Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion on the national apology to the forgotten Australians and former child migrants. I acknowledge the speakers who have talked so openly about, and with so much understanding of, the hurt that they, their constituents and so many thousands Australians experienced as children. I acknowledge the member for Forde and admire the way in which he has put on record, in the Hansard, his own experience. I am sure that it is very hard to talk about, but I sometimes think that talking about these experiences is part of the healing process. Although the member for Forde said that he was adopted out to wonderful and loving parents, I found listening to his story very hard and heart-rending.

I commend the speeches that were made in the Great Hall on the national apology and of course all of the speeches that have been made on it since. The speeches of both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition took place in what was a very emotionally charged Great Hall. Many people attended the apology in the Great Hall. Obviously not all those who have suffered abuse were able to be there. Only a very small cross-section of the people who have suffered abuse from government institutions, churches and charitable organisations were there.

I want to acknowledge the work of the senators who were involved in the reports that have led to this national apology. They deserve great credit too—not just those of us who are speaking on the apology now, such as the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. These senators went out and did the hard yards in gathering the information about this abuse and in bringing forward in reports that have ultimately led to a long-awaited acknowledgment of this very dark side—a very black side—of our nation’s history. None of us can be proud of it. It is important that we look back, and we have done that.

I also want to acknowledge former Senator Murray. He has been openly and widely acknowledged by many for his work in this area. After he left the parliament, he continued this work. He and those other senators who are no longer with us and who worked in this area must feel a great sense of satisfaction with the work that that they did through the committees. If I can digress for a moment, I think this apology underpins the importance of much of the work that is done by the committees of the House and the Senate. I think too often the committees bring forward their reports and there is little response from governments of both sides of the House to them. This is one of those very positive results following the work of a committee.

I want to share with the chamber some of the comments about the apology that I have received from my constituents. I particularly want to talk about a man called ‘Ray’. For 45 years, Ray has tried to forget what happened to him and his family—his brothers and sisters. I was talking to him on the day of the apology, and he said that it is a start but more needs to be done. More work needs to be done on restitution, but the apology is certainly a start for him. I want to share with you part of his story—and it is only a very little part of it. Many years ago, programs were funded to take children away on a holiday to the beach. Ray, along with his brothers and sisters, went on one of them. They boarded a train at Cunnamulla and went to a camp down at the beach, where they saw the ocean for the first time. They had a holiday by the sea.

When they hopped on that train to go back home, they were looking forward to seeing their parents after having that wonderful time, as kids would from the bush—and I know how important it is for them to be in the salt air and sand and play in some of these holiday camps. When their train arrived at the railway station in Cunnamulla they were met not by their parents but by the police. The police put those children straight back on that train and sent them away to orphanages. Brothers and sisters were put into orphanages not far from Brisbane. I think one was near Nudgee and another one was at Riverview.

In talking to Ray about his experiences there, he said that, some days, he could see his separated brothers and sisters, but within the orphanage they were not allowed to talk to their brothers and sisters. If he did, as we have heard in a number of speeches, he was taken aside and given a flogging; these were his words. His sister would have received the same sort of treatment and they were barred from seeing their brother or their sister, albeit in an orphanage. It eventually got too much for Ray and he ran away. He spent many, many years running away and trying to escape the horror of what he had experienced. He did say to me that he was not sexually abused, but he was physically and mentally abused. He ended up on a large pastoral property in Western Australia as an unknown person, and he has a great deal of time for the family that gave him an opportunity and a job. He still has contact with the family that understood the plight he was in but never revealed him to the authorities for fear that he would be taken back and put into an institution once again.

For any parent, just to think about your own children and how you have loved them and nurtured them through those very formative years, it is hard to comprehend how those children lacked that nurturing. There are the maternal instincts of a mother that are lost because of what happened to so many children being taken away and put in orphanages. Maybe, as was considered at the time, it was for their welfare but, as we all know now, the physical, mental and sexual abuse that so many of them suffered is just incomprehensible in a modern Australia.

Another person that spoke with me was Robyn from Stanthorpe and I want to share with the chamber Robyn’s story. Back in 1959 when she was 15 years of age, her mother had been divorced for some 10 years from her husband, and she was not able to help her—

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