultural clan systems. This is not an excuse for abuse today, but it is part of the reason why people are behaving this way now. Sure, the abuser must take responsibility for these terrible actions, and sure, society has a responsibility to protect children. But to do so only through the law has never worked internationally with any population.

Dealing with addictions and sexual abuse through legal, criminal or administrative systems alone doesn't work. There's no evidence for it. It might help alleviate some physical injury and perhaps prevent a small amount of abuse, but it doesn't address the seething emotional and mental turmoil that gave rise to the behaviour in the first place. I thought the nation would have learned by now that only jailing people does little to curb such problems.

By contrast, Native Canadian communities in crisis with sexual abuse have turned the issue around in ten years by community led action, by government being prepared to listen to and trust local community leaders, and by supporting communities themselves to make the abuse of alcohol a socially unacceptable behaviour. But to think that forcing such programs on anyone will work is stupid. This is a government too hungry for power and control, and prepared to ignore evidence to use it.

Research strongly shows that programs developed by Indigenous people themselves are the ones most likely to work. The NT report called for a diverse approach, and called for education services to deal with grinding poverty. How can Aboriginal kids be forced to school when in many cases in the NT there are not the schools or teachers to educate them properly? Howard's response is to assume total control and make it look like he's dealing with root causes. Instead, all he is doing is window-dressing the symptoms and blaming Aboriginal people as if they're all criminals.

Does the government seriously think sexual abuse doesn't occur in non-Aboriginal communities? That doesn't make it OK in Aboriginal communities. I just wonder why the government has decided on this tired old knee jerk approach now? Why have they waited when reports in other state jurisdictions have also called for federal co-operation? This dictatorship approach will lead to more disempowerment of leaders nationally who are trying to fix the situation.

Howard's central message in Aboriginal affairs since the time of the Hindmarsh Island affair is all Aboriginal people and their culture and spirituality are false. He tells the public that they are all abusers and crooks, citing ATSIC's demise as evidence. He doesn't tell the public that the minister controlled 85% of its budget, yet made sure Aboriginal people copped all of the blame. He uses issues like sexual abuse as reasons why apparently Aborigines can't manage their own affairs. He twists Noel Pearson's economic development mantra, and Noel is naive for letting him, into a lie about real estate being the answer for social dysfunction.

What Howard really wants is to destabilise Aboriginal communal rights to land. He wants to use sexual abuse in Indigenous Australia as a smokescreen to marginalise Aborigines even more, to leverage off this issue, and to give the election a convenient race-based edge. I can just hear it now 'if those silly Aborigines just lived like us, everything would be ok.' Come on John. You are lying through your teeth again. You must be really grasping at straws in an election year if you need to further blame Aborigines to take the heat off your environment, broadband and IR woes.

Gregory Phillips is a medical anthropologist specialising in healing, post-traumatic stress syndromes and addictions in Indigenous communities.

 

The Age, 26 May 2007
Facing the reality of a people in danger by Henry Reynolds
Australia needs to decide what it wants for the future of Aboriginal people and their culture.

Much of the discussion about the stolen generation over the past 10 years has, understandably, concentrated on the suffering of individuals and families and on the motives of officials who implemented the policy.

What is often forgotten is that children were taken from their families as a result of carefully articulated government policy pursued in what were seen as overriding national objectives.

There were two eras of removals separated by the watershed of the Second World War. During the 1920s and 1930s, politicians talked openly about the "half-caste menace" and the need to stop them breeding. The answer was the biological absorption of mixed-descent children.

A leading advocate of the policy, Western Australia's Protector of Aborigines, A. O. Neville, outlined the perceived problem to a national sumrnit of Aboriginal affairs officials in Canberra in 1937: "Are we going to have a population of 1 million blacks in the Commonwealth or are we going to merge them in a white community and eventually forget there were any Aborigines in Australia?"

By 1950 another West Australian, Paul Hasluck, was the principal architect of Aboriginal policy. Biological absorption was no longer a viable foundation for policy in the shadow of the Holocaust and in the wake of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Biology had been replaced by assimilation, but the drive to absorb persisted.

