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

During my contribution on the motion for the apology to the forgotten Australians yesterday, I was talking about Robyn from Stanthorpe when we were called to a division in the House. I want to pick up where I left off and talk about what Robyn has told me. Robyn’s mother, as I said in my contribution thus far, had been divorced from her husband for more than 10 years. This was back in 1959. Robyn’s mother decided that the best thing for her daughter, because she wanted to make sure that Robyn had the best chance in life, was to entrust her to the care of the Pastorelle Sisters at their hostel for girls in Carlton, Victoria. They were to make sure that she had a job, went to work and went to night school and continued her studies. In the space of less than eight months the Pastorelle Sisters had convinced Robyn that she should become a nun. She was convinced. She was then asked to basically, using Robyn’s words, ‘lie’ to her mother. She was then sent to Rome. The Pastorelle Sisters really failed Robyn and, using Robyn’s words, her, ‘passport application and documents were falsified’ as far as she was concerned.

Robyn’s mother had no assets. She was a divorced lady, a single woman, having at that time in history to make her own way and maintain a job for her own wellbeing. When her mother found out, she was powerless to act. Robyn was sent to Rome. It was at the convent in Rome that she was sexually molested, physically abused and ill-treated. She was ‘neglected’, as Robyn says, to the point where her youthful vigour waned and she became very ill. She was detained in this situation because her passport had been taken away. She had no money, no civilian clothes and no friends on the outside, and she could not speak the language. All of her correspondence home was censored. As Robyn says, she was subjected to ‘behaviour modification’.

In the last two years of the seven years she spent there she was, really, a stateless person because she did not have a passport. She had not been able to apply for a renewal of her passport. She was not even able to register to vote for federal elections in Australia. Robyn is a constituent of mine, and when she came back to Australia she lived with this for some 30-odd years. She is now on a disability pension. But when you talk to Robyn and read her story—and there is a lot more than I have time to put on the record today—you can see that it was an appalling situation: a whole life destroyed because of the treatment that she received. Her mother was a single mother who entrusted her daughter into the pastoral care of the Pastorelle Sisters at the Carlton hostel for girls in Victoria.

I want to briefly, because I do not have a great deal of time, talk about John Walsh, who now lives in Roma. His story is that he and his brothers and sisters were taken away from their mother while their father was serving overseas during the Second World War. John has written to me. He said that there was a knock on the door of their home at 10.30 at night. Child welfare, the police and the Salvation Army had arrived. Their mother, fearing what might be happening—because she was aware that children were being taken away from their mothers—would not open the door, so they heaved it open and took the children away. They were sent to Hay Street East in Perth. I wish that I had more time, because I know that John’s story could be told over and over again. It is harrowing, as are the stories we have heard from so many speakers.

I also want to say something about another lady in my electorate, Jenny, who is dealing with children who have been taken away from their mother, a single mother, in the last month. I know that child protection agencies today go to great lengths to make sure that children are safe. These children have been taken away from their mother, who is expecting another child in fact to Jenny’s son. She has been the subject of domestic violence. I know it is not a very pretty situation, but those children have been taken away and fostered in other homes. Jenny said to me, ‘Bruce, wouldn’t it be better if we were able to put a parent into the home to keep the mother and children together to help the mother cope with the situation rather than take them away and put them in foster care?’ One of the children who were taken away has already run away from the foster home and gone back to her mother. The mother is pregnant, so you can imagine the strain on her and the baby she is carrying. Wouldn’t it have been better to have brought foster parents into the home to live with the family and to make sure that she is able to cope and look after the welfare of the children? I put that on the public record and I think it is a suggestion that we should all look at. I hope that the government will look at it as an alternative in each case to fostering out children and taking them away from their parents, where they get mothering, nurturing love and care.

I thank the chamber and I hope that as a nation we continue to work on this issue and make more restitution to those who have been so mentally and physically abused by churches and government. Care from government is what we must make sure of in the future. (Time expired)

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not speak on the motion on the national apology to the forgotten Australians and former child migrants with any alacrity. It is a very tragic situation that brings us to this point and, like many who have spoken on this matter, I intend to inform the parliament and hopefully the people of Australia of the circumstances that some people have suffered and continue to suffer. When I spoke on the apology to our Indigenous brothers and sisters I talked a little about the reconciliation movement because I think it is appropriate to remind people that the genesis of it was in fact after the Second World War in the organisation that a former leader of the Labor Party and, before him, his father was associated with—Moral Rearmament.

