Public Meeting on Sunday 10 May 2009 in Brighton

WHO has seen the films Australia, or Rabbit Proof Fence? They concerned the Stolen Generations – Aboriginal people who were taken forcibly as children from their mothers, from the early 1900s, to be educated in boarding schools like white children in the belief that gradually the aboriginal heritage would then disappear. This policy went on even until the 1970s. The result was grief and bewilderment. For years these children were looking for their original families and trying to rebuild their lives.

The Brighton and Hove Interfaith Contact Group asked John Bond (for nearly 10 years Secretary of the National Sorry Day Committee) to tell us about the campaign in Australia which led last year to the public apology by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, to the Aboriginal leaders of the community.

John Bond speaking in Brighton (Photo: John Munro)“I am glad to have the chance to tell this story here in Britain. Because the story of Australia is inextricably linked to Britain,” said Bond. “I’m born British, but I never felt out of place in my position as Secretary of Australia’s Sorry Day Committee. I was elected to that position by Aboriginal people, and I saw this as my chance to help repair some of the damage done by my forebears. And this is a story not just of pain. It is the story of people who worked for truth and healing and justice in the face of a Government that tried to ignore this pain, and cover up the truth about this cruelty and injustice.”

He then showed a clip from a film of Kevin Rudd’s apology in Parliament, which had the full support of the Opposition. It was moving to see the effect on the leaders and the people of the Aboriginal communities, sitting in the public gallery. It was on TV all over the country, where gatherings were held to listen to the Prime Minister. One could see the tears of joy and remembrance as he spelt out the steps which he and his government intended to take to make amends for the past.

Following this, Bond went back to outline the steps which had been taken over some twenty years to make such an action possible. Many people had been involved in the Sorry Day Committee; they had a clear aim to find a way of restoring for the past and they worked together unitedly and without giving up at the many difficulties they encountered.

In 1995 the then Government chose a High Court judge, Sir Ron Wilson, to carry out an enquiry into the past treatment of, and future policy for, the Aboriginal people. During the two years of this enquiry there was a change of government who then practically ignored the enquiry's report. This was a big disappointment.

“It was like no other inquiry I have undertaken,” said Sir Ron. “Others were intellectual exercises, a matter of collating information and making recommendations. But for these people to reveal what had happened to them took immense courage and every emotional stimulus they could muster… I came to this inquiry with fifty years behind me as a hardboiled lawyer, mixing it with all sorts of antagonists, and yet this inquiry changed me. And if it can change me, it can change our nation.”

One recommendation of the report was that a Sorry Day be held to commemorate the tragedy. The Prime Minister ignored this. But Sir Ronald did not give up. He consulted Stolen Generations leaders, and in January 1998 he and they invited thirty people, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, to meet and consider whether a Sorry Day could be held without Government involvement.

Nearly a million people took part in the first Sorry Day. Many different meetings, processions, marches and other forms of action followed. One such action saw 250,000 people marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, many with banners saying "Sorry". It was the largest demonstration in Australian history. An aeroplane even wrote ‘SORRY’ in the sky! And then in Melbourne, never to be outdone by their rival city, 300,000 people took part in a similar walk!

Side by side with these more public occasions, a great deal of lobbying of individuals and groups was going on.

Finally last year, when the new government took office under Kevin Rudd, they announced that their first action would be to try and put right the past treatment of the aboriginal people. In this way the Prime Minister fulfilled his promise.

At the end John Bond read out a message from the Honourable Malcolm Fraser, a former prime minister who had become a patron of the Sorry Day Committee. In it he said, “The apology was an important step towards overcoming discrimination, and following that the Government has put significant funding into improving the health, housing and educational opportunities of Aboriginal people. But much remains to be done. There has been massive underinvestment in aboriginal health, housing and education. The first steps have been taken to overcome this, but only the first steps.”

Questions which came thick and fast, starting with the Mayor of Brighton, Councillor Garry Peltzer Dunn. He emphasised how important it was for present leaders to recognise what we have done in the past, and also accept the task of putting it right. What had happened in Australia was like moving from night to day, he said.

A faith community leader, deeply stirred by what he heard, is now giving thought to ways in which the concerns of his community might be approached in the same way as the Sorry Day Committee had in Australia.

During refreshments at the end, John and his wife Mary were approached by many people for more personal questions and talks, as well as many people having animated talks among themselves. One who has been involved with the Interfaith Group for some years described it as the best meeting she had ever attended. Another said she was in tears much of the time. We may not have heard the last of the Sorry Day Committee, as the repercussions continue.

© David Young 2009