Findings of Aboriginal Legal Service report to be studied

14/7/95

Aboriginal Affairs Minister Kevin Prince said the Coalition Government would examine the details and recommendations contained in the Aboriginal Legal Service report 'Telling Our Story'.

Mr Prince said the issue required a national solution.

"The practice of removing Aboriginal children from their families was not a policy confined to Western Australian Governments," the Minister said.

"It occurred at a national level and for there to be a proper response, it should be common throughout all States and Territories.

"I have no problem in expressing profound regret that the policies of the past have caused so much misery to so many people.

"It is vital that not only the Aboriginal people know what happened in the past but, most particularly, that the whole of society knows it so that similar policies are never repeated."

Federal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Minister Robert Tickner announced on May 14 that the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission had been requested to conduct a national inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and communities.

The inquiry, to be conducted by Sir Ronald Wilson, is required to deliver a final report to the Federal Attorney-General Michael Lavarch by December 1996.

Media contact: Peter Harris (09) 366 0300