Closing the Gap: Non- and Aboriginal Australians

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There is a big reason for the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Leader of the Opposition Brendan Nelson to deliver their speeches of apology to the Indigenous people of Australia. The time may be late for an apology. In fact, many of the indigenous people who have been given a chance to voice out their views say that they don’t need an apology. All they want is an understanding heart and a listening mind, and for them to be given a chance to prove their worth as human beings.

Indigenous Australians have suffered long enough. This is shared by many of those who have witnessed the inhuman treatment and the injustice done to them by non-Indigenous Australians.

A briefing paper from the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and Oxfam Australia revealed these key health indicators:

“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders die nearly 20 years younger than non-Indigenous Australians;
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander infant mortality is three times the rate of non-Indigenous Australians and more than 50 percent higher than for Indigenous children in the USA and New Zealand.”[1]

The paper said that it is not only a scandal but an international scandal. However, it argued that “the poor health in Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population is preventable,” adding that the causes and “outcomes are related to social and economic factors: diseases triggered by poverty; overcrowded housing; poor sanitation; lack of access to education; poor access to medical care for accurate diagnosis and treatment; and poor nutrition.”[2]

All these happened in the midst of an advanced and wealthy nation like Australia; a nation considered a bulwark of democracy, a model, and one of the leading First World nations in Asia.

The paper suggests that there should be “a well-planned allocation of human resources linked with an increased investment in health infrastructure, including primary healthcare, as well as adequate housing and the promotion of healthy lifestyles can contribute to health equality between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and non-Indigenous Australians.”[3]

All the reason for an apology. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered the Parliamentary Apology on February 13, 2002, to all Indigenous Australians. This was followed by a speech by the Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Brendan Nelson.

Prime Minister Rudd said it is “this blemished chapter in our nation’s history” and “the darkest chapters in Australia’s history”[4] that should be corrected by closing the gap and to be participated in by the entire Australian population. Rudd said that the wrong in the past should be corrected so that Australia could move forward with confidence in the future.

The subject for Prime Minister Rudd’s apology:

“The laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering, and loss on these our fellow Australians;
“The pain, suffering, and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind;
“The breaking of families and communities, and
“The indignity and degradation on a proud people and a proud culture.”[5]

In his speech, Prime Minister Rudd narrated the story of Nanna Nungala Fejo, a woman in her 80s, full of life and full of a funny story. This woman was born in the late 1920s; she spent her early childhood in a bush camp just outside Tennant Creek. She remembers the time and the love she spent with her family. Then, sometime in 1932, when she was four years old, she remembers the coming of the welfare men. Her family had feared the day, so that they had dug holes in the creek bank where they could run and hide. But the white welfare men took the kids, including her, and were herded unto the back of the truck. Her mum tried to cling to the back of the truck but in vain. The children were then brought to the Bungalow in Alice.

After a few years, they were handed over to the missions. Nanna Fejo and her sisters, brother, and cousin stood to be selected, whether to become Catholics, Methodists, or the Church of England. Nanna Fejo and her sister became Methodist, and her brother became a Catholic. That was how religion was chosen for them.

Prime Minister Rudd quoted Nanna Fejo as saying: “Families – keeping them together is very important. It’s a good thing that you are surrounded by love, and that love is passed down the generations. That’s what gives you happiness.”[6]

Prior to these recent events, at Redfern Park in Sydney, on December 10, 1992, the then Prime Minister Paul Keating keynoted what should have been done to the indigenous people: “to bring the dispossessed out of the shadows, to recognize that they are part of us and that we cannot give indigenous Australians up without giving up many of our own most deeply held values, much of our own identity – and our own humanity.”[7]

It is this part of Australia’s history that non-Aboriginal Australians should accept the reality that they are living and have to live peacefully, side by side that is, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities who, in the words of Prime Minister Keating, have taken charge of their own lives, and “assistance with the problems which beset them is, at last, being made available in ways developed by the communities themselves.”

There is hope for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders if the non-Aboriginal Australians open their hearts and accept the fact that they have committed a grave injustice and inequality to the first and original Australians. Reconciliation should be preceded by acceptance of all the wrongs, injustice, and inequality done to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

According to Keating, the Aborigines are the original Australians, “the people to whom the most injustice has been done.” And the solutions to the problems which beset them should be provided by the entire Australian population. The whole nation should strive to correct this wrong.

Prime Minister Keating enumerated what happened during those times in history:

“We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life,
“We brought the disasters… the alcohol…
“We committed the murders…
“We practiced discrimination and exclusion.”[8]

Keating narrated an abusive reality as reported by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. These were the “inequality, racism and injustice in the prejudice and ignorance of non-Aboriginal Australians, and in the demoralization and desperation, the fractured identity, of so many Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.”

However, Keating expressed hope in the creation of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, whose mission was “to forge a new partnership built on justice and equity and an appreciation of the heritage of Australia’s indigenous people.” There should be concrete results in giving meaning to ‘justice’ and ‘equity.

