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COUNCIL
CHAIR AND DEPUTY "DEEPLY REGRET" The Chairperson, Evelyn Scott, and the Deputy Chairperson, Sir Gustav Nossal, said today that the attempt by Senator Herron to deny the existence of a "Stolen Generation" had greatly harmed the reconciliation process. "Whatever Senator Herron’s intentions and motivations, it is obvious that insensitive attempts to deny the validity of a term such as the ‘Stolen Generation’ through mathematical arguments simply aggravates wounds which the reconciliation process is trying to heal," they said. "As an Indigenous person, I know in my heart and in my gut just how members of what we all know as the Stolen Generation are feeling about this," Ms Scott said, "and for that matter how every Indigenous person feels. And since Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders are half of the reconciliation equation, it is not hard to apply basic maths to work out the impact on the process," she said. Ms Scott and Sir Gus said that they had not seen Senator Herron’s submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee on the "Inquiry into the Stolen Generation" and therefore could not comment on its specifics. "However, one central point is clear from the media coverage, including Senator Herron's own statements: that the submission questions whether there ever was a ‘stolen generation’ on the basis of how many children, or what proportion of children, were ever taken, and how many of these were ‘forcibly removed’," Sir Gus said. "This is beside the point: whereas we don’t know exactly how many people were affected, the term Stolen Generation has come to mean something which is widely recognised, and it is also widely recognised that it caused a tremendous amount of hurt, and the hurt is ongoing," he said. "We want to minimise that hurt, not minimise its significance by mathematical debates." Ms Scott and Sir Gus said that the Council’s work had not been assisted by the words in the submission. "The Council has clearly stated its view that there should be definite outcomes from the reconciliation process by the end of 2000, when the Council winds up, and broad national agreement on those outcomes. We remain firmly committed to that aim. We hope that others do too, and that they will carefully consider the generosity of spirit and the substance of policy which is required to make it happen," they said. MELBOURNE 3 APRIL 2000 |
