19 February 2013, Dublin, Ireland
I begin today’s debate by thanking Dr Martin McAleese and his team for their excellent work on this report.
I thank equally all the women who met with them to assist in its compilation. I also thank the religious orders who cooperated fully with Dr. McAleese.
Together they have helped provide Ireland with a document of truth.
The Magdalene laundries have cast a long shadow over Irish life over our sense of who we are.
It’s just two weeks since we received this report: the first-ever detailed Report into the State’s involvement in the Magdalene Laundries.
It shines a bright and necessary light on a dark chapter of Ireland’s history.
On coming to office the Government was determined to investigate the facts of the State’s involvement.
The government was adamant that these ageing and elderly women would get the compassion and the recognition for which they have fought for so long deserved so deeply and had, until now, been so abjectly denied.
The reality is that for 90 years Ireland subjected these women and their experience to a profound and studied indifference.
I was determined because of this that this Government – this Dáil – would take the necessary time not just to commission the Report but to actually study it and having done so to reflect on its findings.
I believe that was the best way to formulate a plan and strategy that would help us make amends for the State’s role in the hurt of these extraordinary women.
I’m glad that so many of the women themselves agreed with that approach.
And I’m glad that this time of reflection gave me the chance to do the most important thing of all: to meet personally with the Magdalene Women. To sit down with them, face to face, to listen to their stories.
It was a humbling and inspiring experience.
Today, as their Taoiseach, I am privileged to welcome some of these women to this House many of whom have travelled long distances to be here.
I warmly welcome you every one of you to your national parliament, to Dail Eireann.
What we discuss today is your story. What we address today is how you took this country’s terrible ‘secret’ and made it your own. Burying it carrying it in your hearts here at home, or with you to England and to Canada America and Australia on behalf of Ireland and the Irish people.
But from this moment on you need carry it no more. Because today we take it back. Today we acknowledge the role of the State in your ordeal.
We now know that the State itself was directly involved in over a quarter of all admissions to the Magdalene Laundries.
Be it through the social services reformatories psychiatric institutions county homes the prison and probation service and industrial schools.
In fact we have decided to include all the Magdalene women in our response regardless of how they were admitted.
Dr McAleese set out to investigate five areas in particular;
1: The routes by which the women entered the laundries
2: Regulations of the workplace and State inspections
3: State funding of and financial assistance to the laundries
4: The routes by which the girls and women left the laundries
5: Death registrations, burials and exhumations
In all five areas there was found to be direct State involvement.
As I read this Report and as I listened to these women, it struck me that for generations Ireland had created a particular portrait of itself as a good living God-fearing nation.
Through this and other reports we know this flattering self-portrait to be fictitious.
It would be easy to explain away all that happened – all we did in those great moral and social salves of ‘the culture back then’ = the ‘order of the day’, ‘the terrible times that were in it’.
Yes, by any standards it was a cruel, pitiless Ireland distinctly lacking in a quality of mercy. That much is clear, both from the ages of the Report, and from the stories of the women I met.
As I sat with these women as they told their stories it was clear that while every woman’s story was different each of them shared a particular experience of a particular Ireland judgemental intolerant petty and prim.
In the laundries themselves some women spent weeks others months more of them years. But the thread that ran through their many stories was a palpable sense of suffocation not just physical in that they were incarcerated but psychological .spiritual social. Their stories were enriched by an astonishing vividness of recall of situation and circumstance.
Here are some of the things I read in the report and they said directly to me:
“The work was so hard, the regime was cruel.”
“I felt all alone, nobody wanted me.”
“They sent me because they thought I was going to a good school.”
“I seen these older people beside me, I used cry myself to sleep.”
“I was bold, I wasn’t going to school.”
“I was locked up I thought I would never get out.”
“We had to sew at night even when we were sick.”
“I heard a radio sometimes in the distance.”
“We were not allowed to talk to each other.”
“Your letters were checked.”
“I was so short I needed a stool to put washing in.”
“The noise was desperate.”
“I thought I would go mad from the silence.”
“The heat was unbelievable.”
