Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to recognise this very important anniversary. It has been 10 years since the National Apology for Forced Adoptions. I was not yet elected on the day in 2013 when the then Prime Minister Julia Gillard apologised on behalf of the Australian government to people affected by forced adoptions and removal policies. I am humbled to stand here in the Australian parliament 10 years on to remember those impacted; those who are still grieving; those who have faced a lifetime of uncertainty, loss, trauma and struggle; and those who are sadly no longer with us.

From the 1940s, tens of thousands of babies were taken from their mothers by immoral and indeed often illegal acts. The national apology acknowledged the lifelong pain and suffering associated with forced adoption practices. Mothers were betrayed by a system that gave them no choice and subjected them to manipulation, mistreatment and malpractice, which left them dealing with that trauma, shame and grief and missing out on loving and caring for their babies. Some remain lost to another forever. Others struggle to reconnect and form relationships or continue to feel the impacts throughout their lives.

Ten years ago, Newcastle resident Therese Pearson was one of those mothers who travelled to Canberra to attend the apology by the then Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Therese was 19 when her baby boy was taken from her at a Catholic home for unmarried mothers. That was 1964. Sixty years on, she still struggles with that pain. She says, 'They ruined my life.'—that's what she says of the Catholic Church today. Therese was one of more than 400 submissions to the Senate inquiry into the Commonwealth Contribution to Former Forced Adoption Policies and Practices and also gave evidence at a public hearing on 29 April 2011. Therese told the inquiry: 'I did not want to adopt my baby out. I wanted to keep him.' Teresa said she was given drugs and forced to sign adoption papers. Her cousin was a nurse at the hospital and was in the labour ward when Therese gave birth. When Therese asked what sex her baby was, her cousin said she was not supposed to tell her but that she had had a boy. After her son was born, Therese returned to the home for unwed mothers, where she mopped floors and cleaned up after the nuns. She told the inquiry, 'Waitara being a home for adopted and fostered babies, I had to feed, dress, change and bath other babies, which was heart-wrenching since my own baby was taken from me.' I stand here in recognition of Therese, her son, all those mothers and children and all those Newcastle families whose lives have been torn apart by forced adoption.

Therese is involved in a support network, Origins, which was founded back in 1995 by a group of mothers who lost children to those past adoption practices. She was very pleased to know that the 10-year anniversary was being marked in the federal parliament today. This was something that she had called my office about many, many weeks ago. It was playing on her mind, as it does every year, and she wanted to know what the Australian parliament was preparing to do to mark this 10th anniversary. I know she will be pleased to receive a copy of the minister's speech from this morning, to mark this day.

Nothing can bring back those lost years between a mother and child. Nothing can repair the damage to fathers who were also profoundly impacted by these policies and practices. Nothing can assist those siblings, grandparents, partners and other family members who shared in that pain, suffering and unimaginable grief. But the Labor government will keep striving to help heal some of those wounds that families still carry.

The Albanese Labor government has today announced that $700,000 will be provided to deliver trauma-informed support services. We know just how critical trauma-informed practices are, and, if ever we are to try and deal with what is now intergenerational trauma for many of these families, having properly trained people working in accessible and affordable support services is critical. This funding will provide training for aged care, allied health and Forced Adoption Support Service providers to ensure that they can deliver that targeted trauma-informed care. It will mean people affected by forced adoption can access appropriate care that is tailored to their specific needs, whatever stage of life and grief they are in. The government continues to provide $1.8 million annually for the Forced Adoption Support Service, which offers support from the national helpline, casework and support and search services, as well as access to counselling for people across Australia. These are all important services and this government will absolutely honour its commitment to ensure that those services are available, are accessible, and have no fear for their funding going forward.

As Julia Gillard said, in this place on 21 March 2013, 'We resolve, as a nation, to do all in our power to make sure these practices are never repeated.' That's what each and every one of us needs to commit to. In my community of Newcastle there are, sadly, too many families that are impacted by these forced adoption practices, with too much sadness and too much grief. Whilst we will do everything we can to support people today, we on this side of the House—and, I expect, across the parliament as a whole—recommit ourselves on this 10th anniversary to ensuring that those despicable practices and policies are never allowed to see the light of day again in this nation. Of course, it's only by squarely facing the truth of that past that we get to move forward and ensure that it's not repeated. And that's why the apology was so important. That is why those inquiries beforehand were so important, as confronting as they were, as uncomfortable as it might make people feel from time to time. Many of the institutions that people like Therese turned to for some support at a time in her life when she was overwhelmed by being an unwed pregnant young woman at the age of 19 were the very institutions she should have been able to trust, but that trust was utterly betrayed. The Catholic Church, as do all other institutions involved in the forced removal and adoptions of babies, has a lot to answer for, a lot of atonement to make. To the credit of some, that is indeed happening, but it is a mission that they need to recommit themselves to each and every day. As the former Prime Minister Julia Gillard said 10 years ago now:

With profound sadness and remorse, we offer you all our unreserved apology.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too take the opportunity to make some remarks following on from the minister's marking of the historic 10th anniversary of this apology. We take the opportunity in this parliament to commemorate these important apologies that have occurred for things in our history that we are very much ashamed of, very much regretful of. It's so important that we take the opportunity to remind ourselves of those uncomfortable elements of our history because they do indeed ensure that we are always vigilant today and into the future so as to not risk any of these sorts of things being repeated, not that I have any fear that the awful attitudes that existed at a certain time in our history have any risk of being replicated again.

I had a constituent meet with me a few years ago who was in the situation of never knowing his biological mother because he was taken from her in a circumstance within the envelope of the topic that we are discussing. He missed the chance to ever meet her. She passed away before he was able to identify her and find out who she was. The impact and effect that regrettably still had on the gentleman, who was in his seventies, were that his life was absolutely ruined by both what he endured and by the fact he would never know the pain his biological mother endured having her young newborn baby taken away from her and, no doubt, being made to feel not only the trauma and devastation of that but also the implication that she had done something wrong by being an unwed pregnant young lady. On top of the trauma of the experience of having a small little baby taken away from her, she also, no doubt, endured some kind of additional, if that could be possible, awful emotional abuse of being treated as someone who ineffectively committed some kind of crime. His experience was very touching and one I reflect on today.

I very much acknowledge former Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the fact that on this day 10 years ago she did something that was very significant and very important. Although the trauma for the victims of these horrendous practices endures for those who are still with us to this day, I know it makes a difference in trying to get some kind of comfort and solace for the horrendous trauma of that experience and that enduring suffering to at least know that a government 10 years ago was prepared to, unequivocally, completely acknowledge and take responsibility and issue an apology for those horrendous practices, which were collaborated in not just by governments but by other institutions.

The previous speaker indicated that some have been more forthcoming and taken a greater deal of responsibility perhaps than others about the role they played in that—the attitudes they were applying and therefore participating in this horrendous practice. Those attitudes hopefully are well and truly buried in the past, never to rear their ugly head again.

As someone who experienced a very happy childhood, sometimes on topics like this you think to yourself, I couldn't possibly understand the trauma and the pain of what people in this circumstance went through. I suppose all I'd conclude on is to say that, when I think of how grateful I am for the happy and loving childhood that I had, it does in some ways allow me to connect with the horror of being deprived of that. That's what happened to so many people—mothers, babies, families who never were able to be—and that's truly disgusting and appalling.

So I think we just need to, as a parliament, always take the opportunity to mark these milestones, to talk about these uncomfortable topics, because I do think it improves the way in which we will approach our decision-making as a parliament. It's important to remember and reflect on these nasty parts of our history. Hopefully the silver lining is that it improves the way in which we take into account and therefore apply our values and our morals to the decisions we make into the future.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Attorney-General for moving this motion on the anniversary of Prime Minister Gillard's historic apology to the nearly 250,000 Australians affected by the era of forced adoption. This of course occurred in the mid-20th century, but it extended right up until my time working as a medical student and then paediatric registrar in Sydney, and I saw it happen. I've never forgotten being at the delivery of a newborn baby, and a young girl, really, having her child removed from her and not ever being able to hold the child, not being able to put the baby to the breast, not being able to kiss it, not being able to hug it. I saw that happen in a Catholic hospital in Sydney. I saw the mother quickly being transported to the maternity ward, of course surrounded by other mothers who'd delivered babies and were able to hold and feed them, while she had her breasts strapped so that she couldn't lactate and was then removed from the hospital back to the home where she had been kept prior to having her baby. That happened in my time as a paediatric registrar.

I've seen also, even more recently, some people arguing about the need to have early adoption of children who are placed in foster care. So I don't think we should glibly think, even though it's 10 years since Julia Gillard apologised to those children and their families who had been forcibly removed, that it can't happen again. I know that there are some people who are advocating for a more relaxed policy towards adoption of children, and I think that's a bad thing. I think we should be very, very careful about allowing adoption of children who have been removed from their families.