In a speech in Federal Parliament in 1951, Hasluck explained that the Aborigines presented "a serious but not a frightening problem" because there was no uncertainty "about who will swallow whom".

In a later speech he predicted that eventually the Aborigines would "disappear as a separate racial group", although descendants would carry a "proud memory of their ancient origins".

Hasluck differed from Neville. The process would take longer, it was a little more benign but the Aborigines would still disappear even if there was no longer any need to forget they had ever existed.

Has the Federal Government moved on from the legacy of Paul Hasluck?   In policy decision after policy decision, it seems to be following the path of assimilation. Many of them are well meant, but that was true of innumerable past policy disasters. The solution to the very great problems of Aboriginal communities is seen to be that they should become more like us.

There is much debate at the moment about rights and responsibilities. But is there a right to remain Aboriginal, a right not to be "swallowed"? The only one that exists is in a little known article of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that Australia has ratified and also signed the related optional protocol. Article 27 assures minorities the right to "enjoy their own culture, profess and practise their own religion and use their own language".

And what of responsibilities? Does government have a responsibility to ensure the right of Aborigines to survive as a people and to adopt policies with this end in mind? We may not like the policies or the objectives of Neville or Hasluck but they thought about the long-term outcomes of their actions. That is one of the problems with so-called practical reconciliation. It is so completely focused on the present.

But where is policy actually heading? Are there any long-term objectives apart from the obvious ones of improving social indicators? Does government have a responsibility to ensure the survival of the Aborigines as a "separate racial group" as Hasluck termed it?

Until we answer that question we can have no means of assessing any present policies because we cannot answer the simple but critical question: where are we heading?

The Norwegian government took its commitment to article 27 seriously and amended its constitution in 1988 to address the issue of the future of the Sami people. The amendment read: "It is the responsibility of the authorities of the state to create conditions enabling the Sami people to preserve and develop their language, culture and way of life."

Constitutional change is easier in Norway than it is in Australia. But the need to provide some constitutional recognition of the place of indigenous people should be addressed now. It is a practical question of the most pressing kind.

Henry Reynolds is a historian whose books include This Whispering In Our Hearts . He has a personal chair at the University of Tasmania in Launceston.

No sorry for stolen ones, 10 years on
May 23, 2007 - 7:24PM

Ten years after a landmark report recommended governments apologise to the stolen generation, Aboriginal elder Bob Randall is still waiting for the prime minister to say sorry. Thursday marks the 10th anniversary of the handing down of the Bringing Them Home report into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.

Sir Ronald Wilson, who compiled the report after conducting a series of hearings around the nation, accused Australian governments of genocide. His report also called for an apology and compensation for young indigenous children suffering from their forced removal from their families. Mr Randall was taken away from his family at the age of seven and grew up in an institution in the Northern Territory. He says the indigenous population continues to be the target of racism, suffer poor health and living conditions and is still waiting for an apology from Prime Minister John Howard.

After the report was released, Mr Howard said he expressed "deep sorrow" for victims and their families affected by the policies of earlier governments, but believed that the current generation need not bear the sins of the past. "Australians of this generation should not be required to accept the guilt and blame for past actions and policies over which they had no control," Mr Howard said at the time. "However, we must acknowledge past wrongs, understand that they still cause a great deal of personal distress and resolve to improve areas of indigenous disadvantage both now and into the future."

The 700-page report followed lengthy consultations with families and the victims of separation, as well as governments, churches and other groups. It made 54 recommendations - including an apology by state and federal authorities, as well as financial compensation - but many are yet to be implemented. Mr Randall believes a simple apology from the prime minister could go a long way to promoting reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. "The stolen generation are still waiting for the highest position, John Howard's position, just to say I'm sorry, that would be really good if that happened then we could make other things right," he said. "We're living in such a racist country. "The majority of people who are here rather would see us not around anymore." Mr Randall says he has seen no improvements in the lifestyle of indigenous families since the report exposed the devastating impact of the removal of children from their families. While many indigenous children now live with their families,

Mr Randall said significant numbers were still living in poverty. "When you're out in the bush where I am in Uluru ... you can see the hardship faced by the people who live here, and how difficult it is to maintain the three meals a day, if you're lucky enough to get, it's more or less like one feed a day," he said. Aboriginal leaders and politicians will gather on Thursday at Parliament House in Canberra to mark the report's 10th anniversary.