“I broke a cup once and had to wear it hanging around my neck for three days.”
“I felt always tired always wet .always humiliated.”
“My father came for me after three months but I was too ashamed to go home.”
“I never saw my Mam again she died while I was in there.”
The Magdalene Women might have been told that they were washing away a wrong or a sin but we know now and to our shame they were only ever scrubbing away our nation’s shadow.
Today, just as the State accepts its direct involvement in the Magdalene Laundries society too has its responsibility.
I believe I speak for millions of Irish people all over the world when I say we put away these women because .for too many years we put away our conscience.
We swapped our personal scruples for a solid public apparatus that kept us in tune and in step with a sense of what was ‘proper behaviour’ or the ‘appropriate view’ according to a sort of moral code that was fostered at the time particularly in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.
We lived with the damaging idea that what was desirable and acceptable in the eyes of the Church and the State was the same and interchangeable.
Is it this mindset then this moral subservience that gave us the social mores the required and exclusive ‘values’ of the time that welcomed the compliant, obedient and lucky ‘us’ and banished the more problematic, spirited or unlucky ‘them’?
And to our nation’s shame it must be said that if these women had managed to scale the high walls of the laundries they’d have had their work cut out for them to negotiate the height and the depth of the barricades around society’s ‘proper’ heart. For we saw difference as something to be feared and hidden rather than embraced and celebrated.
But were these our ‘values’?
Because we can ask ourselves for a State – least of all a republic.
What is the ‘value’ of the tacit and unchallenged decree that saw society humiliate and degrade these girls and women?
What is the ‘value’ of the ignorance and arrogance that saw us publicly call them ‘Penitents’ for their ‘crime’ of being poor or abused or just plain unlucky enough to be already the inmate of a reformatory, or an industrial school or a psychiatric institution?
We can ask ourselves as the families we were then what was worthy what was good about that great euphemism of ‘putting away’ our daughters our sisters our aunties ?
Those ‘values’ those failures those wrongs characterised Magdalene Ireland.
Today we live in a very different Ireland with a very a different consciousness awareness – an Ireland where we have more compassion empathy insight heart.
We do because at last we are learning those terrible lessons. We do because at last we are giving up our secrets.
We do because in naming and addressing the wrong, as is happening here today, we are trying to make sure we quarantine such abject behaviour in our past and eradicate it from Ireland’s present and Ireland’s future.
In a society guided by the principles of compassion and social justice there never would have been any need for institutions such as the Magdalene Laundries.
The Report shows that the perception that the Magdalene Laundries were reserved for what were offensively and judgementally called “fallen women” is not based upon fact at all but upon prejudice. The women are and always were wholly blameless.
Therefore, I, as Taoiseach, on behalf of the State, the government and our citizens deeply regret and apologise unreservedly to all those women for the hurt that was done to them, and for any stigma they suffered, as a result of the time they spent in a Magdalene Laundry.
I hope that the publication of the McAleese Report and this apology makes some contribution to the healing process.
But in reflecting on this Report I have come to the view that these women deserve more than this formal apology, important though it is. I also want to put in place a process by which we can determine how best to help and support the women in their remaining years.
One of the many things I have learned during my recent meetings with these women is that their circumstances and current needs vary greatly from person to person.
That’s why the Government has today asked the President of the Law Reform Commission, Judge John Quirke, to undertake a three month review and to make recommendations as to the criteria that should be applied in assessing the help that the government can provide in the areas of payments and other supports, including medical cards, psychological and counselling services and other welfare needs.
The terms of reference for Judge Quirke will be published later today and I will also arrange for the representatives of the women to be fully briefed on this process. When Judge Quirke has reported, the government will establish a Fund to assist the women, based on his recommendations.
I am confident that this process will enable us to provide speedy, fair and meaningful help to the women in a compassionate and non adversial way. I am determined that the fund will be primarily used to help the women – as is their stated and strong desire – not for legal or administrative costs.
The McAleese Report also refers to women who recounted similar experiences in other residential laundries, such as the laundry offering services to the public operated in the Training Centre at Stanhope Street, Dublin.
