Editors --- "Acting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Social Justice Report 1998 - Digest" [2000] AUIndigLawRpr 13; (2000) 5(1) Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 137

• Acting Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner
• Social Justice Report 1998
• Contents
• Foreword

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Inquiries and Reports - Australia

Acting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner

Social Justice Report 1998

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
Sydney
April 1999

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner is required to report annually to the Federal Attorney-General under s 46c of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986 (Cth) regarding the exercise and enjoyment of human rights by Australia’s Aboriginal andTorres Strait Islander peoples. This provision also allows the Commissioner to make recommendations as to action that should be taken to ensure such enjoyment.

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) has a role in monitoring and evaluating the human rights performance of Australian governments in concrete and specific circumstances. In doing so it can assess domestic situations by reference to international human rights benchmarks. The Commissioner also has a role in identifying the broad patterns and structural issues which underlie current human rights violations and discrimination against Indigenous Australians and can assist in the design of frameworks which will ensure that government programs and services are conducive to the enjoyment of human rights by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The Sixth Report 1998 focuses on the political, media and public responses to the report of the Bringing Them Home, the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, in the 12 months since its release in May 1997. The report explores the patterns of debate and the variety of reactions of non-Indigenous Australians. The responses of Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments to the recommendations of the Inquiry are included, drawn from consultations with relevant government departments or authorities.^[1]

Contents

Foreword

Introduction: A Handful of Soil

Chapter 1: The Aftermath for Indigenous People

Chapter 2: Non-Indigenous Community Response

Chapter 3: Church Responses

Chapter 4: Government Responses to the Recommendations of Bringing Them Home

Appendix 1: Letters to the Editor

Appendix 2: Selected Inventory of Apologies and National Sorry Day Events

Appendix 3: Text of Sorry Day Statement

Appendix 4: Summary of Governments’ Responses to Recommendations

Foreword

This report presents various responses to Bringing Them Home, the Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families. This is not done to re-open the substance of the Inquiry, its findings or the basis of its recommendations.

The objective is to record the diverse range of responses and the perspectives they illustrate. The publication of Bringing Them Home had a marked impact on the Australian community. The ensuing public debate was sustained and intense. It stimulated the expression of views reflecting contemporary attitudes and values which directly and indirectly affect the circumstances of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

These attitudes and values will critically affect our potential for reconciliation. We must attempt to understand the full range of opinion: if we cannot allow the sincerity of competing views, no matter how much we disagree with them, then we have very little prospect of constructive engagement.

Our challenge is to bring a more balanced appreciation of our past and, importantly, a more cohesive view of our future. Considering the responses to Bringing Them Home provides us with an opportunity to understand how a genuine and just reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians may be advanced.

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^[1] Only the foreword and contents of the report are reproduced here. The full text is available at: <www.hreoc.gov.au/ social_justice/social_justice/index.html>. See also HREOC’s Bringing Them Home: Implementation Progress Report reproduced in full in (1999) 4 (3) AILR 67.