As many survivors of this period would attest, they have struggled with the impact of this for all of their lives. I would go further; the effects of this are generational. To think that this is what we did in a civilised, developed country is absolutely shameful. It is something that we must continue to recognise, and we must continue to support the people involved. I find it difficult to stand here and think about the trauma that those kids and their families suffer from. As a father of six, I cannot imagine not being able to hug my newborn baby, or what my wife would go through not being able to cuddle and breastfeed her child. It is something that is beyond what an apology can do to repair that damage. It goes a long way, I admit. I know, having spoken to people who are victims of forced adoption—I say 'victims' because it is a major trauma.

I struggle to comprehend how they can deal with normal life after that. Of course, many of them do, and I want to pay tribute in this Chamber to Steve Irons, who was the member for Swan, who very strongly advocated for the national inquiry and national apology to those victims of forced adoption. He was a victim of forced adoption and he went on to become a very successful businessman and a very successful politician, although for those opposite rather than for Labor. It was a tribute to him and to others, including Julia Gillard and her government, that we did have this formal apology 10 years ago. From talking to Steve, the grief and torment of being removed from his family goes on, as I said, for many, many years—for life—and affects subsequent generations as well, knowing it is part of their family history.

The apology is the least that can be done for these men and women who were once just beautiful kids when they were taken from their mothers, the majority of whom may well have been very young women or even children themselves. They did not receive appropriate support. They did not receive government supports to which they were actually entitled. Some of these women were entitled to supports, but the medical system did not explain to them what supports could be provided to them. It is a national tragedy and it is a national trauma that we need to deal with. The grief and torment is shared by the women who were pressured into giving up their children and their children. It affected their whole lives—their learning, their work, their subsequent families—and it was a very, very lonely journey through many years of emotional and mental anguish that these people had to suffer.

I've spoken to many of the kids that I looked after that had been adopted—sometimes not forcibly adopted. What they all want is to know their birth family. They do. Many people who were subject to forced adoption did in fact have successful and happy lives, but the trauma stayed with them. As the Minister for Social Services has said, the mother-baby bond was broken in the most traumatic way. No support was given to these people. So many mothers were pressured into giving up their newborn babies or had their babies taken forcibly through immoral, unethical and illegal practices. Nothing was done to support them. It is hard to imagine the trauma they have suffered and continue to suffer. As a paediatrician it pains me to think of the anguish that these people have gone through. I have seen many children over my medical career, and they all have one thing in common: a strong will and intention to know their heritage, to know where they've come from, to meet their birth parents and to be able to resolve some of the difficulties that they have faced because of forced adoption. For many, that will never happen. Of course, many have died. But it is really important that, as an Australian government, we support those who survive to come to terms with the trauma and support them for the damage that we as a country have caused.

That's why the announcement by Minister Rishworth, that our government is strengthening the current supports provided to people affected by forced adoptions, with $700,000 of funding for training, aged care, allied health and forced adoption support service providers, is so important. It is important to ensure that everyone receives targeted and trauma-informed care. It is important that we make sure people are aware of the supports that are now available to them. There were supports for many of these mothers in the days when their babies were taken from them, but the medical system did not inform them of the supports that were available and did not support them to keep their children.

I know that sometimes families have huge stresses upon them, and there may well be other issues involved in children being placed in foster care. I have dealt with many of these kids. I do have concerns that some of the services we provide to children placed in foster care are still not adequate and concerns that supports for families to be able to keep their children with them are still not adequate. I think it is very important that we recognise that the best place for a child to be is with their birth family in the vast majority of cases. We have to make sure that children are not removed from their families wherever it's possible they can be kept together. That's something that, as a paediatrician, I feel very strongly about, with almost, now, 50 years of experience working in this field. The Gillard government did many wonderful things. The apology was part of that, but I look forward to making sure we provide support as we can to those removed.

Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to the honourable member for Macarthur, who just delivered one of the best speeches I've heard in this place. I stand today to speak about the recognition of 10 years since the National Apology for Forced Adoptions was made. In preparing for this speech I thought there are many others who have come before me who have said it perhaps more eloquently than I can. I start, first of all—in chronological order, because I'm still a lawyer at the end of the day—by acknowledging former prime minister Gillard, who, in many ways, has not been given the recognition that was deserved to her for bringing about this national apology. So I start by quoting Ms Gillard, because her words 10 years ago still resonate so much today. Ms Gillard said:

We deplore the shameful practices that denied you, the mothers, your fundamental rights and responsibilities to love and care for your children. You were not legally or socially acknowledged as their mothers. And you were yourselves deprived of care and support.