National Stolen Generation Alliance chairman Brian Butler says he will use the anniversary to push for more of the report's recommendations to be implemented. "I'm not satisfied that enough has been done," Mr Butler said. "I'm hoping that Thursday will give us an opportunity to once again highlight to the nation just how important it is for these recommendations to be ... taken seriously and that the implementation of these recommendations must go on." Mr Randall says he still holds on to the dream that life will improve for indigenous Australians. "I wish the change would occur in the very immediate future, I hope in my lifetime, so my kids aren't faced with watching their family go through the same system," he said.

The Canberra Times
25 May 2007
Aboriginal people 'still die in despair'
Dannielle Cronin

A prominent member of the Stolen Generation has blasted the Federal Government for ignoring the bulk of recommendations from a landmark report and for providing inadequate funding to address the sorry state of indigenous affairs.

Lowitja O'Donoghue a co-patron of the Stolen Generation Alliance said yesterday in a speech to mark the 10th anniversary of the publication of the Bringing Them Home report, that Aboriginal people were dying of despair as those in power looked the other way. The event was held in the Great Hall at Parliament House. Ms O'Donoghue said the Government had ignored 35 of the 54 recommendations in the report, which dealt with the separation of indigenous children from their families. And the funding was drastically inadequate to meet the needs. Ms O'Donoghue received a standing ovation. But some in the crowd vented their frustration with the Howard Government by heckling Health Minister Tony Abbott, calling out "say sorry" as the Liberal MP addressed the audience.

In Parliament, Prime Minister John Howard reiterated he would not formally apologise to the Stolen Generation. "I think we are united in our desire to see the indigenous people of this country become in every way part of our mainstream Australian society while continuing to recognise their special place as the first Australians and continuing to recognise their right to treasure their own particular culture. "But I have always held the view that the best way to help the indigenous people of this nation is to give them the greatest possible access to the bounty and good fortune of this nation, and that cannot happen unless they are absorbed into our mainstream."

Ms O'Donoghue said Mr Howard's record in the area was woeful. She had no reason to expect an apology from Mr Howard but argued acknowledging past wrongs was crucial to rebuilding relationships. "The Prime Minister either doesn't get it or he doesn't care and I am not sure which is worse," she said. "What I do know is that there has been a failure of moral authority and ethical leadership in Australia over the last 10 years. "This country is in a position to be a world leader in human rights and social justice. Indeed it is, as Aboriginal people would say, a shame job. When initiatives are taken, they are too small and mean spirited to bring about significant and long-term change."

Mr Abbott and Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough defended the Coalition's record, saying it had acted on the recommendations that made a practical difference. More than 1400 indigenous people had reconnected with their families through a link-up program and MrBrough pledged $2 million to employ 22 more program staff. "There may be more needed but it is absolutely essential that every person, that wants to understand where they came from and who they are and where they want to be, has that opportunity realised," Mr Brough said.

Mr Abbott believed the Government had allocated the "right amount of money now" to indigenous health but would spend more in the future."The question is spending it in ways that make a difference and the problem is that we can set up ... more clinics, we've got to do it in ways that indigenous people will use them and so that requires the kind of community infrastructure building that we are involved in," Mr Abbott said.

Labor's indigenous affairs spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said Labor had set targets to halve the gap in the death rate between Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal children within a decade. As part of a $15.7 million package, Labor would also boost funding for link-up services to ensure 1000 Stolen Generation survivors were reunited with their families over the next four years.

 

The Sydney Morning Herald
Blacks, be patient: Abbott
Date: May 25 2007
Stephanie Peatling

INDIGENOUS people have been patient but need to wait longer for chronic health and other social justice problems to be addressed, the Minister for Health, Tony Abbott, said yesterday. At an event marking the 10th anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report on the stolen generations, Mr Abbott and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough, were heckled with calls of "crap" and "say sorry". Both maintained that no apology would be offered, but instead announced another 22 counsellors for a program that helps members of the stolen generations find their families. "I admire your passion. After what you and your people have been through I understand your anger. But I know you're patient," Mr Abbott said.

