[The Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples] emphasised that all Australians are equally entitled to respect, and that the Government is responsible for ensuring that all Australians are treated equally regardless of their race and history, writes ANDY HAMILTON SJ.
The Anniversary of the Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples focuses on what it says about the place of Indigenous Australians in the land in which they were the first peoples. The Apology seemed to mark a new beginning of the relationship. This hope has been disappointed in the conduct of the Referendum about the Voice to Parliament and the treatment of Indigenous children in the nations’ justice systems. The failure affects personally many people working at Jesuit Social Services and young people with whom we work.
This year the Apology is relevant even more broadly to Australian life. It represents a decent and respectful shaping of relationships between Australians at a time when that decency is under threat. In much public conversation people do not speak to one another but shout at one another. In social media respect is often surrendered to abuse, the search for common ground to polarisation, and respect to contempt, reaching out to cancelling. Conversation is a form of war, complete with masks, hateful slogans and the edge of violence. Hatred can express itself in destroying property and in killing, as in Bondi. Political exchanges are directed not at truth and justice but at embarrassing opponents, not at finding common ground but at winning a battle.
The conduct of the Apology speaks to the challenges facing us today. It was not a shouting match about Indigenous issues but a deeply respectful conversation between representatives of the Australian nation and Indigenous representatives. The Prime Minister made the Apology in person to representatives of the Stolen Generations. He was supported by the Leader of the Opposition Party. In doing so he emphasised that all Australians are equally entitled to respect, and that the Government is responsible for ensuring that all Australians are treated equally regardless of their race and history. The Apology also recognised that Indigenous Australians have a special place in Australia as the first peoples. They are not the objects of Australian policy but persons who are agents in their own lives.
The dignity, respect and recognition of the shameful truth of the Australian treatment of Indigenous Australians were embodied in the Apology. They need to be kept in mind both in negotiating the relationship between Indigenous and other Australians and in responding to the social fragmentation evident in public life today. It needs to be enshrined in public life, in the day-to-day conduct of politics, and in our hearts.