To you, the mothers who were betrayed by a system that gave you no choice and subjected you to manipulation, mistreatment and malpractice, we apologise.

We say sorry to you, the mothers who were denied knowledge of your rights, which meant you could not provide informed consent. You were given false assurances. You were forced to endure the coercion and brutality of practices that were unethical, dishonest and in many cases illegal.

The former Prime Minister then said:

We know you have suffered enduring effects from these practices forced upon you by others. For the loss, the grief, the disempowerment, the stigmatisation and the guilt, we say sorry.

To each of you who were adopted or removed, who were led to believe your mother had rejected you and who were denied the opportunity to grow up with your family and community of origin and to connect with your culture, we say sorry.

We apologise to the sons and daughters who grew up not knowing how much you were wanted and loved.

…   …   …

To you, the fathers, who were excluded from the lives of your children and deprived of the dignity of recognition on your children's birth records, we say sorry. We acknowledge your loss and grief.

I cannot imagine what the terror was like that a woman would have felt finding out she was pregnant in the 1950s or 1960s or 1970s, which was the period that I grew up in—the 1970s, not the 1950s. It should have been an occasion of immense joy. They were unwed, and the way that society at that stage dealt with unmarried mothers was to say, 'You are not fit to be a mother.' I am just so relieved that my generation has not had to deal with that stigma, and I'm very relieved that in my son's generation the girls whom they're friends with and whom they are growing up with also will not have to deal with that stigma and that trauma.

I've mentioned former prime minister Gillard. On the one-year anniversary of the apology, Prime Minister Tony Abbott had a couple of words to say as well. I will quote from former prime minister Abbott, who said:

I cannot imagine a grief greater than that of a parent and a child parted from each other. I cannot imagine an ache greater than the fear that 'mum didn't want me', especially, since it was not true. But hundreds of thousands of Australians have been adopted, often because their mothers had no real choice or were denied any choice, and that means that there are hundreds of thousands of mothers who hardly knew their children and hundreds of thousands of children who hardly knew their mothers.

It was one of the worst government policies ever in the history of our country. Thankfully, because of the apology, at least now, while we cannot right the wrongs of the past, we have come a lot of the way to obtaining forgiveness. So that the victims of these policies—the mothers, the fathers and also the children—can start to be able to continue with their lives, an apology is completely appropriate.

I also thank Minister Rishworth, the Minister for Social Services, for the speech that she gave today in our parliament on behalf of her government and on behalf of everybody in the federal parliament. I'll just pull out a few of the words that she said. First, she quoted our current Prime Minister, who had said:

… this is not ancient history, not some distant tale from the vanished past. The Australians affected are with us still …

She further quoted the Prime Minister, saying:

… we reflect on a culture that enabled and facilitated the practice of denying mothers even a single moment with the baby that they had brought into the world.

I think in that vein it's important to acknowledge that many of these mothers did not even know whether they had given birth to a son or a daughter. The baby was taken away and they did not even get to see that baby. As a mother, I cannot imagine what they went through.

The minister said some other things this morning in the parliament:

Ten years ago all sides of politics came together in agreement with the apology.

That was very important. It was the same today; it was very bipartisan. The minister also said:

Last night over a hundred mothers, adopted people, fathers, family members, advocates and support workers travelled to Canberra from all over the country to mark the occasion.

That's the occasion of the apology. The minister continued:

It was a night of reunion, reflection, mourning and connection.

Then she welcomed and acknowledged the many that we had in the gallery today. She also pointed out the fact that forced adoptions are a startling recent chapter in Australia's history and, as I've said, that is important to remember. This was not something that was occurring a hundred or 200 years ago. This was something that was still occurring during my childhood. That's probably the biggest takeaway for me.

A deep veil of silence is drawn across this shameful period in history. Unmarried pregnant women were made to feel shame because of this government practice of forced adoptions. The apology that was given 10 years ago in this place was only realised due to the ongoing advocacy and tremendous courage of people including many, as the minister said, who were there in the parliament today. Their courage to relive painful experiences over and over again to make sure that the impact were fully understood by the nation is very important.

Looking to the future, one of the biggest things that came out of the apology 10 years ago was that there was an inquiry, and there is now ongoing and established funding for forced adoption support services. The Australian government continues to provide around $1.8 million per annum for forced adoption support services, which comprise about seven organisations across Australia including services such as national helpline referrals, individual casework and support, assistance with family searching and record tracing, group activities, peer support and access to counselling. As a result of the apology of 10 years ago, there is support being provided to those victims, and that support has been bipartisan. I will always continue to support that ongoing service while I'm in this place.