The government has decided that these women should be included in both the apology I have extended today, and in the Fund.
I am also conscious that many of the women I met last week want to see a permanent memorial established to remind us all of this dark part of our history.
I agree that this should be done and intend to engage directly with the representative groups and of as many of the women as possible to agree on the creation of an appropriate memorial to be financed by the Government separately from the funds that are being set aside for the direct assistance for the women.
Let me conclude by again speaking directly to the women whose experiences in Magdalene Laundries have negatively affected their subsequent lives.
As a society, for many years we failed you.
We forgot you or, if we thought of you at all, we did so in untrue and offensive stereotypes.
This is a national shame, for which I again say, I am deeply sorry and offer my full and heartfelt apologies.
At the conclusion of my discussions with one group of the Magdalene Women one of those present sang ‘Whispering Hope’. A line from that song stays in my mind – “when the dark midnight is over, watch for the breaking of day”.
Let me hope that this day and this debate – excuse me – heralds a new dawn for all those who feared that the dark midnight might never end.
Jacinda Ardern: 'I stand before you as a symbol of the Crown that wronged you nearly 50 years ago', apology to Pacific People for the Dawn Raids - 2021
1 August 2021, Auckland, New Zealand
Tēnā koutou katoa,
Kia orana kotou katoatoa,
Fakaalofa lahi atu ki mutolu oti,
Tālofa nī, Mālō nī koutou,
Ni sa bula vinaka,
Fakatalofa atu,
Noa'ia 'e mauri,
Kam na mauri,
Malo e lelei, Sioto'ofa,
Mālō lava le lagi e mamā ma le soifua maua,
Oue tulou, tulou atu, tulouna lava
Māori address
Tēnei te mihi māhana ki a koutou katoa - ngā uri o te Moana Nui a Kiwa,
kua rauika nei i raro i te kaupapa whakahirahira o te wā.
(Translation - Warm greetings to you all - the descendants of the Pacific, who have assembled here at this time for this very important occasion.)
Tongan address
Tapu mo e Ta'ehāmai
Mo e ngaahi tu'unga 'oku fa'a fakatapua.
Kau kole ke mou tali 'a e kole fakamolemole teu fai.
(Translation: In obeisance to the Unseen (God) and in respect of all the positions/strata/hierarchical ranks that are normally acknowledged. I ask that you accept the apology that I will give).
Samoan address
Ou te tula'i atu fua o a'u o 'Ae.
E ui la ua masa'a le ipu vai, ma ua agasala ma agaleaga le Malo i tagata Pasefika
Ma e lē mafai foi e timuga ona faamagalo le o'ona o le sami.
Ae avea ia lo tatou gafa fa'aleagaga e māgalo ai se leo fa'atauva'a.
(Translation: I stand before you as a representative of those who did you harm. Although spilt water cannot be gathered again. And while no amount of rain can remove the bitter salt from the ocean waters, I ask you to let our spiritual connectedness soften your pain, and allow forgiveness to flow on this day).
Welcome to you all who have come here today for this important occasion.
I stand before you as a symbol of the Crown that wronged you nearly 50 years ago.
Today is a day of solemn reflection and over the past weeks, I have particularly reflected on the story of Pacific peoples in New Zealand.
This is a lengthy story that continues to evolve. One part of this bigger story is the migration from the Pacific to Aotearoa in the 1950s and how this has shaped who we are today as a nation made up of many rich and diverse cultures.
We have experienced the Pacific Aotearoa journey shift from one of new settlement to the present-day Pacific diaspora in New Zealand, where Pacific peoples are an integral part of Aotearoa's cultural and social fabric and are active contributors to our economic success.
However, in the multiple chapters of Pacific peoples' story in New Zealand, the chapter of the Dawn Raids stands out as one that continues to cast a long shadow.
During the economic boom of the 1950s, New Zealand encouraged significant migration from the Pacific region to fill labour shortages in the manufacturing and primary production sector.
It was a time of economic prosperity and many migrated from the Pacific to New Zealand as a result.
However, at the downturn of the economy in the early 1970s, parts of our society began to see migrants as jeopardising their financial security and quality of life.
