ALECOMM

"The Forgotten Australians"

Details

Category: Uncategorised

Created: Wednesday, 24 November 2010 23:30

Written by Alecomm2

Ms SONIA HORNERY (Wallsend) [11.45 a.m.]: I move:

That this House notes the appreciation of the mother of the member for Wallsend, and all the forgotten children in Wallsend, the Hunter and New South Wales, for the Federal Government's recognition of them and its apology to "the Forgotten Australians".

First, I will define the term "the forgotten Australians"; secondly, I will talk a little about the apology; thirdly, I will speak about the history of child migration and the institutionalisation of children in Australia; and, finally, I will talk about Monte Pio at Maitland. Who are the forgotten Australians? They are more than 500,000 non-indigenous child migrants and indigenous children who have experienced care in institutions or outside a home setting during the twentieth century. Many of these children were abused—physically, emotionally or sexually—while in care. As a result, on Monday 16 November 2009 the then Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, and the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Malcolm Turnbull, issued a motion of an apology to the forgotten Australians on behalf of the nation. That was certainly a memorable day.

I will give some background to child migration and the forgotten Australians in Australia. From 1935 to 1967 an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 children and young people from Britain and Malta were sent as child migrants to Australia. The two destinations were Western Australia and New South Wales, with New South Wales receiving 28 per cent of inbound children. It is important to note that we do not know the exact number because a lot of information that should have been recorded—information that people would like to know—has not been made available.

Child migration to New South Wales ended in 1967, which to my mind is relatively recently, as I am sure members would agree. The rationale for child migration changed over time. Prior to World War II child migration schemes focused on a system of providing rural training farms for boys and domestic schools for girls. But after 1945 child migration was based primarily on increasing Australia's population. The Commonwealth Government relied heavily on private organisations such as Dr Barnardos' Homes, Fairbridge Farm Schools, the Big Brother Movement, and religious organisations such as Burnside to promote child migration. Fostering and adoption were not favoured at this time—but of course that has now changed—and the children were placed in large residential settings.

I was particularly driven to move this motion today because the issue is of interest to me and my family. When my mother was an infant she and her sisters and brothers were placed in the care of Monte Pio orphanage, an orphanage that was established in Maitland, in New South Wales. They were placed in that care because of the severely dysfunctional nature, shall I say, of my mother's family at the time. My mother and her sister were sent to Monte Pio and, as was the custom, my uncle was sent to the boys orphanage called Murray Dwyer Home for Boys in Mayfield, in the Newcastle area. So the children were separated. At the time an attempt was made to keep children together, but they were separated if they were of different genders.

Monte Pio orphanage was opened in 1909 with about 27 children. At that time the orphanage was for both boys and girls. The orphanage was operated under the auspices of the Catholic Church, and the Sisters of Mercy ran the establishment. I can say a lot about this orphanage because it was the subject of my university honours thesis for history. In my thesis I spoke about the daily life of the children in Monte Pio orphanage, because it was something that was familiar to me as I grew up with a mother who spent her childhood in an orphanage. My mother occasionally used to tell us stories about her time at Monte Pio—"the orphanage", as she called it—and she also used it occasionally as a bit of a threat to us children when we were very naughty. So those things were relevant to me when I talked about the daily life of what happened in the orphanage.

By the time my mother and her sisters and brothers were placed in the orphanage it was the early 1940s. Interestingly, my mother can remember the stories of when, during the war, other people came to stay at the orphanage too. She was only a little girl at the time, so they were just vague stories. But some of the things mum used to say to us hit home with us as kids. She was a smart mum and she did not use the orphanage story too often, but she used it particularly when we were naughty or when we were particularly fussy about food. At Monte Pio the nuns were extremely hard and they relied very heavily on the benevolence of the people of Maitland and the farmers of Maitland to keep them in food. The Catholic Church did not give the orphanage any money; it basically ran itself. Mum used to tell us stories such as the one that if only prunes were available for food for a week, the children ate prunes for a week. So, when we started to get a bit fussy about food, I just thought to myself, "I really don't want to be eating prunes for a week, so I might need to be a little bit more careful about what I say."