It's an emotional issue for all of us, and all that I can say is: I thank again Prime Minister Gillard for giving the apology 10 years ago and I thank all of those who have spoken today on the occasion of the 10th commemoration of the apology.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge all the speakers who have spoken so far about the 10-year anniversary of the apology for forced adoptions. I want to acknowledge Minister Rishworth, the member for Kingston, and her role. I also want to acknowledge your role, Deputy Speaker Claydon. This is one of many issues where you have been a shining light not only in our party but in the broader polity to make sure that there's justice—justice for victims of forced adoptions, justice for members of the Stolen Generation and justice for people who need champions. You've been a champion for them and you are a person of extraordinary integrity. I just wanted to let you know that.

I do also remember well when this happened. I was campaigning for the 2013 election. I remember when Julia, the former Prime Minister, offered that unconditional apology. It's been extremely heartening to hear all the tributes to former prime minister Gillard from all sides of politics. This awareness that some had for as long as Julia's been active in political life—and some who, through this anniversary, have cast a different view on her extraordinary leadership.

Standing in front of an audience of over 800 people in the Great Hall of Parliament House, Prime Minister Gillard officially apologised on behalf of the Australian people for the great and lasting harm that forced adoptions practised in the recent past inflicted on mothers, on the adopted people themselves, on fathers and wider families. The apology was addressed to the hundreds of thousands of Australians who were subject to forced adoptions, people like a forcibly adopted Darwin woman who I won't name but who I know was present at that apology in 2013. Derek Pedley's mother lived in the Northern Territory and has written a memoir on forced adoption. For hundreds of others with similar experiences from my electorate and from all our electorates across Australia who were affected by forced adoption and who were present that day, Prime Minister Gillard's apology was more than just words; it was a form of justice.

Through that speech the Australian Parliament took responsibility unreservedly and humbly apologised to mothers denied even that first precious moment with the child they brought into the world. We apologised to the children who are now adults who were denied identities and robbed of a sense of connection to family, to culture and to place. We apologised to the fathers and the ones who sought but were excluded from the births and the lives of their children, and to the wider families—siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. This is an intergenerational trauma that runs deep and wide and it's important for all of us to realise that none of it is ancient history. This was commonplace across the country, growing more frequent during the forties and peaking between 1950 and 1975.

It is amazing. I was born in 1971, like the previous speaker, and grew up in the seventies. Perhaps on 17 September 1971 there was another child born in Melbourne, a child who was taken from their mum and did not experience that early, special, sacred bond like I and my mum have and did not have that unconditional love from their birth mother because they were simply denied that opportunity.

Forced adoptions are a recent truth and the legacy of hurt that they caused lives on in the present and will live on into the future. It is intergenerational. But that apology lessened it to some extent, I hope. These practices were driven by a social judgement in those years and decades that children must at all costs be raised by married parents, and by a mother and a father. Obviously, those beliefs of the day are now seen as unconscionable. As the Prime Minister said on the anniversary this week, forced adoptions were driven by a culture that enabled and facilitated a practice of denying mothers even a single moment with the baby they had brought into the world.

We have heard shocking tales but they are important to let those listening who may have not met anyone who was taken away from their mother at birth in a forced adoption that mothers were restrained. They were shackled to their beds while their children were taken away. They were tricked into signing adoption papers. They were blindfolded to prevent any eye contact with their newborn to stop the slightest connection from forming. Some, at least, were deceived, and the evidence is pretty strong that it was commonplace that many were deceived and coerced by the very social services that should have protected them. It is difficult to confirm with many records either lost or unreliable but it is estimated that the total number of forced adoptions could be as high as a quarter of a million. That is a quarter of a million of newborn babies taken from their mothers and families by means of shame, coercion, institutional abuse, drugging, physical restraint, forgery and fraud. It's just horrific, and the aftershocks are still reverberating through communities as the consequences of forced adoption are still coming to light. It took decades to begin to recognise it and to call out that it was wrong, but that's what Julia Gillard's government did. I don't say that as a partisan comment; I just say it as in there are a lot of good people on both sides of politics, some with lived experience like Steve Lyons who he knew that it was wrong and that we must apologise because that would be part of the journey of healing. Through this marking of the anniversary, I hope those who were up in the gallery today and yesterday got a sense of how deeply we are still committed, however we can in society, to preventing the unnecessary taking of children away from their parents.