The migrants who became the focal point and scapegoat for these fears were largely Pacific peoples, and when Police and Immigration enforced immigration laws around overstaying, not everyone was targeted.
Instead, Police and Immigration officials overwhelmingly conducted raids on the homes of Pacific families.
Officials, often accompanied by dogs, undertook late night and early morning (dawn) raids of homes.
Residents in those homes were woken abruptly, physically removed from their beds and forced into Police vans to be taken for questioning.
Some were hauled to the police station to appear in court the next day barefoot, in pyjamas or in clothes loaned to them in the holding cells; others were wrongfully detained.
During what became known as the Dawn Raids period, Police also conducted random stops and checks which required any person, on request, to produce their passport or permit if there was good cause to suspect an immigration-related offence, like overstaying a permit.
This lawful provision was exploited to racially profile those who were suspected as being overstayers, with Pacific peoples, Māori, and other people of colour randomly stopped in the street, at churches and schools, and other public places.
I understand that, at the time, public statements were made that a passport should be carried by those who looked like and spoke like they were not born in New Zealand.
Many groups, such as the Citizens Association for Racial Equality, Ngā Tamatoa, Amnesty Aroha, and the Federation of Labour, took to the streets in protest of these actions.
A prominent youth group was the Polynesian Panthers, a social justice movement that was founded in inner-city Auckland in June 1971. This movement operated to bring awareness to the treatment of Pacific peoples and to protest Crown actions and immigration policies.
These protests, coupled with the increasingly negative public reaction, led to the end of the Dawn Raids in 1976.
When we look back, it is now very clear that the immigration laws of the time were enforced in a discriminatory manner and that Pacific peoples were specifically targeted and racially profiled when these activities were carried out.
The statistics are undeniable.
There were no reported raids on any homes of people who were not Pacific; no raids or random stops were exacted towards European people.
Following an inquiry report of the then Race Relations Conciliator, Walter Hirsh, in 1986, it was found that while Pacific peoples comprised roughly a third of overstayers, they represented 86 percent of all prosecutions.
During the same period, overstayers from the United States and Great Britain, who, together, also comprised roughly a third of overstayers, made up only 5 percent of prosecutions.
Apology statement
While these events took place almost 50 years ago, the legacy of the Dawn Raids era lives on today in Pacific communities.
It remains vividly etched in the memory of those who were directly impacted; it lives on in the disruption of trust and faith in authorities, and it lives on in the unresolved grievances of Pacific communities that these events happened and that to this day they have gone unaddressed.
Today, I stand on behalf of the New Zealand Government to offer a formal and unreserved apology to Pacific communities for the discriminatory implementation of the immigration laws of the 1970s that led to the events of the Dawn Raids.
The Government expresses its sorrow, remorse, and regret that the Dawn Raids and random police checks occurred and that these actions were ever considered appropriate.
Our Government conveys to the future generations of Aotearoa that the past actions of the Crown were wrong, and that the treatment of your ancestors was wrong. We convey to you our deepest and sincerest apology.
We also apologise for the impact that these events have had on other peoples, such as Māori and other ethnic communities, who were unfairly targeted and impacted by the random Police checks of the time.
We acknowledge the distress and hurt that these experiences would have caused.
New Zealand's human rights commitments
As a nation, we expect everyone in New Zealand to be treated with dignity and respect and we expect that all individuals are guaranteed their rights without distinction of any kind.
Unfortunately, these expectations were not met in this case and inequities that stem from direct and indirect discrimination continue to exist.
The Government is committed to eliminating racism in all its forms in Aotearoa New Zealand and affording everyone the right to be treated humanely and with respect for their dignity.
I want to emphasise that under our current immigration compliance regime, the Government no longer prioritises compliance activity and deportation on the basis of ethnicity or nationality, but instead seeks to address potential risks to the New Zealand community and the integrity of the immigration system.
As a government we want to honour Pacific ways of seeking reconciliation. We understand that Pacific practices and protocols vary, but the common thread that underpins these practices is the expectation of reconciliation that is meaningful, genuine and that restores the balance from past wrongs.