After someone accused the Government of only funding the extra counsellors because it was an election year, Mr Abbott responded: "If things happen because of a democracy, isn't that a good thing?" Later he said he believed indigenous people were better off now than when the Howard Government came to power in 1996. When asked to identify progress in the past 11 years Mr Abbott acknowledged more needed to be done but nominated an increasing number of friendships between indigenous and non-indigenous people. The ministers earlier listened as an indigenous leader and member of the stolen generations, Lowitja O'Donoghue, express "profound sadness about how little has actually been achieved in terms of the wellbeing of Aboriginal people in this country". "Aboriginal people, the first people of this land, are dying of despair while those in power look the other way," she said.

Professor O'Donoghue said she would continue to campaign for an official apology to the stolen generations even though she had no expectation of receiving one from the Prime Minister, John Howard. The latest budget was "scandalous", she said, because about $135 million over four years had been allocated to indigenous health, while $123 million had been set aside for the "very silly and totally unnecessary new citizenship test".

The Government has been firm in its refusal to apologise, instead concentrating on what it calls "practical reconciliation". Mr Howard yesterday said he would always be against an official apology. "The best way to help the indigenous people of this nation is to give them the greatest possible access to the bounty and good fortune of this nation, and that cannot happen unless they are absorbed into our mainstream," he said.

Labor's indigenous affairs spokeswoman, Jenny Macklin, promised a Labor government would apologise, saying symbolic gestures were an important part of reconciling all Australians. "It's the just and decent thing to do," she said. "An apology is not an empty gesture. It can, in fact, be a circuit-breaker. If we acknowledge wrongs, and assess honestly and rigorously what needs to be done, we can move forward." The Bringing Them Home report made 54 recommendations but 35 - including an apology - have never been acted on. Indigenous health: how it compares Life expectancy 17 years less than the rest of Australia. Health status 20 per cent less likely to report excellent health, 50 per cent more likely to report poor health. Diabetes 3.4 times higher. Funding Spending should be $460m higher, AMA says. Cost 65 per cent of hospital cases involve preventable chronic conditions.

 

POSITIVE OUTCOMES FOR STOLEN GENERATIONS BUT FAR MORE SUPPORT NEEDED

10th May 2007: from the Stolen Generations Alliance

An independent report criticising the Government's response to the Bringing Them Home report as “insufficiently documented, poorly co-ordinated and insufficiently targeted to meet the needs of the Stolen Generations” was long overdue, the Stolen Generations Alliance said today.

The report, Evaluation of the Bringing Them Home and Indigenous Mental Health Programs, by social research consultancy Urbis Keys Young, has been released. It comes in the run up to the 10th anniversary on May 26 of the tabling of the Bringing Them Home Report, which revealed the tragic impact of the removal policies on Indigenous Australians.

“The report's documentation of the severe consequences of removal in Australia on Indigenous people's social and emotional well-being is timely,” said the Stolen Generations Alliance chair Brian Butler.

“It names consequences such as loss, trauma, grief, offending behaviour, adverse life outcomes, substance abuse, higher rates of mental health problems, suicide and violence, parenting problems and poorer physical health,' he said. “It also tells of the outstanding work of Link-Up and the Bringing Them Home counsellors in helping survivors of these policies to find healing.”

Since the release of the Bringing Them Home Report in 1997, counselling services have been established in many places to cater for the needs of those affected by the removal policies. And the Link-Up services - which bring together family members separated by the policies - have been expanded across the country.

The Urbis Keys Young evaluation focuses on the little-known work of those social and mental health workers who have devoted themselves to healing the Stolen Generations. It points to the “high rate of client satisfaction and positive outcomes” of their work, but says they have “inordinately heavy workloads”.

