Speech by Councillor Seal Chong Wah, during General Business in Brisbane City Council Chambers - Tues 19th Nov 2024
(This speech is in response to a Labor Motion that reads as follows: "That this Council supports the important work of the Truth Telling and Healing Inquiry to continue, and notes the bi-partisan support it has received at a Council level.")
I support this motion.
I witnessed an historical event in September, the Ceremonial Hearing of the Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry in Meanjin (Brisbane).
The event was the beginning of a 3 year process to capture and understand the effects of colonisation on First Nations Peoples.
That day, I spoke to many First Nations People, who felt a depth of relief that something was finally happening that was a genuine step towards healing.
Now, the LNP State government's decision to abolish the state’s Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry and repeal its Path to Treaty Act is a huge step backwards for First Nations Peoples rights.
To silence our First Nations People is extremely disrespectful! To silence our Elders' lived experience of pain and suffering is extremely disrespectful. To ignore the cause of transgenerational trauma is extremely disrespectful.
We are living on stolen land and sovereignty has never been ceded!
We are living on land where more than 400 massacres of First Nations People took place between 1780 and 1930, when they were executed by colonial forces enacting genocide.
Unthinkable violence was perpetrated.
Our dark history of the stolen generation, where thousands of children were violently and forcibly removed by governments, churches and welfare bodies to be raised in institutions, fostered out or adopted by non-Indigenous families, nationally and internationally needs to be told through the lived experience of our First Nations Peoples.
The act of forcible removal of children severed the important cultural, spiritual, language and family connections which has left intergenerational trauma impacts on the lives and wellbeing of our First Nations Peoples.
Our First Nations People deserve to be heard!
First Nations Children are still being forcibly separated from their culture and way of life.
The recommendations from the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody still have not been fully implemented.
Shamefully, there have been 580 deaths in custody since the Royal Commission!
Our society is built on colonial supremacy ideology, where governments have set the backdrop of the ongoing struggle, oppression, discrimination and brutality faced by First Nations People.
Yet the incoming LNP State government already intends to turn a blind eye!
This is the truth of this place, whether or not they want to hear it.
The LNP State government cancelling this inquiry is pure racism!
I will call this out for what it is! Racism! Shameful!
This decision, to silence First Nations People, is extremely damaging, painful and harmful, who have been suffering through systemic racism since colonisation.
Let’s recognise at least 65,000 years of the longest living culture.
Truth Telling is crucial to the healing of our country and a pathway to Treaty.
To allow our Elders the respect to convey their lived experiences of the brutal impact of colonial legislation, and how their families and communities have suffered ongoing trauma is critical to healing.
Truth Telling is about healing in order to foster unity, a deeper understanding, respect, dignity and wellbeing for all of us, especially our First Nations Peoples.
I hope that this Administration can support reconciliation, truth telling and Treaty.
We truly can not move forward without Australians acknowledging the evidence and horror of our dark history and current systemic racism against our First Nations People.