We want our apology to be in a manner that has meaning to Pacific peoples.
I also hope that our presence and apology here today helps weave together our connections as people.
But I understand that in many cultures, including in Pacific cultures, words alone are not sufficient to convey an apology and it is appropriate to include tangible gestures of goodwill and reconciliation.
We acknowledge the enduring hurt that has been caused to those who were directly affected by the Dawn Raids, as well as the lasting impact these events have had on subsequent generations.
I have heard that, for many people, the hurt was so deep that nearly 50 years later it's a struggle to talk about.
We recognise that no gestures can mend this hurt.
However, we hope that the gestures I am about to outline are accepted as a way of expressing our deepest sorrow whilst recognising the wrongs of the past, to pave a new dawn, and a new beginning for the Pacific peoples of New Zealand.
As a government, we commit to the following gestures of goodwill and reconciliation for our Pacific communities:
We will support the development of an historical account of the Dawn Raids which can be used for education purposes.
As part of this, the community will have the opportunity to come forward and share their experiences.
May the process of gathering an official historic account from written records and oral history provide an opportunity for Pacific peoples to begin a new journey of reconciliation and healing that will help restore mana.
We will ensure resources are available to schools and kura who choose to teach the history of the Dawn Raids, which would include histories of those directly affected.
May this opportunity help future generations gain knowledge and understanding that will help them ensure the mistakes of the past are not ever repeated again.
We will provide $2.1 million in education scholarships and fellowships to Pacific communities in New Zealand.
May this gesture provide opportunities for the pursuit of tertiary education on subjects that will build confidence and pride in Pacific peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand.
And we will provide $1 million in Manaaki New Zealand Short Term Training Scholarships for young leaders from Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Fiji.
May these opportunities grow Pacific leadership that is confident and proud.
Closing comments
Almost 50 years on from the Dawn Raids, the Pacific story continues to shift.
This chapter sees a Pacific Aotearoa that is self-assured, thriving, prosperous and resilient.
We hope that today has brought some much-needed closure and healing for our Pacific communities and that it will enable us to keep growing together as a community and as a nation.
Once again my deepest acknowledgements and respects to all those who were directly affected by the harms caused during the Dawn Raids, including those who continue to suffer and carry the scars.
My acknowledgements and gratitude to the many individuals and organisations who stood up for justice, called out the Dawn Raids for what they were, supported Pacific peoples throughout, and championed the need for an apology.
It is my sincere hope that this apology will go some way in helping the Pacific youth of today know, with certainty, that they have every right to hold their head up high, and feel confident and proud of their Pacific heritage, and in particular the sacrifices their parents and grandparents have made for Aotearoa New Zealand.
May my words today be received in the Spirit of Humility that I convey them.
Ofa atu. Alofa atu.
No reira, Tena Koutou. Tena Koutou. Tena Koutou Katoa.
Kia kaha. Fa'afetai. Malo 'aupito. Metaki maata. Fakaue!
Daniel Andrews: 'For the laws we passed. And the lives we ruined' State Apology to Gay Men Convicted Under Unjust Laws - 2016
24 May 2016, Parliament House, Melbourne, Australia
Speaker – it’s never too late to put things right.
It’s never too late to say sorry – and mean it.
That’s what brings us all to the heart of our democracy here, in this Parliament where, over the course of decades, a powerful prejudice was written into law.
A prejudice that ruined lives.
A prejudice that prevails in different ways, even still.
That law was written in our name – as representatives, and as Victorians.
And that law was enforced by the very democratic system to which we call ourselves faithful.
So it is our responsibility to prove that the Parliament that engineered this prejudice can also be the Parliament that ends it.
That starts with acknowledging the offences of the past admitting the failings of the present and building a society, for the future, that is strong and fair and just.
In doing so, Speaker, we’ll have shown this moment to be no mere gesture.
In doing so, we’ll have proven that the dignity and bravery of generations of Victorians wasn’t simply for nought.
And that, I hope, will be the greatest comfort of all.