The Australian population should improve the living conditions of the Aborigines beginning from one town to another, raise the standard of health from year to year, and open the doors to the dispossessed.

The Aboriginal Australians have already been included in the life of Australia and have made remarkable contributions in the economy, particularly in the pastoral and agricultural industry, in the frontier and exploration history of Australia, in sports, in literature, and in art and music.

Keating said that non-Indigenous Australians should accept the fact that the Aborigines have shaped Australia’s destiny; they are a part of the Australian legend and helped build the nation. A new partnership should be forged between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.

History reveals that the Aborigines were the first settlers of the continent some 50,000 years ago. According to Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, “Australian Aborigines are believed to have numbered 300,000 – 1,000,000 when European colonization began in the late 18th century.”[9] It was a large population with its own culture and identity. And when the European colonizers came, everything changed for the early settlers. It’s like all hell broke loose when the colonizers came.

“The aborigines have an intricate classification system that defines kinship relations and regulates marriages. The Kariera, for example, are divided into hordes, or local groups of about 30 people, which are divided into four classes, or sections.”[10] In other words, the Aborigines are a closely-knit people, with well-defined culture and tradition before the colonizers came. But in 1788, when the British settlers came, the Aborigines became marginalized economically, there was the loss of political autonomy, and there were deaths by disease. “The so-called “pacification by force culminated in the late 1880s, leading to a massive depopulation and extinction for some groups.”[11]

Keating said that the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islander communities should not be deprived of the land because they are the oldest culture in the world, but they suffered and died in defense of their land; they had served their country in peace and war but later were then ignored in history books. He, however expressed hope in the creation of the Reconciliation Council. There was also the establishment of the ATSIC or the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, a product of imagination and goodwill, which “emerges from the vision of indigenous self-determination and self-management. The vision has already become the reality of almost 800 elected Aboriginal Regional Councilors and Commissioners determining priorities and developing their own programs.”[12]

Keating said that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures are so rich, with diverse music and art and dance that could enrich further Australia’s national life and identity.

On the other hand, in Prime Minister Rudd’s speech, he narrated how children were separated from their mums, and families were torn apart, “all in the name of protection.” Thousands and tens of thousands of these stories were contained in Bringing them home, the report commissioned in 1995 by Prime Minister Keating and received in 1997 by Prime Minister Howard.

“The hurt, the humiliation, the degradation, and the sheer brutality of the act of physically separating a mother from her children is a deep assault on our senses and on our most elemental humanity.”[13]

It is for this reason that the apology should be accompanied by an entire nation’s effort to right the wrong, accompanied by programs for health, education, and economic measures to improve the life of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Rudd said that for a decade, there had been a deafening silence from the nation’s parliament, which meant that lawmakers and people in government put the matter to rest, not giving any helping hand to the indigenous people, and not exerting enough efforts to give a concrete solution to the problem which has become a national dilemma. It is a problem that should be faced by the whole of the Australian population. The complaints, the crimes, and inhuman regard for these peoples, also known as the “stolen generation,” only went deaf ears. And this was accepted by the Australian population.

“Decency, human decency, universal human decency, demands that the nation now step forward to the right a historical wrong,” Rudd said.

Rudd’s apology accompanied this stunning reality: “That, between 1910 and 1970, between 10 and 30 percent of Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their mothers and fathers; that, as a result, up to 50,000 children were forcibly taken from their families.”[14] For this reason, they are called “the stolen generation.”

The generic forced separation was well motivated. They are uncomfortable things to state but have to be faced squarely in order for Australia to move on.

Australia has all the reasons for an apology – they have to the right a wrong, in the words of Prime Minister Rudd. “The laws that our parliament enacted made the stolen generations possible,” and that these parliaments are ultimately responsible. “The problem lay with the laws themselves.”[15]

Rudd appealed: “…if the apology we extend today is accepted in the spirit of reconciliation in which it is offered, we can today resolve together that there be a new beginning for Australia.”[16] He said that his apology is also aimed at building a bridge between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

There should be a partnership between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians to help each other or a link-up so that lost families may be traced and services may be given to those who needed.

Minister Rudd made these concrete targets:

“within a decade to halve the widening gap in literacy, numeracy and employment outcomes and opportunities for Indigenous Australians;
“within a decade to halve the appalling gap in infant mortality rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children and,
“Within a generation, to close the equally appalling 17-year life gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous in overall life expectancy.”[17]

He therefore resolved to build new educational opportunities for Indigenous children, providing proper primary and preventative health care, and to reduce the infant mortality rates in remote Indigenous communities. This is a difficult task, but they are attainable with mutual respect, cooperation, and responsibility as the guiding principles of the new partnership. This is also a reconciliation from a long period of not knowing each other. Rudd called on all politicians to stop their bickering and partisan politics, instead to move forward for a common goal.