“The average case load for a mental health worker in a mainstream service is 25,” the report states. “The case loads of Bringing Them Home counsellors and Link-Up workers can exceed 80.” And they are so hard-pressed coping with clients in their vicinity that, in large areas of the country, those who need help are unable to receive it.

“There is far too high a rate of burnout among Bringing Them Home counsellors and Link-Up workers,” concluded Butler. “If the Federal and State Governments will give the support they need, we will see many desperate people find health and hope.”

Media Enquiries:
Brian Butler, Chair, Stolen Generations Alliance, 0419 801 085
John Bond, spokesperson, Stolen Generations Alliance, 0420 237 039

Stolen Generations Alliance - Australians for Healing, Truth and Justice
Patrons: Prof Lowitja O'Donoghue, AC CBE Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser, AC CH
151 Kent Street Hughes ACT 2605 Tel (02) 6281 0940 Fax (02) 6232 4554
www.sgalliance.org.au

 

CANADIAN HOUSE OF COMMONS APOLOGIZES TO RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SURVIVORS

Reporter: Bill Curry, Toronto Globe and Mail Update, May 1, 2007

OTTAWA - The House of Commons apologized unanimously yesterday to former students of Canada's Indian Residential Schools, but the federal government wants at least five more years before issuing its own apology.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative MPs voted in favour yesterday of a Liberal motion that the House apologize to the survivors of the boarding schools, which Ottawa supported for over a century starting in the 1870s. The motion, which passed 257-0, makes reference to the trauma suffered as a result of policies intended to assimilate First Nations, Inuit and Métis children into mainstream society. The loss of aboriginal culture is cited, as well as the "sad legacy of emotional, physical and sexual abuse."

Phil Fontaine, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said he was pleased with the vote. "We desperately need this expression of apology from the place that brought forward the residential school experience where so many people were harmed," he said. "It's an important moment for us."

Mr. Fontaine said he will continue to press for a federal government apology as soon as possible.

Indian Affairs minister Jim Prentice gave a detailed - and at times personal - speech yesterday outlining why the federal government will not immediately apologize.

The minister has been under fire for weeks for rejecting calls for a government apology as part of the multibillion-dollar settlement with former students that will conclude this summer.

In a bid to ramp up that pressure, the Liberals used their opposition day yesterday to trigger a day-long debate on a motion calling on the Commons to apologize.

Mr. Prentice argued that because governments of several stripes bear responsibility for the schools policy, it is appropriate that an apology comes from all parties in the House of Commons.

As for a government apology, the minister said it is better to wait until a new Truth and Reconciliation Commission completes its five-year mandate to tour the country and issue a definitive report on the history of residential schools. Mr. Prentice told the House that his decision to attach "enormous significance" to such a commission dates back to his experience working as a constitutional adviser in South Africa in the early 1990s as the country worked to dismantle its apartheid structure.

"I watched as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was struck in South Africa unfold. I watched how it assisted South Africa in coming to grips with a very sad chapter of its history," he said.

All of the facts and stories are not yet known, he said, in explaining the need for the $60-million Canadian commission. "The executive branch of the government at that time will have a heavy responsibility to follow through with what I hope will be the closing chapter of this era in Canadian history and deal with the [commission's] recommendations. I would be very surprised if those recommendations at that time did not deal, as the South African commission did, with the context and the concept of an apology."

The opposition parties welcomed the Conservative party's support for the House of Commons apology, but continued to press for an immediate government apology.

In his opening speech, Saskatchewan Liberal MP Gary Merasty, a former Cree Grand Chief who moved yesterday's motion, painted a dark picture of the residential schools experience.

"I stand here for numerous victims whose stories will never be told, whose remains are scattered across our land in unmarked graves, scars on the land and even larger scars on our nation's psyche," he said. "According to some reports, students in the early to middle part of the last century often had to help bury their classmates, their friends, their relatives. Yes, children buried children."