Speaker, there is no more simple an acknowledgement than this:
There was a time in our history when we turned thousands of ordinary young men into criminals.
And it was profoundly and unimaginably wrong.
That such a thing could have occurred – once, perhaps a century ago – would not surprise most Victorians.
Well, I hold here an article that reports the random arrest of 15 men.
“Police Blitz Catches Homosexuals”, the headline reads.
And said a police officer: “…we just seem to find homosexuals loitering wherever we go.”
This was published in Melbourne’s biggest-selling weekly newspaper – in December 1976.
A decade earlier, in 1967, a local paper said that a dozen men would soon face court for – quote – “morals offences”, and urged the public to report homosexuals to the police with a minimum of delay.
A generation earlier, in 1937, Judge MacIndoe said John, a man in his 20s, was “not quite sane”, and gaoled him for three months on a charge of gross indecency.
In 1936, Jack, a working man from Sale, faced a Melbourne court on the same charge – and he was gaoled for ten years.
This, Speaker, is the society we built.
And it would be easy to blame the courts, or the media, or the police, or the public.
It is easy for us to condemn their bigotry.
But the law required them to be bigoted.
And those laws were struck here, where I stand.
One of those laws even earned the label abominable.
And in 1961 alone, 40 Victorian men were charged with it.
In the same year, a minor offence was created that shook just as many lives.
The penalty was $600 in today’s terms, or one month’s imprisonment.
The charge? ‘Loitering for homosexual purposes.’
This was the offence used to justify that random police blitz in ‘76.
A witness said: “Young policemen were sent…to…entrap suspected homosexuals.”
“[Officers] dressed in swimwear…engaging other men in conversation.”
“When the policeman was satisfied the person was homosexual, an arrest was made.”
When we began this process, Speaker, I expected to be offering an apology to people persecuted for homosexual acts.
But it has become clear to me that the State also persecuted against homosexual thought.
Loitering for homosexual purposes is a thought crime.
And in one summer in 1976, in one location alone, one hundred men were targeted under this violation of thought; something for which there was no possible defence.
All in our lifetimes, Speaker.
In our name.
Young people. Old people. Thousands and thousands of people.
I suppose it’s rare when you can’t even begin to conceive what was on the minds of our forebears in this Place.
But I look back at those statutes and I am dumbfounded.
I can’t possibly explain why we made these laws, and clung to them, and fought for them.
For decades, we were obsessed with the private mysteries of men.
And so we jailed them.
We harmed them.
And, in turn, they harmed themselves.
Speaker, it is the first responsibility of a Government to keep people safe.
But the Government didn’t keep LGBTI people safe.
The Government invalidated their humanity and cast them into a nightmare.
And those who live today are the survivors of nothing less than a campaign of destruction, led by the might of the State.
I had the privilege of meeting with four of those survivors.
One of them was Noel Tovey.
He was sent to Pentridge in 1951.
On more than one occasion in jail, he planned his suicide.
“Max was singing an aria from La Traviata when the police arrived,” he recalled in his book.
I was very naive. I knew having sex with men was against the law but I didn’t understand why it was a crime.
At the hearing, the judge said, “You have been charged with the abominable crime of buggery. How do you plead?”
The maximum sentence was fifteen years.
Afterwards, only two people would talk to me. I couldn’t…get a job. I was a known criminal.
And it’s ironic.
Eventually I would have been forgiven by everyone if I had murdered Max, but no one could forgive me for having sex with him.”
And Noel, in his own words, considers himself “one of the lucky ones.”
I also met Terry Kennedy.
He was 18 when he was arrested.
“When I wanted to go overseas”, Terry told me, “and when I wanted to start my own business, there was always that dreaded question:
“Have you ever been convicted of a criminal offence?”
I lied, of course.
Then the phone rang…It was an inspector from the St Kilda Police Station. He’d found me out.
With a curse like that always lurking over our heads, we always had to ask ourselves [this question] – just how far can I go today?”
That’s the sort of question which, in some form or another, must have been asked by almost every single LGBTI person.
It is still asked today – by teenagers in the schoolyard; by adults in the family home.
