Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move amendments to my motion relating to the forgotten Australians.

Leave granted.

I move that the motion be amended in terms circulated to the honourable members in the Main Committee as follows:

That the House:

(1)

recognises the extent of abuse and neglect inflicted on Australian children who were placed in the care of the Government in institutions or out of home care during the last century;

(2)

acknowledges the neglect of all governments that allowed this abuse, pain and suffering to continue for so many years;

(3)

acknowledges organisations such as the Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN), Alliance for Forgotten Australians (AFA) and the Child Migrants Trust who have supported the forgotten Australians whose lives have been adversely affected as a result of their childhood abuse; and

(4)

calls on the Government to continue working with the Opposition on an unequivocal apology to all victims of such abuse.

Some months ago I received a letter from a constituent, and it took me some time to absorb the enormity of the words. As I read I became ashamed of the fact that the story being told could have ever occurred. I was also filled with a rising disgust that in a country such as ours, despite how widespread these cases were, they were effectively condoned by silence, and I was compelled to present the motion to the House.

This is what the letter said, in part:

Re; Formal apology for the abuse and neglect suffered by children who were placed in government institutions or out of home care in the last century.

Dear Joanna Gash MP,

I would like you to hear the story of another victim. I did it in your electorate and I am hoping you will be my voice. I hope the apology won’t be a brief statement that makes these seven o’clock news and then fades away. The pain that I and others who have been abused feel will not just fade away. I would like to be able to attend any ceremony that might happen. I also feel that the States should have to apologise as well and not continue to be in denial that people who were in their employ did anything wrong.

With that introductory statement came a victim statement from the writer, a New South Wales ward. I will not mention his name but he is in my electorate and he was born in 1953. Today he is 56 years of age. Constraints of speaking time allow me to quote only excerpts which are in themselves quite heart-rending. His entire statement stands as an indictment of the practices that prevailed and were endured by countless innocent children.

And we owe them. An official, sincere apology from both government and the opposition should be just a starting point. I commend the New South Wales parliament for doing so and I urge the federal government to follow suit in a bipartisan apology. I acknowledge those organisations mentioned in the motion, and I support them and thank them for their continued support of the forgotten Australians.

The following is a very small part of his statement. He said:

I was placed in Royelston in 1959 at the age of six and this is when my transition from an innocent child began. Limited memories of Royelston are both of physical, sexual and mental (humiliation) abuse. I was sexually assaulted and raped. I was sodomised anally and orally. I was held down, beaten and battered. I was physically assaulted, brutally punished, had my head banged against the wall, pushed to the ground and beaten for any infraction of the rules. Even answering slowly was a punishable offence. The sexual abuse was frequent. It was indeed a good night when after lights out, that a carer did not come and remove you from your cot and take you away to another room. Here was my induction into the world where sexual molestation and physical abuse was the norm and accepted behaviour. I tried to avoid being noticed. I was afraid of the rough punishment that was routinely handed out. I couldn’t bear the beatings or the humiliation I was subjected to because I had a problem with regard to soiling my underwear. I can clearly remember an instance of being paraded before the rest of the boys because I soiled my underwear due to sexual abuse. They used large dogs that used to growl and snarl to frighten me, as an example to others. Physical abuse was used to beat me into letting them do whatever they desired.

This is just the second paragraph. His statement goes on to describe continuing abuse whilst in the hands of a foster parent. He speaks of his changed behaviour, inability to adapt socially, a failed marriage, and a constant state of heightened alert. He also writes:

I live with daily pain. I was given 10 shillings when I left the institution—

and I will use his concluding paragraph to summarise his pain. He said:

I wonder how much a politically correct apology from the Federal Government will be expected to make me and others in my situation feel better. The state of NSW told me that they have to protect the privacy of people who took away my childhood and had an enormous impact on my entire life from the age of six to this very day.

Mr Deputy Speaker Adams, I call on this House to issue an unequivocal genuine apology to all the children who have had their innocence stolen from them while they were in the alleged care of the Australian government sanctioned institutions. It is long overdue and a moral obligation that we owe them as a nation, and I call on the government to continue to work with the opposition to make this apology to all victims of such abuse.

As my time has now been increased from five minutes to 10 minutes, I would like to add the following. Just over two years ago a book titled The Forgotten Children was published by Random House. The author is David Hill, previously the managing director of the ABC, chairman of the Australian Football Association, chief executive and director of the State Rail Authority of New South Wales, chairman of Sydney Water Corporation and chairman of CREATE, a national organisation responsible for representing the interests of young people and children in institutional care. This is the publisher’s synopsis about David Hill’s story:

In 1959 David Hill’s mother, a poor single parent living in England, reluctantly decided to send her sons to Fairbridge Farm School in New South Wales, where she was led to believe they would have a good education and a better life. David was lucky. His mother was able to follow him out to Australia. But for most children the reality was shockingly different. From 1938 to 1974 thousands of parents were persuaded to sign over legal guardianship of their children to Fairbridge to solve a problem of child poverty in Britain while populating the colony. Many of those children have decided to speak out. Physical and sexual abuse were not uncommon, loneliness was rife, food was often inedible and the standard of education was appalling. Here for the first time is the story of the lives of the Fairbridge children, from the bizarre luxury of the voyage out to Australia to the harsh reality of their very first days, from the crushing daily routine to stolen moments of freedom and the struggle that defined life after leaving the school.

Despite the litany of abuse and the stories that continue to emerge of what occurred in some of our most respected institutions, our national government has so far not seen fit to apologise for the travesty. But, as I mentioned earlier, this will soon be rectified. Former Transport Workers Union vice-president Laurie Humphreys has set up the Forgotten Australian Alliance, an organisation intent on getting justice for the hundreds, if not thousands, of adults abused as children whilst wards of the state. Mr Humphreys says that 19 recommendations from a 2004 federal inquiry into forgotten Australians remain largely unactioned. The big one is for them to apologise to the forgotten Australians for the trauma caused by coming here in the first place and the experiences that they have suffered: lack of education, being battered, alleged sexual abuse and being institutionalised. He has also written a book called A chip off what block? It too is compelling reading. In March this year the ABC’s Law Report ran a story on the forgotten generation, and the fact was reiterated that no apology had been forthcoming despite the extensive publicity of Sorry Day.

Just to bring into perspective the enormity of the story, over 500,000 Australians were raised in 500-plus orphanages, children’s homes and foster care, effectively the population of Tasmania. Governments of all persuasions over the years are equally guilty of neglecting these children. We as a parliament stand condemned for failing to include or even consider these children in the National Sorry Day when the opportunity was there. I thank the parliament for listening to the story of my constituent.

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