 

The Australian   27 April 2007
A decade of Aborigines being told to 'fit in'
- Stuart Rintoul

ABORIGINAL people have lost hope under Howard government policies designed to force them to "fit in" with white Australia, say former prime minister Malcolm Fraser and indigenous leader Lowitja O'Donoghue. In a fierce attack on indigenous policy over the past decade, Ms O'Donoghue said yesterday she had never known such a bad time in Aboriginal affairs: policy was shaped by an attitude of "white is right" and John Howard had been a "dead loss" in the area.

Mr Fraser said that almost 10 years after the Stolen Generations report, Bringing Them Home, two-thirds of the recommendations had been ignored by the Government, while Aboriginal affairs had been "taken back decades" to attitudes and policies that were proven failures.

Mr Fraser said Australia ought to follow the example of Canada, which is set to pay its equivalent of the stolen generations more than $1 billion in compensation. He said Canada was "light years" ahead of Australia in addressing very similar problems in its indigenous communities.

Attacking key areas of Aboriginal policy, Mr Fraser said cutting off services to remote indigenous communities would be a "total denial of responsibility", it was "a national disgrace" that there were fewer Aboriginal students at university today than 10 years ago and far too little was spent on Aboriginal health.

Mr Fraser and Ms O'Donoghue, co-patrons of the Stolen Generations Alliance, were joined in Melbourne by singer Bob Randall, author of the stolen generation anthem Brown Skin Baby and an influential figure at the troubled Mutitjulu community at Uluru, who said the community was "emptying out" as people moved to Alice Springs.

Mr Randall lashed out at media reports last year that a pedophile traded petrol for sex with girls at Mutitjulu and that the community was presided over by men with criminal convictions, saying no charges had ever been laid.

Mr Fraser said Mr Howard's predecessor, Paul Keating, "had a vision of Australia that was intrinsically Australian. He wouldn't have been trying to say 'you've got to be like us'."

The Sydney Morning Herald   27 April 2007
Fraser slams indigenous policy fiasco
- Mark Metherell

GOVERNMENT attempts to "starve" indigenous people out of remote communities highlights the "significant regression" in indigenous policies under John Howard, the former prime minister Malcolm Fraser has said.
 
It will be a decade next month since the Bringing Them Home report chronicled the suffering of indigenous families through official removal of children.

But Mr Fraser said the failure to reverse indigenous disadvantage, poor health and lack of elected representation showed "there has really been a significant regression over the past 10 years". He joined the Aboriginal leader Lowitja O'Donoghue to call for a new commitment to the wholehearted implementation of the report.

Mr Fraser said Government attempts to move indigenous people from their communities into bigger towns to get jobs was the latest sign of the failure of the "practical reconciliation" policy.

"Just to starve out the remote localities . that is not a policy. It is a prescription for more despair," he said.

Appointing the historian Keith Windschuttle to the ABC board was "like slapping every indigenous person in the face with a wet fish".

Herald-Sun, Melbourne, 27 April 2007
Pay the Stolen Generation call

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser has used the forthcoming 10^th anniversary of the Stolen Generations report to call on the Federal Government to pay compensation.

Mr Fraser joined Prof Lowitja O'Donoghue and activist Bob Randall in praising Canada's model of compensation for its indigenous communities.

"There aren't large numbers of votes on this issue.  People ought to act because it is needed and it is necessary and it is right," Mr Fraser said.

Prof O'Donoghue said she was still waiting to hear Prime Minister John Howard say sorry and, as far as leadership goes, "he doesn't rate".

The anniversary of Bringing Them Home is on May 26, one decade after it was first tabled in Federal Parliament.

Courier Mail, Brisbane  27 April 2007
Fraser plea on compo

FORMER prime minister Malcolm Fraser yesterday urged the Federal Government to pay compensation to members of the Stolen Generations of indigenous Australians.

Mr Fraser's appeal came as he joined Aboriginal leader Lowitja O'Donoghue in painting a bleak picture of indigenous affairs one month out from the 10th anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report on the Stolen Generations.

The former Liberal prime minister compared Australia's treatment of its stolen generations with Canada, which has recently announced compensation for indigenous people removed from their families.

"If there are going to be resources of the sort Canada has employed, and believed to be necessary and believed to be justified, you can't say it's just the states' responsibility," Mr Fraser said.

