Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise to honour three of my constituents who have visited the parliament on this day of high emotion, a day bringing a long-overdue apology to the devastated Australian mothers of some 250,000 babies forcibly removed from them at birth and adopted out, an apology that of course extends to those now adult children and the masses of fathers, siblings, grandparents and other family members caught up in the trauma of what is now acknowledged as an outrageous chapter in our history.

Jan Kashin and Beth Shanks are two such mothers who have endured an ongoing nightmare through being forcibly separated from their newborns. Beth is accompanied today by her husband Ken. Jan's experience was cruel to the point of dehumanising. She describes being despatched by her father from Queensland to the Anglican Church-run Carramar home on Sydney's North Shore for expectant, unwed mothers. The atmosphere, she says, was:

… of a place where crimes were kept secret from the public, press and other observers.

The year was 1963. Jan was 21 years of age and an adult with a loving fiance. The couple were planning to be married. She wanted to keep her baby and informed Carramar staff of her wish. But it did not matter.

Painted in the best light, Carramar's role was to coerce residents to adopt out their babies to supposedly stable, childless families who could better support them. The reality for most of the women sent there was that they had no choice. Jan recalls of the facility how its overbearing staff and her isolation from family and friends contributed to her diminished sense of self. The weakening of her psychological state, she suggests, was a key plank in the model of incarceration, where authorities needed to make sure the young women 'went quietly'.

And then came her tumultuous delivery at Hornsby Hospital. Jan was heavily drugged and shackled to the labour ward bed with leather restraints. Four days after the birth, she was deceived into signing away the baby to another family. She never got to see her tiny son, born seven weeks premature.

Jan Kashin became an accomplished artist who, 10 years ago, began to explore and express her ordeal on acrylic. These works are for her and for all those other women, children and families who from the 1940s to the 1980s suffered a similar fate. She sees herself as a war artist. 'My art,' she says, 'is a metaphor for abandonment, incarceration and battle. Because it rings true for hundreds of other mothers, it has relevance, helping to unlock their trapped experiences.'

Jan, Beth, Ken and your families, I am so appreciative of your presence in our nation's capital today. The forced adoption era occurred under myriad federal and state governments, and my hope is that today's apology serves as an important step towards our community healing. I wish you better days ahead.