Moral Rearmament is a very interesting organisation. It has had a name change. It is now called Initiatives of Change and it has, over a long period of time, conducted what is euphemistically known as second level diplomacy. It works to resolve those issues that often divide people and can have tragic results. It played a role after the Second World War in bringing people together from Germany and around Europe. That was its genesis, but it later played a role in the industrial movements in some of the differences between employers and employees. It played a role in relation to Indigenous peoples. It had an active role in what was happening in South Africa. It is interesting that South Africa had a reconciliation commission, which functioned after the first democratic elections, which I witnessed, in 1994. In Australia I do not think it is recognised that a gentleman called John Bond, who is very much associated with Moral Rearmament, Initiatives of Change, has worked on the issues affecting our Indigenous people. He organised the last conference in Europe, which I participated in. He spent many years here in Australia promoting the concept of reconciliation.

A lot of us do not understand, as I have mentioned previously, that reconciliation has two parts to it. The first is an apology from those who may have been guilty of some very unfortunate activities or acts. But it also is meant to evoke a basis upon which you can move on together, and that is the concept of forgiveness. In relation to a lot of the issues that we are dealing with, there is a quest for apology but the circumstances that can give rise to the second element of forgiveness are often not there. That is something I am going to speak to today. I note that in the Sydney Morning Herald of 16 November there was a very interesting article by Hugh Mackay, the social commentator. He is a person I have known over a long period of time. He does not always agree with me, I might say. I once included him on an advisory committee for the former government. I do not know how much he relished that. But I have always respected his opinions. He writes:

It’s a sorry state of affairs when forgiveness is not the main objective.

He goes on to say in this article:

So we’re to have another … apology … This time, it’s the turn of the “forgotten children”—those who languished, and were often neglected or abused, in institutions …

He goes on to say:

No doubt an apology is called for.

          …            …            …

But there’s a terrible gap in this process that no one seems to be acknowledging. You can easily identify that gap if you ask yourself: what is the purpose of an apology?

The glib answer is that an apology is an admission of wrongdoing and an expression of regret for harm caused to another person by our actions or by our failure to act. We apologise to get all that off our chest, and who doesn’t feel better once that’s done?

But is that all an apology is about? Is that all we try to achieve when we apologise—feeling better? I don’t think so. An apology is more than a declaration; it’s not just a message we send to the injured party. It is also, importantly, an appeal to the injured party to forgive us for what we did to them.

An apology without a corresponding act of forgiveness is only half the story. If the forgiveness is withheld, the apology is left hanging in the air, like a gift you offered someone that they never formally accepted or thanked you for. Worse, an apology that is not met with forgiveness ends up looking like a solo performance: something we did to the injured party, rather than something we did together in the true spirit of reconciliation.

I think they are very, very telling words. He goes on to say of an apology:

Too easy, in fact: to say “we’re sorry” without having negotiated our way through to a meeting point where forgiveness can also occur is simply to have taken the first step.

It is in that context that I want to talk about some litigation in the state of New South Wales. The matter involves Shane Paul Nicholls and the state of New South Wales as the defendant. In this judgment, His Honour, Justice Malpass, says this:

The plaintiff was born on 3 October 1957 (he is now 48 years of age). Since the commencement of the proceedings, he has changed his surname to Bell.

He is the same person that Tony Abbott mentioned in his comments earlier this week. The judgment continues:

The plaintiff became a ward of the state on 21 February 1973 (when he was about 16 years of age). He remained as such until 1979 (when he was 22 years of age). He did not return to the family home.

It recounts how he was brought before the Penrith court, charged with being uncontrollable. That was in 1971. It continues:

In October of that year, the plaintiff was committed to an institution. He remained institutionalised till 1979. During this period, he exhibited … symptoms (one of which was nocturnal enuresis). He was still bedwetting at the age of 20. His appearance disclosed, inter alia, constant smallest of stature and excessive thinness. He was treated as being mentally retarded and his education was neglected.

… Prior to institutionalisation, he had suffered an unfortunate home life. He was one of eight children in a household of poor financial circumstances. He suffered, inter alia, sexual and other abuse … After institutionalisation, he had little contact with his mother.

What becomes apparent is that, while he was taken into care, little was done to address his circumstances—and this is in the time that I have been in this parliament. This man was committed in 1973, in a period in which I would have expected that some attention would have been paid in institutions in New South Wales to the needs of the young people entrusted to their care.

This litigation retails medical opinions about the way in which, in later life, conditions that should have been identified were found. I read here a letter from a Dr Ryan in 1993:

You can be assured that I am doing everything that I can to seek an early settlement of your claim. I have given advice to the Department that your condition should have been diagnosed when you were in the departments care.

This is a man of whom the judge says:

… when he was discharged from the wardship, he was functionally illiterate … he had few, if any, life skills. He has never held a serious job for any length of time … he is now realistically unemployable.