"It's Australia's responsibility. When they want to do something the Federal Government seems to find ... large sums of money.

"They're mostly spending money where they think there are going to be large numbers of votes. There aren't large numbers of votes on this issue. People ought to act because it is needed and it is necessary and it is right."

Mr Fraser attacked both sides of politics for pushing Aboriginal issues off the agenda, saying federal policy on indigenous affairs was "going backwards".

Following the abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), Australia was the only western democracy with an indigenous minority that had no representative voice, he said.

"To have no elected representation is really saying to an important indigenous minority: 'Well, we know what's best for you'."

Mr Fraser criticised the declining number of Indigenous students studying at university and inadequate spending on Aboriginal health, which he said was significantly less than non-indigenous people realised.

 
Professor O'Donohue criticised both the Labor and Liberal parties for doing little on Aboriginal issues and said most of the recommendations of the Bringing Them Home report had never been implemented.

This AAP article, or variations, appeared recently in numerous regional papers:

Compensate Stolen Generation - Fraser

FORMER prime minister Malcolm Fraser has called on the Federal Government to pay compensation to members of the Stolen Generation.

Mr Fraser's appeal came as he joined Aboriginal leader Lowitja O'Donoghue in painting a bleak picture of indigenous affairs one month out from the 10th anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report on the Stolen Generations.

The former Liberal prime minister compared Australia's treatment of its stolen generations with Canada, which has recently announced compensation for indigenous people removed from their families.

"If there are going to be resources of the sort Canada has employed, and believed to be necessary and believed to be justified, you can't say it's just the states' responsibility," Mr Fraser said.

"It's Australia's responsibility. When they want to do something the Federal Government seems to find ... large sums of money.

"They're mostly spending money where they think there are going to be large numbers of votes. There aren't large numbers of votes on this issue. People ought to act because it is needed and it is necessary and it is right."

Mr Fraser attacked both sides of politics for pushing Aboriginal issues off the agenda, saying federal policy on indigenous affairs was "going backwards".

Following the abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), Australia was the only western democracy with an indigenous minority that had no representative voice, he said.

"To have no elected representation is really saying to an important indigenous minority: 'Well, we know what's best for you'."

Mr Fraser said there were fewer indigenous people studying at university and inadequate spending on Aboriginal health.

Professor O'Donohue criticised both the Labor and Liberal parties for doing little on Aboriginal issues and said most of the recommendations of the Bringing Them Home report had never been implemented.

"This is the absolute worst time in Aboriginal affairs history from my point of view," Prof O'Donohue said.

OVERSEAS

The Scotsman, Edinburgh   27 April 2007

Aborigines say little done to help stolen children
- Victoria Thieberger

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Ten years after a report detailed the "attempted genocide" of Australian Aborigines and demanded a government apology and compensation, black leaders are still waiting to hear the word "sorry" or see any compensation.

The 1997 report described the forced removal of aboriginal children, known as the "Stolen Generations". Up to 100,000 were seized from their parents from 1910 to 1970 under government policy to assimilate them into white culture.

But aboriginal leaders said on Thursday that about two-thirds of the report's recommendations on helping those forcibly taken from their families have been ignored.

They said Australia compared poorly with Canada, which recently announced a compensation package for its indigenous people, and other countries, including the United States and New Zealand.

"The report's recommendations could do much to heal the wounds," said Lowitja O'Donoghue, a former chairwoman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).

She said the plight of Aborigines in Australia contrasts sharply with Canada, where the government has agreed to pay compensation to native Indian children who were forced to attend "residential schools" thousands of miles from their homes.

"I think this is the absolute worst time in the history of Aboriginal affairs," she said.

The 1997 report by Australia's human rights commission found an assimilation policy used until the 1960s was "systematic racial discrimination and genocide".

It called for a government apology and compensation, but conservative Prime Minister John Howard will not issue an apology for past atrocities against Aborigines.

In recent years Aboriginal leaders have moved away from calls for racial reconciliation to a more pragmatic call for help on health and drug and alcohol abuse.