This speech of apology was followed up by another speech of apology by the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Brendan Nelson. Nelson said that Aboriginal Australians “made involuntary sacrifices, different but no less important, to make possible the economic and social development of our country today.”[18] This means that the Australians of today are indebted to the past, to the early settlers, to the Indigenous people whom they dispossessed and made their lives miserable. Australia of today can never be what it is today without the Indigenous peoples who’ve made sacrifices and their lives lost and shortened because of the worsened conditions in those times.

The Indigenous and non-Indigenous both sacrificed to make an Australia into what it is today. The harsh conditions of the time contributed to their difficulties, but they prevailed, and the land is now rich for everyone, every Australian.

“Our responsibility, every one of us, is to understand what happened here, why it happened and the impact it had on not only those who were removed but also those who did the removing and supported it,” Nelson said of the abuses committed against Indigenous peoples.

Nelson narrated the case of Neville Bonner, a Yagara man abandoned by his non-Aboriginal father, before his birth on Ukerebah Island in the mouth of the Tweed River. Neville went through hardships and pain, but his grandmother Ida successfully brought him up. He said, “In my experience of this world, two qualities are always in greater need – human understanding and compassion.” Neville was also quoted as saying that ‘the unjust hardships he had endured can only be changed when people of non-Aboriginal extraction are prepared to listen, to hear what Aboriginal people are saying, and then work with us to achieve those ends.[19]

These are some of the touching realities that face Australians.

It is timely to state here what the briefing paper, “Close the Gap: Solutions to the Indigenous Health Crisis Facing Australia,” recommended. It said that within 25 years, federal, state and territory leaders from all sides of politics should commit to an agreed time frame for achieving health equality to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

Funding should go to the following:

Improved access for Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders to culturally appropriate primary health care, and to a level commensurate with need;
Increasing the number of health practitioners working within Aboriginal health settings, and further development and training of the Indigenous health workforce;
Improving the responsiveness of mainstream health services and programs to Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander health needs;
Greater targeting of maternal and child health and greater support for Indigenous-specific population programs for chronic and communicable disease;
Greater funding and support for the building blocks of good health such as awareness and availability of nutrition, physical activity, fresh food, healthy lifestyles, and adequate housing; and
Setting national targets and benchmarks towards achieving healthy equality, by which progress can be closely monitored.”[20]

Prime Minister Rudd said that all efforts should be done by all Australians for a well-defined future for Australia with Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples living together – “a future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.”

Discussion

It is high time that a reconciliation be done and committed on all the people of Australia, Indigenous and non-Indigenous. What should be given priority are the health programs recommended by The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and Oxfam Australia in their policy briefing paper “Close The Gap: Solutions to the Indigenous Health Crisis facing Australia” as mentioned earlier in this paper. Prime Minister Rudd’s speech of apology also made some recommendations that should impact on “Close The Gap” program.

He said that we should begin with the little children, “to resolve over the next five years to have every Indigenous four-year-old in a remote Aboriginal community enrolled in and attending a proper early childhood education centre or opportunity and engaged in proper preliteracy and prenumeracy programs.”

This should be a good beginning for Australia if reconciliation should be given priority. Indigenous and non-Indigenous should work side by side to guide those who are lagged behind, especially the young and the little children. The time should be committed to an immediate healing for those hurt inside and out.

Aside from education, there should be an “effectiveness and availability of health services for mothers and children.” The rate of infant mortality rate for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders should be properly addressed or solved right away because it is higher compared to other nations’ Indigenous peoples such as those of Canada’s First Nations people.[21]

In conclusion, it is right and proper to say that the speeches of apology delivered by the honourable men in Parliament can lead to a reconciliation and partnership between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations of Australia, although this is a little bit late considering the time that the atrocities were committed could lead us back to the early European settlement. But it is not at all too late considering that almost every Australian, and politicians and statesmen for that matter, are talking about it, and very much concerned about what is going on in Australia, as far as the Indigenous peoples are concerned. Indigenous peoples should be given a chance to voice out what they want and how they could improve their state of living. What the Indigenous people want is for the non-Indigenous Australians to listen.

Australians still would like to live up to that dream that their nation is a bulwark of democracy and a model for all nations, with the Indigenous people working side by side with non-Indigenous people.

References

Answers. Australian Aborigines. Web.

Speech of the Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Brendan Nelson. Web.

Speech of Prime Minister of Australia Paul Keating, 1992. Web.

Speech of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, 2002. Web.

The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and Oxfam Australia, 2007. Close the Gap: Solutions to the Indigenous Health Crisis facing Australia. Web.

Oxfam Australia, Close the Gap: Solutions to the Indigenous Health Crisis Facing Australia, 2007, p. 3.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Speech, 2008.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Redfern speech, paragraph 10.
Ibid.
Answers. Australian Aborigines. Web.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Prime Minister Rudd’s Apology.
Rudd’s Apology.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Dr. Nelson Speech, Leader of the Opposition.
Ibid.
Oxfam Australia, Close the Gap: Solutions to the Indigenous Health Crisis Facing Australia, 2007, p. 3.
Ibid, p. 5.

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Closing the Gap: Non- and Aboriginal Australians

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