Yes, the law was unjust, but it is wrong to think its only victims were those who faced its sanction.
The fact is: these laws cast a dark and paralysing pall over everyone who ever felt like they were different.
The fact is: these laws represented nothing less than official, state-sanctioned homophobia.
And we wonder why, Speaker – we wonder why gay and lesbian and bi and trans teenagers are still the target of a red, hot hatred.
We wonder why hundreds of thousands of Australians are still formally excluded from something as basic and decent as a formal celebration of love.
And we wonder why so many people are still forced to drape their lives in shame.
Shame: that deeply personal condition, described by Peter McEwan as “the feeling of not being good enough.”
Peter was arrested in 1967.
He soon fled overseas to escape his life.
The fourth man I spoke with last week, Tom Anderson, met his own private terror when he was 14.
For weeks, he was routinely sexually assaulted by his boss – a man in his 40s.
His parents, in all good faith, took Tom down to the Police Station to make a formal statement and get his employer charged.
And he was.
But so was Tom.
This child victim of sexual assault was charged with one count of buggery and two counts of gross indecency.
Can you believe, Speaker, that the year was 1977?
Today, Tom carries with him a quiet bravery that is hard to put into words.
And he told me about the time – one day, just a few years ago – when his home was burgled.
“I’m a grown man”, he said, “but the moment the police came around to inspect the house, and I opened the door…I became that 14-year-old boy again.”
“I couldn’t talk. I was frozen. I was a grown man and I couldn’t talk.”
This was life for innocent people like Tom.
We told them they were fugitives living outside the law.
We gave them no safe place to find themselves – or find each other.
And we made sure they couldn’t trust a soul.
Not even their family.
A life like that. What do you think that does to a human being?
What do you think it does to their ability to find purpose, to hold themselves with confidence to be happy, to be social, to be free?
Don’t tell me that these laws were simply a suppression of sex.
This was a suppression of spirit.
A denial of love.
And it lives on, today.
While the laws were terminated in the 1980s, they still remain next to the names of so many men – most of them dead – a criminal conviction engraved upon their place in history.
I can inform the House that six men have now successfully applied to expunge these convictions from their record.
Many more have commenced the process.
This won’t erase the injustice, but it is an accurate statement of what I believe today:
That these convictions should never have happened.
That the charges will be deleted, as if they never existed.
And that their subjects can call themselves, once again, law-abiding men.
Expungement is one thing, but these victims won’t find their salvation in this alone.
They are each owed hope.
And all four of the men I met told me they only began to find that hope when they met people who were just like them.
Peter McEwan – back in the country, and emerging from years of shame – started meeting weekly with some gay friends at university in 1972.
“We realised we were all outlaws together,” he said, “and we learnt to say that we are good”.
“We learnt to say ‘black is beautiful, women are strong – and gay is good.’”
“Once I learnt I was good, it led me to question everyone who said I was evil and sick.”
“Gay men had taken on board the shame. Through each other we found our pride.”
Then he paused for a second and he said:
“Pride is the opposite of shame.”
He’s right.
Pride is not a cold acceptance; it’s a celebration.
It’s about wearing your colours and baring your character.
The mere expression of pride was an act of sheer defiance.
These people we speak about – they weren’t just fighting for the right to be equal.
They were fighting for the right to be different.
And I want everyone in this state, young or old, to know that you, too, have that right.
You were born with that right.
And being who you are is good enough for me – good enough for all of us.
Here in Victoria, equality is not negotiable.
Here, you can be different from everybody else, but still be treated the same as everybody else.
Because we believe in fairness.
We believe in honesty, too – so we have to acknowledge this:
For the time being, we can’t promise things will be easy.
Tomorrow, a young bloke will get hurt.
Tomorrow, a parent will turn their back on their child.
Tomorrow, a loving couple and their beautiful baby will be met with a stare of contempt.
Tomorrow, a trans woman will be turned away from a job interview.
And tomorrow, a gay teenager will think about ending his own life.
That’s the truth.
There is so much more we need to do to make things right.
Until then, we can’t promise things will be easy.