Aborigines have far higher rates of imprisonment, unemployment, welfare dependency, domestic violence and alcoholism than the rest of the population. Most live in remote communities in Australia's outback, with smaller groups in squalid conditions on the fringes of larger country towns.

Former conservative prime minister Malcolm Fraser, one of the patrons of the Stolen Generations Alliance, said Australia should follow Canada's example in setting compensation for the "stolen" children.

Fraser said education and health services for Aborigines have gone backwards over the past 10 years and there is little political interest in improving the situation. "The political process has virtually pushed indigenous people off the agenda.

"Some of the things that are being said now remind me of policy that are many decades old," he said.

Aboriginal leaders said a service set up to reunite separated families was chronically underfunded, and could only help up to 200 families a year, with thousands waiting for assistance wading through government records and files to find lost family members.

 

This article also appeared in Switzerland and elsewhere around the world.

All Headline News (digital)   26 April 2007

Fraser attacks Indigenous affairs 'regression'

Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser says the Federal Government has ignored most of a major report on the removal of Indigenous Australians from their families.

In the lead up to next month's 10-year anniversary of the 'Bringing Them Home' report, Mr Fraser has attacked the Government's handling of Indigenous affairs, saying it has regressed.

Mr Fraser says neither the Federal Government nor the Opposition is showing any real interest in Aboriginal affairs.

He says more money needs to be spent on health, and education has gone backwards.

Mr Fraser, who is a co-patron of the Stolen Generations Alliance, says there is no stark point of difference between the two major parties on Aboriginal affairs.

He says the Federal Government should follow the Canadian Government's example.

"The Canadians have shown a very real interest in resolving these problems," he said.

"The kind of interest that hasn't come from Canberra, [from] either party.

"I don't really believe has come from either of the major parties in the state arena."

Former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) chair, Lowitja O'Donoghue, has supported Mr Fraser's stand.

She says this is the worst time in Aboriginal affairs history.

New Zealand Television   26 April 2007

"Stolen children" wait for compensation

Ten years after a report detailed the "attempted genocide" of Australian Aborigines and demanded a government apology and compensation, black leaders are still waiting to hear the word "sorry" or see any compensation.

The 1997 report described the forced removal of aboriginal children, known as the "Stolen Generations". Up to 100,000 were seized from their parents from 1910 to 1970 under government policy to assimilate them into white culture.

But aboriginal leaders said on Thursday that about two-thirds of the report's recommendations on helping those forcibly taken from their families have been ignored.

They said Australia compared poorly with Canada, which recently announced a compensation package for its indigenous people, and other countries, including the United States and New Zealand.

"The report's recommendations could do much to heal the wounds," said Lowitja O'Donoghue, a former chairwoman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).

She said the plight of Aborigines in Australia contrasts sharply with Canada, where the government has agreed to pay compensation to native Indian children who were forced to attend "residential schools" thousands of kilometres from their homes.

"I think this is the absolute worst time in the history of Aboriginal affairs," she said.

The 1997 report by Australia's human rights commission found an assimilation policy used until the 1960s was "systematic racial discrimination and genocide".

It called for a government apology and compensation, but conservative Prime Minister John Howard will not issue an apology for past atrocities against Aborigines.

In recent years Aboriginal leaders have moved away from calls for racial reconciliation to a more pragmatic call for help on health and drug and alcohol abuse.

Aborigines have far higher rates of imprisonment, unemployment, welfare dependency, domestic violence and alcoholism than the rest of the population. Most live in remote communities in Australia's outback, with smaller groups in squalid conditions on the fringes of larger country towns.

Former conservative prime minister Malcolm Fraser, one of the patrons of the Stolen Generations Alliance, said Australia should follow Canada's example in setting compensation for the "stolen" children.

Fraser said education and health services for Aborigines have gone backwards over the past 10 years and there is little political interest in improving the situation. "The political process has virtually pushed indigenous people off the agenda.

"Some of the things that are being said now remind me of policy that are many decades old," he said.

Aboriginal leaders said a service set up to reunite separated families was chronically underfunded, and could only help up to 200 families a year, with thousands waiting for assistance wading through government records and files to find lost family members.