When we children were naughty, we would be all lined up and mum would say to us, "Now, listen kids, if you misbehave your father and I are sending you to the orphanage." As a little girl, the first thought I had in my mind was the story that mum told me about how she used to wet the bed when she first went to the orphanage—which was very common for young children to do because they were scared and they were away from what they knew of their natural home. Unfortunately, when the children in the orphanage wet the bed the nuns used to beat them. So my mum's older sister, who was only five at the time, spent her time trying to protect my mum when she did wet the bed. There were a few stories that scared us into behaving ourselves at home.

There are other positive stories about the orphanage. My mum and the many other women I interviewed when I conducted my oral history research into Monte Pio orphanage told me many of those stories. In my thesis I particularly made reference to the period when mum was in the orphanage, which was during the 1940s. While the women I interviewed had some scary stories to tell, they also told some good stories of benevolence and sharing. All the women I dealt with and talked to were good story sharers. One of the stories they told was that at Christmas time when some of the children received no presents at all they would wrap up a shoe lace and give it to the child who had the least. They cared about one another, and they are generous people, as is my mum.

I have spoken about children being brought up in orphanages and what their future holds. Certainly the girls at Monte Pio orphanage were brought up to be good wives or good domestic servants. But I must say that at that time in the early 1940s that was not too different to working-class public schools and their vision for many of the girls. Unfortunately, many of the girls in the orphanage did not get the opportunity to pursue much of an education and, like my mum, they left school at an early age. Education certainly was not a priority for my mum and, like many other kids, she got pregnant at 14, to my dad, and had her first child. But I think now that, had that opportunity arose as she got older—and times have changed—certainly life would have been different.

As times changed, however, by the 1970s the orphanages were phased out and there was a different philosophy in government about how we raise children. By 1972 Monte Pio orphanage closed. The girls who were still at the orphanage at that time—whom I know and whose experiences I talk about—were fostered out. In many respects, being fostered has proved to be a more successful lifestyle for children who were abandoned by their parents or who, like my mum and many other girls at Monte Pio, were from dysfunctional families. In fact, the results of my oral history research revealed that during the time mum was at the orphanage many of the children were not in fact orphans; they were like mum. Either their dads were widowed or they came from violent backgrounds and their parents or guardians did not have the opportunity to look after them so they placed them in the care of the church.

For many of these people Kevin Rudd's apology was at least an acknowledgement that they have been appreciated, and that they have been listened to and understood. In the past, when men and women have brought up the negative aspects of growing up in an orphanage they have been ignored and stigmatised. Indeed, they have not wanted to tell their story because they have felt that they are not being listened to. I hope that that has now changed, certainly since the apology, and that people realise that it was not their fault that they were placed in an orphanage. We look forward to a better life and future for children who live in disadvantaged and unfortunate circumstances.

Ms PRU GOWARD (Goulburn) [11.55 a.m.]: The Opposition joins the member for Wallsend in noting the importance of the apology, which I understand was a bipartisan apology and which was followed here in New South Wales by a similarly bipartisan apology. When I was a child growing up in Adelaide there was a very large, forbidding orphanage on Goodwood Road, called the Goodwood Children's Orphanage. Whenever we drove past the orphanage and one of us was being naughty or playing up, my father would say, "You'll go in there." I think, like a lot of Australians, we grew up believing that orphanages—

Mr Daryl Maguire: Parliament's worse!

Ms PRU GOWARD: Yes, I ended up in Parliament, Dad! A lot of Australians and children of that era grew up believing that these children's homes—where the children were hidden from view—were places for naughty children. But as the Parra Girls, led so ably by Bonnie, have said to me, they were not naughty children; they were often neglected children, or children whose mothers could no longer afford to support them—this was before the days of the supporting parent benefit—or children whose fathers had died in the war and for whom legacy was not sufficient because there was such a large number of children. These children were put into orphanages for many reasons, very few of which had anything to do with uncontrollability or poor behaviour by them. Almost invariably they were put into orphanages because their parents did not want to look after them.

