Social Justice Report 1998 - Foreword
Social Justice Report 1998
Foreword
This report presents various
responses to Bringing Them Home, the Report of the National Inquiry into
the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their
Families. This is not done to re-open the substance of the Inquiry, its findings
or the basis of its recommendations.
The objective is to record
the diverse range of responses and the perspectives they illustrate. The publication
of Bringing Them Home had a marked impact on the Australian community.
The ensuing public debate was sustained and intense. It stimulated the expression
of views reflecting contemporary attitudes and values which directly and indirectly
affect the circumstances of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people today.
These attitudes and values
will critically affect our potential for reconciliation. We must attempt to
understand the full range of opinion: if we cannot allow the sincerity of competing
views, no matter how much we disagree with them, then we have very little prospect
of constructive engagement.
Our challenge is to bring
a more balanced appreciation of our past and, importantly, a more cohesive view
of our future. Considering the responses to Bringing Them Home provides
us with an opportunity to understand how a genuine and just reconciliation between
Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians may be advanced.