He is clearly a person whom we—our generation—failed.

What was this litigation about? This litigation was about when this man had identified that he had certain claims that might ordinarily be addressed through our legal system. Those who are dealing with these issues now in the state of New South Wales used legal remedies available to them to ensure that that claim could never be addressed. We all know what they are. They are statutes of limitation, which demand that even if you had no knowledge of any rights and entitlements to bring forward a claim, no advice that suggested that there might be a difficult issue that had to be addressed, if the time that has elapsed—in this case, three years—is too long, unless you receive a special waiver from a court, which has to be obtained in very limited circumstances, you have no remedy. The very point I want to make is that, at a time when we are seeking to apologise, there are people in this country, governments in this country, who have resisted any inquiry into their handling of these issues and continue to do so, who ensure that even the legal system will deny a remedy to a person deserving one.

If you cannot guess, I have come to know Shane Nicholls over a period of time. He is not an easy person to deal with. He is a person greatly wounded by what he has been forced to endure, and he does seek a remedy. I think people wanted to have him here in Canberra for this apology, but he feels the apology without at least some effort to get those responsible in New South Wales to address these issues is hollow. I do not know what the relationships are in these matters, but we apologise and he is denied a remedy. We say to him, ‘Are you prepared, having received an apology, to forgive?’ I do not like to say it, but, unless we are prepared to pick up some of the points that Hugh Mackay has made, in a lot of these situations we are not going to move forward.

I think the very least that is required in New South Wales is for those in authority—and for those here who can speak to those in authority in New South Wales—to say, ‘We will no longer use statutes of limitations to deny people the opportunity to have their claims heard and addressed on their merits.’ It is a pretty simple step but one that I think would, in the context of these issues, help some people to address those matters and move forward. Likewise, I see the resistance that has occurred in my state of New South Wales to an inquiry in relation to these issues. In the time that I have been sitting in this parliament, I have heard about the way in which people were physically abused—were wounded—by those who were entrusted to care for them. As it said in this litigation, they were not even given an education which would unable them to go out and get a job. Those in authority kept them institutionalised until 22 years of age and then tried to get them off on benefits so that, hopefully, they could survive.

I think we still have a long way to go in addressing these issues before some of the wounds that are there are healed. I hope some, particularly in New South Wales, if this speech of mine is read more widely, might recognise that they have some responsibility if they endorse this apology to take the practical steps to provide some remedies for redress. Equally, I think it ought to be clear to governments that this litigation—this case; I have it before me—was resolved by the judge simply saying: ‘Because of statutes of limitations, I have no basis upon which I can provide a remedy.’ I hope some people will take on board the pain that that sort of approach by those in authority evokes amongst those whom we recognise have suffered a great deal.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the apology that was given in an extremely bipartisan way by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, and by many members on both sides of this parliament. I will say nothing about the previous contribution to this debate other than that I am disappointed in the tone and the nature of that contribution. In relation to the apology, I, like many other members of this House, have had constituents who have been gravely affected by the care that they had as children. These are people who were separated from their parents for one reason or another. Some came from the UK as child migrants and lived in very appalling, uncaring institutions that were run by the state government or privately. The impact that that had on their lives was enormous. I have had people sit in my office and cry about the treatment they have had. I have had people say to me in relation to this apology: ‘The thing that is special about it is that it is a starting point. The apology actually recognises that our lives were impacted on in such a grave and detrimental way.’

My thoughts go back to one of my constituents on the Central Coast who came to Australia as a child migrant. His story has been told time and time again this week by others who were in similar situations. They thought they were going for a holiday somewhere. They thought that their parents were no longer living. They went to another country and then lived in institutions. When they finally went out into the world they did not have the personal skills that they needed to survive. They worked through so many issues. Eventually they married and had their own families, which in itself put in place a number of challenges. Finally, they found out that they did have a mother and they did have sisters. This constituent travelled to the UK. Unfortunately, he did not meet his mother, but he met his siblings, and that was very special to him.

Another of my constituents was brought up in an institution. His mother died and his father could not look after the children so he put them in an institution. He told me how he was always the smallest. When it came to food he missed out every time. He told me about the lack of care and compassion and about the brutality of living in that institution. That story has been told by numerous members in this parliament.

Monday was a very special day. You could see just how important this apology was to all the people who gathered in the Great Hall. It was very moving. You could see staff from FaHCSIA handing tissues to the people who were there to receive the apology.

I would like to put on the record my support for this apology, my support for an unconditional apology, my support for a bipartisan policy and my support for seeing this as a start for the rest of the people who have been affected by this dreadful period in our history. I am absolutely committed to see that this never happens again.

