Knowing when to say 'sorry'

Our identities as individuals do not contradict our identities as “Australians”; indeed, they inform one another. The 1992 High Court decision which overturned the “terra nullius” comforter was a first step in this national healing. An apology to the Stolen Generations will be another.

I want to mention the “basic principles on the right to reparation for victims of gross violations of human rights and humanitarian law”, commonly referred to as the “van Boven principles” (after the Dutch jurist Theo van Boven, who was instrumental in their formulation while he was UN Special Rapporteur between 1986 and 1991). These principles, which were specifically invoked by the authors of the BTH report, recognise the obligation of nation-states to ensure respect for human rights and international law, and one irrevocable duty of such is to ensure that “adequate legal or other appropriate remedies are available to any person claiming that his or her rights have been violated”.

The principles are based, at their foundations, on the ideas of National Healing which have also informed the various Truth Commissions in places like South Africa, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Ghana, Chile and, perhaps most relevant to our own history, Canada.

Of course, these obligations are mostly moral and not, under Australian law, binding. But our actions today will determine the future shape of our world - and those actions must be informed by our ideals of that future.