We can’t guarantee that everyone in your life will respect the way you want to live it.
And we can’t expect you to make what must be a terrifying plunge until you know the time is right.
But just know that whenever that time comes, you have a Government that’s on your side.
You have a Government that is trying to make the state a safer place – in the classroom, in the workplace.
You have a Government that is trying to eradicate a culture of bullying and harassment so that the next generation of children are never old enough to experience it.
You have a Government that sees these indisputable statistics – of LGBTI self-harm, of suicide – and commits to their complete upheaval.
You have a Government that believes you’re free to be who you are, and to marry the person you love.
And you have a Government that knows just one life saved is worth all the effort.
Speaker, as part of this process, I learnt that two women were convicted for offensive behaviour in the 1970s for holding hands – on a tram.
So let me finish by saying this:
If you are a member of the LGBTI community, and there’s someone in your life that you love – a partner or a friend – then do me a favour:
Next time you’re on a tram in Melbourne, hold their hand.
Do it with pride and defiance.
Because you have that freedom.
And here in the progressive capital, I can think of nothing more Victorian than that.
Speaker, it’s been a life of struggle for generations of Victorians.
As representatives, we take full responsibility.
We criminalised homosexual thoughts and deeds. We validated homophobic words and acts.
And we set the tone for a society that ruthlessly punished the different – with a short sentence in prison, and a life sentence of shame.
From now on, that shame is ours.
This Parliament and this Government are to be formally held to account for designing a culture of darkness and shame.
And those who faced its sanction, and lived in fear, are to be formally recognised for their relentless pursuit of freedom and love.
It all started here. It will end here, too.
To our knowledge, no jurisdiction in the world has ever offered a full and formal apology for laws like these.
So please, let these words rest forever in our records:
On behalf of the Parliament, the Government and the people of Victoria.
For the laws we passed.
And the lives we ruined.
And the standards we set.
We are so sorry. Humbly, deeply, sorry.
'John Howard': 'I am sorry. We are sorry', Apology to aboriginal people, 'The Games' - 2000
3 July, 2000, Sydney, Australia
This speech was written by actor & comedian John Clarke for 'Sorry' epiosode of comedy television show 'The Games'. It is read by the actor John Howard, namesake to the non-apologising Australian Prime Minister of the time.
Good evening. My name is John Howard and I'm speaking to you from Sydney, Australia, host city of the year 2000 Olympic Games.
At this important time, and in an atmosphere of international goodwill and national pride, we here in Australia - all of us - would like to make a statement before all nations.
Australia, like many countries in the new world, is intensely proud of what it has achieved in the past 200 years. We are a vibrant and resourceful people. We share a freedom born in the abundance of nature, the richness of the earth, the bounty of the sea. We are the world's biggest island. We have the world's longest coastline. We have more animal species than any other country. Two thirds of the world's birds are native to Australia. We are one of the few countries on earth with our own sky. We are a fabric woven of many colours and it is this that gives us our strength.
However, these achievements have come at great cost. We have been here for 200 years but before that, there was a people living here. For 40,000 years they lived in a perfect balance with the land. There were many Aboriginal nations, just as there were many Indian nations in North America and across Canada, as there were many Maori tribes in New Zealand and Incan and Mayan peoples in South America. These indigenous Australians lived in areas as different from one another as Scotland is from Ethiopia. They lived in an area the size of Western Europe. They did not even have a common language. Yet they had their own laws, their own beliefs, their own ways of understanding.
We destroyed this world. We often did not mean to do it. Our forebears, fighting to establish themselves in what they saw as a harsh environment, were creating a national economy. But the Aboriginal world was decimated. A pattern of disease and dispossession was established. Alcohol was introduced. Social and racial differences were allowed to become fault-lines. Aboriginal families were broken up. Sadly, Aboriginal health and education are responsibilities we have still yet to address successfully.
I speak for all Australians in expressing a profound sorrow to the Aboriginal people. I am sorry. We are sorry. Let the world know and understand, that it is with this sorrow, that we as a nation will grow and seek a better, a fairer and a wiser future. Thank you.