In conclusion, I would like to put on the record my thanks to Origins for the fine work that they have done over the years in reuniting families that have been separated—people like my constituent Sue and her daughter. Sue had her daughter when she was 16 and was forced to give her up. The child moved from foster parent to institution and had a very disturbed life. She suffered all the types of things that are mentioned in this apology. It was only through the efforts of Origins that she was reunited with the daughter that she had not even seen. The work that Origins do is invaluable and they should be congratulated for the contribution they have made to alleviate the pain of so many Australians. This is a fine apology, and I am pleased to be associated with it.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the national apology to the forgotten Australians and former child migrants and the motion moved by the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. But, firstly, I acknowledge and thank all those who have worked so hard for so many years to make this apology happen. I also rise to speak on behalf of those in my electorate who have suffered as child migrants and forgotten Australians. I apologise to all of those people in my electorate.

As many previous members have stated, childhood should be a time of learning and growing in a nurturing environment and of simply being a child. Children should be able to grow up with a loving family and/or in a loving, secure environment that they can trust. However, as we continue to hear, so many of these basic rights and opportunities were robbed from many tens of thousands of forgotten Australians and former child migrants, and many of those are in my electorate.

This week we have heard a range of stories and recollections of painful childhood memories. No-one can understand, seriously, what these people have gone through and, while we in this parliament can speak, we do not understand, because it was not us. But I would like to acknowledge one person, one of my colleagues, Steve Irons, who was exactly one of those people who were so affected. I would like to acknowledge Steve’s commitment, passion and hard work. I congratulate him on not only his journey in life but also his very dignified speech in the parliament on a day that would have been particularly emotional. I congratulate him as well on how, in spite of the beginning that he had, he has lived his life, and how he has gone on to be a balanced individual who has got so much to offer not only to this parliament but to the community. He is an inspiration to all those who, in any way, shape or form, have suffered and are suffering with challenges in their lives. So, Steve, I thank you as well, and I offer you my apology as well.

Monday’s remembrance ceremony formally acknowledged what happened in the past—firstly, that it did happen, and, secondly, that it was wrong. The ceremony was also a stark reminder to the broader community of the reality of what happened to those people—something that happened to children so many years ago and continued for so long.

A local newspaper in my electorate recently ran an article regarding a constituent from the town of Collie who suffered abuse whilst in government children’s homes. The article stated:

TORTURE at the hands of a foster mother and further abuse in a government children’s home so damaged 55-year-old Collie man Johnno … that he still carries the scars, mental and physical.

The article detailed the story of just one forgotten Australian, and I would like to take this opportunity to share some of his story from that article.

Johnno’s father was an alcoholic war veteran who married Johnno’s mother after the war. The article says:

Probably because of the bashings she took from her husband and her lifestyle as an entertainer … she developed her own alcohol problems.

Johnno’s parents split when he was just three years old, and his mother was unable to care for him or his siblings. Johnno clearly remembers the day that the police arrived at his house and handcuffed his eight-year-old brother, his six-year-old brother and him to the police car so they could not run away while they were searching the house for their parents. Johnno was put into care for eight years, away from his brothers for most of the time.

Initially, he was placed in an institution called Turana. He was then put into foster care with a woman who had five children of her own and took him purely for the money she was paid to care for him. However this was only a short-lived arrangement as Johnno was put into the Menzies boys’ home after the foster mother tried to kill him. Johnno’s suffering continued at Menzies boys’ home, being forced to eat his meals alone as it was said that the damage from his former foster mother forcing his face onto the lighted gas stove ‘would put the other children off their food’. His foster mother’s sister repeatedly reported the abuse to the authorities. However, the government did not listen to her.

This is a story that is continually repeated. This was a common occurrence. No-one wanted to listen and no-one wanted to acknowledge that these actions were actually taking place, because someone would have had to have taken responsibility. As you can see, Mr Deputy Speaker, Johnno was a defenceless child like the so many others subject to ongoing physical and mental abuse. I was so pleased that Johnno from Collie and Bob were able to be part of the apology in the Great Hall on Monday. I am absolutely sure that this process will have a profound effect on Johnno, as it will on all of those who were present and even those who were not there. Speaking afterwards to many of the people, including Johnno, simply reinforced the value of the ceremony, the value of the apology and how important the whole day and experience was for them. As the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition said in the Great Hall, it was a very important day for each of the people who were there. In conclusion, while we will never be able to take back the suffering of the forgotten Australians and former child migrants, I hope that this week’s recognition and sincere apology are a step in the right direction. I repeat my apologies to all of these people in my constituency for what they have suffered. I support this motion.

Debate (on motion by Mr Robert) adjourned.