Ms BURNEY (Barton—Minister for Indigenous Australians) (12:32): I rise to speak to the Prime Minister's statement on the apology: One sweet day all the children came back, … … … Back where the hearts grow strong Back where they all belong. … … … The children came back Back where they understand Back to their mother's land The children came back. The late, great Archie Roach first performed 'Took the Children Away' more than 33 years ago. Archie spoke of the truth that for many years was denied—denied by governments and denied by parliaments. Children were removed from their families because of the colour of their skin. And it was governments that did it. Most Australians didn't know of this reality. For decades there was a stubborn silence while many of those removed suffered a private pain of unbearable loss. It was, and is, one of the darkest chapters in our history. In 1991, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody found that of the 99 deaths investigated, 43 were people who had been separated from their families. By 1997, the Bringing them home report, which took evidence from hundreds of people from across the country, made 54 recommendations. The report found that between one in 10 and one in three Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families between 1910 and 1970—in most of our lifetimes. One of the key recommendations was for an apology to be given by governments. Western Australia was the first state to issue an apology, on 27 May 1997, closely followed by New South Wales in June of the same year. By 2001, all states and territories had issued apologies. The only hold-out was the Australian government under then Prime Minister John Howard. Recently, I went back and looked at some of the accounts in the Bringing them Home report—so many tales of heartbreak, of lives changed forever. One harrowing story was from Paul. Paul's mother was tricked into putting him into a home while she recovered from a serious illness. He was made a ward of the state, and his mother's consent was never sought. His adoptive family rejected him after seven months and Paul was placed in an orphanage and later with an abusive foster family. In his submission, Paul said: … my Mother never gave up trying to locate me. She wrote many letters to the State Welfare Authorities, pleading with them to give her son back. Birthday and Christmas cards were sent care of the Welfare Department. All these letters were shelved. The State Welfare Department treated my Mother like dirt, and with utter contempt, as if she never existed. The apology delivered by Prime Minister Rudd was, at its core, about healing—healing deep wounds, closing a painful chapter of denial of our history and opening a new chapter of our collective story, a better chapter. It was about real people. To the people joining us today, thank you so much. Hearing from the Prime Minister of Australia a simple word, 'sorry'—an apology, the truth—you deserved that. You deserve nothing less. For some, the apology was something to reject. And, of course, we all learn and we all grow. I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his apology today. It is a good thing that we grow and we learn. But, now, we have the chance to do something practical together to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, something that will have an impact on the ground and in communities by getting behind the Closing the Gap implementation plan and by supporting, as the Prime Minister so beautifully said, constitutional recognition through a voice. To do otherwise risks repeating the mistakes of the past. So I say: don't hold us back. Let's move forward for everyone. Eighteen years have passed since Tom Calma, our Senior Australian of the Year, delivered his social justice report urging governments to commit to achieving equality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in health and in life expectancy within 25 years. It's been 16 years since governments pledged to close key gaps in life expectancy, to halve the gap in mortality rates for children and to halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements within a decade. In 2020, governments partnered with the Coalition of Peaks to expand these targets, which now include land, languages and justice outcomes. Despite this, report after report, year after year, as the Prime Minister has said, progress has been slow, too slow. The Albanese government's commitment to closing the gap is unequivocal. Our commitment is to working in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians through the Coalition of Peaks with Pat Turner, and, one day, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. The Albanese government's first Closing the Gap Implementation Plan details the next steps the Commonwealth will take towards achieving the targets and priority reforms of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. It includes more than $400 million of additional spending that the Prime Minister outlined. But can I focus on one of those things, because it is a whole-of-government plan that brings together in one place all of the actions that each department and agency is taking to achieve Closing the Gap. I want to focus on the first announcement the Prime Minister has made: $150 million over four years to support First Nations water infrastructure and provide safe and reliable water for remote and regional Indigenous communities. It is a disgrace that, in 2023 in Australia, there are First Nations communities that still do not have reliable access to safe drinking water—an absolute disgrace. It is almost impossible for some people to imagine what it is like to live your whole life in a place where the water is not safe, where dialysis machines can't work because the water isn't clean enough. And we all know of the enormous problem of renal failure in our communities. I want to thank the Minister for the Environment and Water for her commitment on this. Thank you. This is on top, of course, of the $250 million the Prime Minister announced as part of our plan for a better, safer future for Central Australia, where I again, with the member for Lingiari and others, visited over the weekend. We want to better coordinate with the states and territories and with our community controlled organisation partners. This is about getting things done and, importantly, for people to hold us to account. Governments are better when they listen and when they are held to account. Holding governments to account was not done in the era of the stolen generations. One wonders: what if there'd been a voice at the time? Nor was anyone listening. Today, in 2023, a new generation has the chance to do things differently, to create a better a future. It's up to a new generation of Australians to help close the gap. We are a great country, and we can be even greater if we get the next steps right by making a lasting difference through practical action—one that gives Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians a Voice. Let us seize this moment and take Australia forward, for everyone.