Assembly '97 News Home page Documents next story		Assembly boosts efforts in reconciliation Tuesday, July 8 The president of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Sir Ronald Wilson, told Assembly yesterday that the commission had reported on the removal of Aboriginal children from their families, "but we cannot let it stop there". Commission members were determined that the report would not just gather dust on a shelf, he said. They now intended to visit and report primarily to indigenous people, and to "mobilise a coalition of stakeholders "committed to seeing the implementation of the report's recommendations. Sir Ronald, who is a former national president of the Uniting Church (1988-91), said that hearing the stories of the 'stolen generation' had been a life-changing experience for commission members. "You can't do that without being changed.," he said. The shortest submission to the inquiry had come from a man who had told them, "I love mum and dad [his foster parents] but I don't know who I am." Sir Ronald told the assembly, "That loss of identity is the single most precious thing we have taken away from thousands of our fellow Australians." The coordinator of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, Rev Shayne Blackman, told the assembly that the stories of the stolen generation were linked to land and dispossession. The Prime Minister's 10-point plan was really seeking to extinguish the rights of Aboriginal people, he said. "If the 10-point plan succeeds it will be another nail in the coffin that contains the bodies, the culture and Aboriginal future," said Mr Blackman. He said his people respected the rights of those who use the land for the benefit of all Australians, but it was "better to negotiate than to extinguish". The Uniting Church's covenanting coordinator, Rev Dr John Brown, described the 10-point plan as neither respectful nor just. It was winner take all, he said. What the church wanted to establish was "a regime of coexistence in the land". "We will not be a great and mature nation until we acknowledge both the men killed at Gallipoli and the 20,000 Aboriginal people who were killed defending their land here," said Dr Brown. In the first of a long list of resolutions on Aboriginal reconciliation, the Assembly expressed its appreciation for "Bringing them Home," the report of the inquiry of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. "This disclosure of truth provides an essential basis for the achievement of reconciliation and healing between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians," said the Assembly. The Assembly also called on the Federal Government to issue an unconditional apology and to establish a national compensation fund, all as recommended in the report. It also committed the church, both at national and congregational level, to become familiar with and support the recommendations of the inquiry wherever possible. The Uniting Church will participate in a national "Sorry Day" when non-indigenous Australians can "give a sign that we are sorry for the past". If ATSIC initiates such a commemoration, the Uniting Church will work with ATSIC, but otherwise will initiate such a day within the Uniting Church.

"The Uniting Church affirms that it belongs to the people of GOD on the way to the promised end." Basis of Union, Revised edition published 1992