One of my constituents was put into the Waminda home for boys, run by the Salvation Army at Goulburn, merely because his parents wanted to party and did not want him, his brother or his sister. His parents are still alive today yet they still have no connection with their remaining children, including my wonderful constituent. These children were rarely placed into orphanages as a result of their own sins. They were there entirely because their parents did not want them or, more often, because their parents could not care for them. This was before the days of pensions and social benefits. It was just after the war when there were many fatherless households. Nor was it an age when women were allowed to work if they had children, other than in a very informal capacity and certainly not in the public service—that was changed by John Gorton in the late 1960s.

My attendance at the memorial service and my dealings over the years with the Parra Girls have emphasised to me that one of the difficulties these children grew up with was the belief that they were no good. They were there to be punished because the bad blood of their parents had been passed onto them. They were in these institutions to be turned into better people. For those same reasons, foster children today have a high rate of unwanted teen pregnancy, unemployment and incarceration both in juvenile detention and adult prisons. If a child is brought up and punished, given no love and positive enforcement and told that they are bad—especially where there is no-one to focus on foster children in the way parents do—a huge hole is left in that child's heart, which limits their growth and badly damages their development. That child is then incapable of becoming a fully developed and stable human being as an adult.

We are recognising that by apologising to the forgotten Australians. We are not apologising to them for giving them a home. I have met many children from those children's homes who were very grateful to have been put somewhere safe, away from alcoholic or violent parents, and given food and the opportunity to become fully functioning citizens of the world. I have met them but I have also met many others, as others in this House would have, who viewed those years as a terrible trauma and can cite terrible abuse at the hands of those entrusted by the State or by the churches, more often, to look after them. Those children emerged from those institutions very deeply scarred. We see more of that on these memorial days but we must not fail to acknowledge that there were also children who considered that time to be blessed years because anything was better than the home lives they were suffering.

It would be nice to do more than apologise to the forgotten Australians for not just locking them away and leaving them to the treatment that many say was meted out to them: sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect, deprivation and minimal standards of care, often at the hands of tyrants and people with very serious disorders themselves. We should also apologise to them for having thought of them as bad children. We should recognise that until recently we misunderstood that whole generation. I did not even connect the children at the Goodwood Orphanage with the forgotten Australian movement when it emerged a few years ago. I did not connect the children about whom my father said, "You do not want to be like them, and if you are naughty anymore I will put you in there" with the adults I have met. Those adults had stories of being forced into institutions, forced to scrub the walls, floors and stairs with toothbrushes at the Parramatta Girls Home, and of being beaten by superintendents with leather belts that had buckles on them for the sheer hell of it. Those children were denied any sort of decent education and they were told every day that they were worthless, they were no good and they deserved nothing. No wonder those girls often ran away and joined up with far from suitable men only to begin another generation of disadvantage with very young pregnancies.

It would be nice to think that we apologised for more than that. We should apologise for thinking poorly of these children and for doing what we did to them. We stood by thinking that as these children were being cared for by churches, which are good institutions, all must be okay. We did not seek to inquire into the real circumstances of their care. There is a memorial garden that forms part of the acknowledgement of the forgotten Australian celebrations held in Sydney last year. We definitely need a memorial. The remains of the Parramatta Girls Home, in that extraordinary historical precinct—being one of the oldest collections of buildings outside of Sydney—should be restored. We should be telling that story. A museum at the Parramatta Girls Home would be harrowing to visit but it would be very difficult to build an independent museum. It surprises me that we do not have a museum-like institution in Sydney where that story could be told. If it is not done in a stand-alone museum at the Parramatta Girls Home, then it should be done somewhere else in a building that is also part of the story.

