Indigenous Australians Call for Change on ‘National Sorry Day’

As Australia marked National Sorry Day on Thursday, Indigenous people in the state of South Australia renewed calls for a national compensation scheme for members of the Stolen Generation, who were forcibly removed under paternalistic government policies.

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The day, which has been held since 1998, recognizes the harm that the Australian government has inflicted on Indigenous Australians, their culture and their families. The Stolen Generation was incredibly harmful by forcibly removing Indigenous children from their families and placing them with non-indigenous families from the 1800’s to the 1970’s.

South Australia along with Tasmania are so far the only states to bring forward a compensation scheme. So far in South Australia there have been 25 applications since it opened in March, with hundreds more expected. The campaign's supporters have called for the scheme to be rolled out nationally.

The South Australian state government has allocated AUD$6 million for individual compensation and AUD$5 million for community compensation. South Australian Aboriginal Affairs Minister Kyam Maher said that money could never fix the harm done by past policies. “Saying what the right amount is, I don’t think there is a correct answer to that,” he was quoted by ABC Australia.

Full compensation payments from the state government are estimated to take two and a half years to be allocated to victims.

National Sorry Day has historically been a politically contentious day, with some sectors of white Australia excusing themselves from apology or guilt. For Indigenous Australians marking the day was often seen as an act of rebellion. Former Prime Minister John Howard infamously refused to apologise in the 1990’s and 2000’s.

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In recent years there has been a number of important steps towards reconciliation with Indigenous people. In 2008, then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to Indigenous people in 2008. Momentum has been gathered to include Indigenous Australians to the constitution. A campaign called Recognise is aiming to go to a national referendum in 2017.

But many feel there is a long way to go towards national reconciliation and equality for Indigenous Australians, particularly with the lack of practical measures to say sorry sorry. As Indigenous activist, academic, and author Noel Pearson noted on the compensation process for the Stolen Generation, “blackfellas will get the words, the whitefellas will keep the money.”