This statement is made by the Gay and Lesbian Welfare Association Inc in the interest of reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. It was developed in 1999/2000 in response to a call from the Council of Aboriginal Reconciliation for organisations to support reconciliation. The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and other LGBT organisations also released similar statements around the same time.
We acknowledge that as indigenous Australians you have not only been dispossessed of your spiritual home, the land which you acknowledge as your Mother, but have been taken from your parents and have been forbidden your language, songs, dances and spiritual life which have been yours through countless thousands of years.
We realise that everything we have, or have accomplished here, has been at your expense and through your dispossession.
We are deeply saddened that almost half of the indigenous Australians who died in custody and whose deaths were investigated by the Black Deaths Royal Commission had been removed from their families as children.
We believe that an apology is owed to those of our fellow citizens who were separated from their families as a direct result of government policy.
For all these acts of ignorance, discrimination and racist attitudes, we who are newcomers to your country unreservedly apologise to you.
We are deeply sorry that we and other people who have entered your land have committed such deeds and continue to profit from them.
Gay & Lesbian Welfare Association