That would be part of acknowledging the forgotten Australians, and we have manifestly not addressed that. We have apologised but words are cheap. The scars these people bear are deep. Those scars have been passed on to their children. I have met some of those children and they have told me that they had never really known their mothers. It has only been in the last couple of years that they have been told that their mothers were brought up in an orphanage and about what took place. Only now do they understand. We need to do more than apologise. We need to mark it with a written record and a proper and permanent display of some kind. We need to mark homes such as the Parramatta Girls Home. Whilst I think compensation is a big ask for a modern day government, adequate provision of counselling and the other support that these people and their children will need for the rest of their days are very important. We should also mark this motion by noting that the foster care provisions we have today, and the recognition that children are better brought up in a family setting, is an acknowledgement that what we did with the forgotten Australians was wrong.

Mr ALAN ASHTON (East Hills) [12.05 p.m.]: I thank the member for Wallsend for her motion, and for her special sentiments in recognition of her mother, the forgotten children of Wallsend, and all forgotten Australians who grew up in institutional care in New South Wales. I acknowledge the importance of the apology by the Federal Government last year in the commemorative event that was held to raise awareness of this important issue. I also thank the member for Goulburn for her contribution.

I am motivated to speak on this motion because of its connection with history. Many children who ended up in orphanages or foster homes—some might call them worse than that—were child migrants who came from Great Britain in the period 1935 through to, unbelievably, 1967. Many thousands of them came and their institutionalisation had an impact on them, as well as on their future families. The period 1935 to 1936 saw the rise of Nazism and of Fascism in Italy and the effects of the Depression. In the Second World War major cities in Britain were being bombed—such as London during the Blitz, Birmingham and Coventry, where manufacturing took place. British children were taken from those areas and sent to quieter parts of the country. I am sure that most families were later regretful of doing so.

It must be remembered that in the past children were not always seen as the product of a wonderful marriage. In many cases, children were the outcome of marriage and seen as potential workers and farm labourers, particularly in peasant communities. Children were the lifeblood of the family's existence. They were not there to be loved, to be given a train set and to be sent off to university. For some families they were a tiresome problem. It is a sad fact of the way the world was in those days. Around the Second World War many British children, having become lost in bureaucracy, were sent to Australia. A well-known example is David Hill, one of our famous public servants. He was an adviser to Premier Wran and boss of the ABC, Soccer Australia and Railcorp, and he was involved in the resurrection, before its ultimate decline, of the North Sydney Bears.

Some years ago a television series called The Leaving of Liverpool told the story of these children. Their relocation was considered to be for their own good because cities were being bombed. The men had gone off to fight in the war and the women stayed at home. It was considered that the children should be sent to Australia where they would be safe. At that stage the Japanese had not entered the Second World War. Unfortunately, many of these children ended up in orphanages where they were not well treated. The member for Wallsend referred to their treatment in her speech. The member's speech was not maudlin or a "get square" for what happened to her family. Her speech was a recognition of events.

We are now aware of the plight of this forgotten generation. It has links to the Stolen Generation, although the Stolen Generation has been a more prominent political issue. These young British and Australian children were placed in orphanages. When I was growing up, we thought that orphanages were places for bad children: they must have done something terribly wrong or their parents were bad people. That was not the case. Opportunity does not fall equally. For some of these children the best opportunity was to work in domestic service. Others would have ended up in more desperate straits. Education would not have been a priority for them. Their priority was survival from day to day. As the member for Wallsend said, brothers and sisters were split up and would have been lucky to see each other. I congratulate the member for Wallsend on bringing this motion before the Parliament.

Mr DARYL MAGUIRE (Wagga Wagga) [12.10 p.m.]: I support this important motion moved by the member for Wallsend which recognises the forgotten Australians. I had the great pleasure of meeting the member's mum, who is a delightful soul. It was a great pleasure to speak with her. She is one of those people whom you instantly like when you meet her. She is full of warmth. She has great reason to be proud of her family, particularly the member for Wallsend and her achievements. This motion relates to the apology that was made on Monday 16 November 2009 for the treatment of Australians and children from overseas by institutions and others. As the member for Goulburn said, sadly many of these children had no option other than to be placed in an institution. The issue is how they were treated in the institutions.

