Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This Sunday we celebrate Father’s Day, a day when those of us with fathers can show our appreciation for the role that our fathers have played in our lives and the love they have given us. Father’s Day is a family day. It reminds us that the most fundamental and nourishing social unit in our society is the family. As children, families protect, teach and nurture us; as adults, they provide us with a sense of connection—connection with our immediate environment but also a connection with our childhood. They are the primary source of our identity. Our families are our life’s witnesses.

As we celebrate Father’s Day this Sunday with our families, I ask all Australians to take a moment to reflect on those who are not so fortunate, on those who do not have families in quite the same way. This is the reality for half a million Australians who grew up as wards of the state and in orphanages. These are the forgotten Australians. For them, the connection which comes from growing up in a family is not there. For them, identity is far more complex. For them, childhoods did not occur with security or nurturing or familial love. For the forgotten Australians, this Sunday will not be a happy day. Rather, it will be a reminder of what they did not have. It will be a day of pain.

Of course, the circumstances which led to their being in orphanages vary—their parents were abusive or there were simply no parents at all—but in each case their fragile lives started with the worst of luck. From there, our society took the most vulnerable of our people, sometimes simply because their family was poor, and placed them in large institutions where their vulnerability was placed on show. In doing so, we denied these Australians their most fundamental right to a childhood and the innocence of it. Many who worked in these institutions were truly angels of mercy, and I note, from talking to those who grew up in orphanages, that despite all of their ordeals the recognition of these people is a constant refrain. But there were some who worked in these institutions who were predators. Each and every one of those who were condemned to this childhood was guaranteed a youth absent of familial love, but for many their stories were far worse.

Amidst the 537 submissions that were made to the Senate inquiry into children in institutionalised care was that of Mr Marcus Paul Greenhalghl, aged 62 when he wrote his submission. He says that the abuse he suffered as a child in care facilities has affected his whole life and it has taken him 50 years to be able to talk about it. Mr Greenhalghl was made a ward of the state at age seven, having been termed a neglected child in need of proper care. He remained in the care of the state until just before his 18th birthday.

His submission recalls stories of public humiliation and starvation, of being flogged with a heavy leather belt while kneeling naked before the feet of his punisher, of verbal abuse, of the withholding of appropriate medical care and of sexual abuse. Mr Greenhalghl writes that, following his time in institutionalised care, he was able to later find a measure of peace. But in achieving this, a sense of normality in his later life, he is in a sense one of the more fortunate cases you will find amongst the pages of the Senate inquiry submissions; some never have.

There are people like Ms Georgina Fraser, who was a state ward in New South Wales from age three until age 18 and whose submission was not one of violent recollection but rather one of neglect. Now in her 50s, Ms Fraser’s story recounts the lasting effect upon her life of having been denied appropriate access to an education. While most children of her age were studying at their desks, Ms Fraser’s childhood years were spent doing domestic duties, 12 hours a day, six days a week. Ms Fraser has the soul of an artist and she says:

I feel the words inside me, I hear the poetry in my heart, I feel inside me the beautiful art ... [but] I find it hard to express myself or to write so [as] to be understood.

Afforded a proper education who knows what future may have beckoned for Ms Fraser, but sadly her potential was not nurtured because, as she says, ‘The child that I never was died a brutal, violent death years ago in orphanages, institutions and state homes.’

Last Saturday was the fourth anniversary of the report Forgotten Australians: a report on Australians who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children, the Senate report which arose out of the inquiry where both Marcus Greenhalghl and Georgina Fraser told their stories. This report was groundbreaking for forgotten Australians. For the first time at a national level, it provided them with an acknowledgement. In the 39 recommendations it described a path for our nation to right this wrong and for these Australians to gain some long sought-after peace.

So August 30 has become a significant day for the forgotten Australians. While Father’s Day for them will be a painful day, August 30 must become a day on our calendar of recognition and hope for these Australians. In championing this issue, I follow in the footsteps of many, most significantly Senator Andrew Murray, himself a migrant child, whose work in this area has been nothing short of heroic. I also have the great honour of working with and knowing Leonie Sheedy and Joanna Penglase, who run CLAN and are themselves ‘clannies’ and who have made our country aware of forgotten Australians. In this parliament I do not walk alone, as Jason Clare, my colleague and friend, the member for Blaxland, has also decided to champion this cause with great energy and eloquence, as he did here last Monday night. (Time expired)