Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I follow two great leaders of all those community affairs issues and would like to pay my tribute to both of them today on the leadership they have shown through this whole process. I rise to speak on this very historic day to acknowledge the many people who have been impacted by the policies of forced adoptions: the mothers, the fathers, the children and, indeed, the communities right across our nation over decades of the practices of forced adoptions. I was very privileged, humbled and moved to attend this morning's formal apology on behalf of our nation by the Prime Minister, fully endorsed by the Leader of the Opposition. We are never stronger as a nation than when we stand together, all sides united, as it was today with the national apology for forced adoptions.

At this morning's service, where I had Senator Pratt on one side, I was also able to chat with one of the women who gave us evidence at the Tasmanian inquiry. I will go to that later in my contribution. We sat one and all together and watched a bit of footage roll onto the big screen. It was state premier after state premier—Labor state premiers, Liberal state premiers—as a nation, as state governments making an apology. As part of the states' house, I was very proud—as we all should be as senators—that each of our states has apologised to our respective citizenry who were affected by these practices. Today we have come together as a nation to apologise.

Last year, as I have mentioned, I was proud and privileged to be involved in the Senate Community Affairs References Committee inquiry into the Commonwealth's contribution to former forced adoption policies and practices. It was a report that took 18 months to complete. I came in on the tail end of that 18 months and had a bit of catching up to do. When we talk about the children of those adoptive practices, they are my generation, so I found it quite challenging to come into that process and hear very traumatic stories about an issue on which I had only heard aunts and mothers in country towns talk briefly of girls being whisked away to the city for nine months. I found it quite humbling. It was a comprehensive, bipartisan report into this traumatic time into our past, and I too want to pay tribute to the very brave women, men and children who came before us; to the social workers who came before us; to the nurses; even to the organisations that had to own up to their past forced adoption practices—to everyone who was very brave in telling the truth, because what has shrouded this conversation as a nation over decades is the silence. Being able to use the Senate committee process to give a place for those stories to come forth into the public arena and then ultimately, only 12 months later, to see some real action on the recommendations that were made in that report as a result of those brave stories is fantastic.

The issues were complex and involved an enormous amount of evidence, and I also acknowledge Dr Ian Holland in the chamber today and say congratulations to the secretariat on helping us to bring together that problematic amount of information into a comprehensive report that we are very proud of one and all from all sides of politics.

We heard harrowing tales of regret, abuse, neglect and loss. They dated from the 1950s to as recently as 1987. They were very detailed and showed us very clearly that babies were taken for adoption against their mothers' will. For many mothers the experiences that they recounted were traumatic, and we thank them for their bravery. I cannot even begin to think what it might feel like to have lived in a time when support at what should be a time in your life of incredible celebration just was not available from family, from your church or from society more generally. We were told that mothers were pressured, deceived or threatened in order for them to sign adoption forms, the notions of choice and consent trashed. Nobody has the right to take a child from its mother and to make judgements about who is a good mother and who is a bad mother. What happened was wrong and today, as a nation, we apologise.

I want to mention how fantastic this is in terms of Senate process. A lot of times we hear, particularly with regard to reference inquiries: 'Why should I bother? Nothing's going to happen.' But it has been so great. As a newer senator I am quite chuffed that we have seen so much action so quickly. Let's hope action on this issue continues from today now that we have had our states apologise, that we have had agreement to work together at the state level—which is going to be the first step in getting the paperwork trail happening. It is fantastic.

Today, as I had Senator Pratt on one side, on the other side was a woman who, as I said, gave evidence at our Tasmanian hearings. She was very clear in telling me that the counselling services still were not on the ground. She wants today to be 'a start', she said. She wants those from the service to walk away tall. She wanted me to know and to share with you that words are cheap and that for the apology to have meaning there needs to be action.

We all welcome the support from the government of those recommendations from the inquiry, particularly around counselling services. If we are serious about healing the trauma, that is going to be a good way to start and information is power. So ensuring that the paper trail between states and across states occurs will be great and it fulfils some of our recommendations.

The Senate inquiry found that 225,000 children were removed from often very young, unmarried women. The Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne estimates that 45 per cent of unmarried mothers were subject to forced adoptions between 1945 and 1975. It was the heyday for adoption. People who gave evidence astounded me and I applaud their tenacity. I want to particularly acknowledge and put on the record the effect these practices had in small rural communities and for regional Australians.

If you were the new baby being adopted by a couple in a small country town, everybody knew that you were adopted and that had consequences in the playground. There were often stories of young women who would be whisked away to Melbourne or Sydney for a specified time and then returned home. To quote one particular example:

I became pregnant in a country town and the father was not prepared to help me. I knew my parents, especially my mother, would never cope with the shame of having an illegitimate grandchild so I decided to go to Sydney and have the child there.

Her mother's last words to her as she was leaving were:

If you don't have that child adopted, you can never come home again.

Sitting here today I cannot imagine ever saying something like that to my own daughter at a time of intense need and, troubles with my own mother aside, I cannot imagine she would ever say something like that to me.

Historian Janet McCalman recorded the experience of a nurse who moved from a busy city labour ward to a hospital in a quiet country town. She wrote:

It was quiet and there was time to talk and I found that women over seventy, who might have been coming in for gynaecological problems, would say, 'You're a midwife?' 'Yes.' 'Well, I lost my baby years ago' and it was the first time that they'd plucked up the courage to talk about it, because you had the time to sit there.

Those women were probably of an age where they just did not care anymore about societal stigmas at that time. She further wrote:

And those women have suffered all their lives—they've never forgotten it. It's a real myth to say that it's all over and done with.

It is never over and done with. It ruins their lives; it ruins their family lives and their ability to rear families. We heard story after story of the guilt. In other evidence to the inquiry, we heard this from my home state of Victoria:

I believe that every adoption begins with loss and those who are adopted experience this loss and those whose lose children to adoption experience this loss.

One mother who was forced to give her baby away told reporters on the day of the Victorian state apology that she felt like she had been serving a life sentence. I cannot even begin to imagine what it might feel like. The enduring pain and trauma cannot be erased and what happened was wrong and, in some instances, illegal.

I quote from the Victorian government's apology, where the Victorian Premier said:

We acknowledge that many thousands of Victorian babies were taken from their mothers, without informed consent, and that this loss caused immense grief.

We undertake to never forget what happened and to never repeat these practices.

So, as a nation, we go on from an apology to healing, with practical measures that will assist on the ground. Also, as a nation and as states and governments, one and all, we commit to being much more cognisant than ever before. Today has been a historic day. Today our nation acknowledged that that practice of forced adoption was wrong and that as a nation we are sorry. I join with the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in apologising. Today's apology recognises the mistakes of previous generations. What happened was wrong and we first acknowledge that so that we can learn. Today is our new beginning and I look forward to a very healing future.