As children in the small town of Ivanhoe, my sister and I lived with my grandmother. My father was widowed at a young age. My mum was 33 when she passed away and I was seven years of age. We were lucky to have the benefit of family. In town we regularly saw children who were neglected and kids in the street who lived on bags of chips. For children who were neglected by their families, the policy was that they were removed from their home. Sadly, it was a common occurrence. Many of these Australian stories have been recognised, and some have been published in books and articles. It is important to record these stories in order to correct the wrongs and ensure that we do not repeat history.

I have read the apologies of then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and then Leader of the Opposition Mr Malcolm Turnbull, the comments that were made and the responses from the gathered crowd. About 1,000 people attended on the day. An important announcement was made that the Federal Government would create a Find and Connect service for children who were removed from their families, for whatever reason. This process would provide an Australia-wide, coordinated family tracing support service. I understand that $26 million was to be made available in the 2010-11 budget and the service would begin towards the end of 2010. This service would be an important tool. However, new information has not been posted about the process until a modification to the announcement on 16 November 2010 that the scheme would start in April 2011. For whatever reason, there has been a delay.

Many people will access this service. I hope that the Federal Government implements it sooner rather than later because of the benefits it will provide. The service will provide a single online access point to help care leavers find records held by past care providers. It will have a national 1800 telephone number and a national network of specialist case managers to help care leavers locate and access personal records. It will have a new counselling support service, specifically for care leavers. Priority access will be offered to care leavers who are aged or terminally ill. Following the apology on Monday 16 November 2010, these people are now known as Remembered Australians. Sadly, many have passed on and will not have the benefit of this service. But many others, such as the mother of the honourable member for Wallsend, will be able to access this service which, hopefully, will help them reunite with family and will heal some of the hurt.

Mr MATTHEW MORRIS (Charlestown—Parliamentary Secretary) [12.15 p.m.]: I also welcome and acknowledge the heartfelt sentiments of the member for Wallsend. It is not so long ago that many of the stories and the pain and suffering of forgotten Australians were unknown. The Australian Government's Senate Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care was a watershed in understanding this history. In its report "Forgotten Australians: a report on Australians who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children", the Senate committee found that more than 200,000 children spent their childhood in New South Wales in these settings.

As the member for Wagga Wagga highlighted, on 16 September 2009 the New South Wales Government held a healing service and memorial unveiling for those who spent their childhood in orphanages, children's homes and foster care during the period up to the 1990s. The former Premier, the Hon. Nathan Rees, MP, apologised to forgotten Australians for the hardship and suffering experienced by many children who grew up in these institutional settings and for the impact of these experiences on their lives. He acknowledged that forgotten Australians were mistreated by a system responsible for their care through no fault of their own. He understood that many forgotten Australians had described a childhood lacking in love, affection and nurturing. Children were neglected and isolated, brothers and sisters were separated, contact with family was restricted or denied, educational opportunities were disregarded, and children were pressed into domestic service. Many children suffered abuse—emotional, physical and sexual.

It is important to take a moment to reflect on this period of our history, the first century of Australia as a federated nation, and on the reasons why children and young people were unable to live with their birth families. Those reasons included separation of their parents, family poverty, being born to an unmarried mother, family alcohol abuse, mental illness issues, domestic violence, and sometimes because they were an orphan. Some of these children were removed from the family home by the State; others were placed there by kin, including parents with no other options. Until the 1970s there was little State or community support for families that were in crisis as a result of illness—including mental illness—unemployment, desertion or the death of a parent. Institutional care was one of the few options available for any type of family crisis, whether short or long term.

Many of the children in care had fathers who served in the armed forces. These men received little support on their return from combat, and some of these children could perhaps be seen as unrecognised casualties of war, bearing the brunt of their fathers' inability to return to civilian life and the consequent breakdown of family life and the inevitable entry of the children into care. Many of these children's parents suffered from alcohol abuse, in some cases an outcome of their traumatic war experience.

I understand that the healing service and memorial unveiling was a great morning culminating in a morning tea at Government House, where the doors were open for all forgotten Australians and many of their carers and family members who were able to be present on the day. The program for the day had been organised in consultation with the Care Leavers Australia Network, the Alliance for Forgotten Australians and other forgotten Australian representatives. The day provided an opportunity for non-government and church-based past providers of institutional care to acknowledge and to apologise to these children who did not receive the consistent and loving care they needed and deserved.

I commend the Federal Government for its recognition of forgotten Australians, its apology to forgotten Australians and its commemorative event, which ensures that this period of our history is not forgotten. We have heard of many cases of ill-treatment, and it is devastating to think that with all the goodwill we have in our communities these days one time in our history was so bad. It is only appropriate that we take this opportunity to recognise our mistakes of the past and make a genuine heartfelt apology.

Ms SONIA HORNERY (Wallsend) [12.20 p.m.], in reply: I acknowledge the contributions of the member for Goulburn, the member for East Hills, the member for Wagga Wagga and the member for Charlestown. I commend them for their kind thoughts and I acknowledge both sides of the House for their unanimous support for this very important, very heartfelt and very necessary notice of motion. I pay tribute to the comments of the member for Goulburn. She spoke about how at one stage children in orphanages were thought to be naughty children. We know better now. We know that in many cases they were neglected children and that the stigma of being in an orphanage at the time and being regarded as naughty or engaging in untoward behaviour has had some impact on the adult lives of many women and men.

I pay tribute to the comment of the member for Goulburn that if children are not given love—whether it is the children we are talking about in this situation or others—it leaves a huge hole in a child's heart. That is a lovely way to describe it. The member for Goulburn talked about minimal standards of care. Certainly I know at Monte Pio the standard of care was very minimal, but the nuns also faced standards of care that were minimal. I also pay tribute to the member for East Hills who gave us a wonderful history lesson, which is his love and passion and he knows a great deal about it. He talked about the great sadness and about the child migrants who were lost in the bureaucracy. He also talked about recognition of what has happened, and that is very important. I thank the member for Wagga Wagga for making such nice comments about my mum, which she very well deserves. I agree with him that these children's families at times had no other option but to put their children in orphanages, and that neglected children in New South Wales were often removed and placed into orphanages like Monte Pio.

I will certainly be making representations to my Federal colleagues about any delay in the Find and Connect online service. That is a very important service that was promised and we must ensure that the service is available for people to use, and I thank the member for Wagga Wagga for raising that issue. He also talked about the care leavers, and I acknowledge the Care Leavers Australia Network. Leonie Sheedy, who was one of the founders, was a great source of information when I was doing my honours degree on the orphanage. I pay tribute to Leonie and the hard work she has undertaken. Another person who was associated with the care leavers at the time praised Malcolm Turnbull because when Malcolm Turnbull delivered his speech he said, "We are listening to you. We believe you." Those comments were very important to a gentleman who had grown up in an orphanage and had been sexually abused when he was young but no-one had believed him. We certainly believe these people now.

I also pay tribute to the member for Charlestown, who talked about the impact on people's later lives of being in an institution and how, unfortunately, children in many of these orphanages and institutions lacked love and affection, which also had an impact on their later life. I talked earlier about the daily life of children in orphanages and the stories I remember my mum told about food. One nice story was about when mum had chicken pox in the orphanage and was very sick. Mum said that one of the nuns was a kind, pretty nun and she made my mum banana custard. Mum always remembered that. As kids we always liked banana custard, and I think it was because of the nice story that went along with the banana custard and the kind nun, whoever she was, at Monte Pio.

Question—That the motion be agreed to—put and resolved in the affirmative.

Motion agreed to.  ^{_{(Source : http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LA20101125012?open&refNavID=HA8_1)}}