By way of some quick background that I think is important to put on the record, on 15 November 2010, the Senate commenced an inquiry into the Commonwealth Contribution to Former Forced Adoption Policies and Practices. As we have done in the Northern Territory, which was administered by the Commonwealth, responsibility has been taken for the actions of the Commonwealth in terms of the Stolen Generation, so we have had experience in seeing that intergenerational trauma and the way it can play out. But many did not know that it wasn't just First Nations people who were taken from their families—it was also people from all walks of life if it was deemed that they weren't going to be a fit and proper carer for the child.

This 10-year anniversary is an important milestone to mark in the journey of healing that many of those who were victims of this process and their children have gone through, but hopefully there is some comfort. There is work for us to do, and there's work that our government is doing to provide support to the victims of forced adoptions over those decades. We remain committed to doing what we can to help those that should not have been taken away from their mothers.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday we marked the 10th anniversary of the Australian government's official apology to victims of forced adoptions. Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivered the apology in this place, in the Great Hall of Parliament House, and, this morning, the Minister for the Social Services, Amanda Rishworth, made a statement to the House marking that anniversary. Ten years ago in delivering the apology, Prime Minister Gillard said:

Parliament, on behalf of the Australian people, takes responsibility and apologises for the policies and practices that forced the separation of mothers from their babies, which created a lifelong legacy of pain and suffering.

  …   …   …

We know you have suffered enduring effects from these practices forced upon you by others. For the loss, the grief, the disempowerment, the stigmatisation and the guilt, we say sorry.

In making this heartfelt apology, Prime Minister Gillard remarks that as Australians we are rightly used to celebrating past glories and triumphs. We are used to celebrating the things that make Australia a wonderful place to live. But, as we well know, our triumphs are not the full story of Australia, and the full story is sometimes hard to face.

Our First Nations people know this all too well, and we continue to work to face our history, to make amends for the hurt and the suffering inflicted on their communities. And so it was, 15 years ago, when we as a country were inspired by the courage and bravery of those who told their stories of suffering and pain to apologise to the Stolen Generations. And then, 10 years ago, we were once again forced to face those hard truths of our past as the Senate Community Affairs Committee handed down its report of the Commonwealth Contribution to Former Forced Adoption Policies and Practices. We were forced to look at the shameful and distressing parts of our history and find the resolve to do something to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

It's truly shocking to read over parts of the report and to read some of the stories shared at the time—of mothers denied their rights and unable to provide informed consent to adoption; of mothers coerced and deceived into giving up their babies; of women physically shackled to beds and blindfolded; of women being told their baby had died; of consent being achieved only by forgery or fraud; of children growing up thinking they were not wanted and not loved; of babies removed at birth, denied the arms of mothers who had done nothing wrong; of the suffering in silence that went on for far too long for far too many; and of a paternalism that wreaked such great harm while claiming to know what was best for women and their children, ignoring their cries. For the approximately 250,000 mothers and 250,000 babies this happened to, it was between the 1940s and up to as recently as 1975. The apology was important to so many Australians: mothers who spent lives missing their children, hiding the shame that this system told them they should bear, wondering what had happened. Were they okay? Did they think about their birth mother?—and the children who grew up not knowing their birth identity, making assumptions or being told their mother had not wanted them.

I was privileged to hear of just one of these women from her daughter. The woman's mother became pregnant to her partner, an older man, in the mid-sixties, when she was 16. She had hoped to marry him but instead was abandoned. Her family, in shame, sent her away to give birth in secret, away from the small town where she lived. She gave birth to a baby boy, who was taken at birth and adopted. She never saw him. She never held him. Some years later, she married and had three more children, but she never forgot the baby boy she gave up. While her new husband knew of the baby, the rest of the family did not. Not even her children knew there was an older brother somewhere. The pain of the loss coloured her parenting and made her fear losing her children again. Her daughter said that she always felt her mother was holding something back—in retrospect, perhaps the fear of being hurt again or the fear of being too attached because it made her vulnerable to the pain of loss again.

Many years later, when he was in his 40s, her baby boy made contact with her through a tracing service. It turned out he lived a couple of suburbs away from where her eldest daughter lived and, while they had never met, they actually had friends in common.

This story has a happy ending. The woman in question now has an ongoing relationship with her firstborn, the son who was taken away from her, and regularly stays with him and his wife and babysits their child—her grandchild. While you can never make up for the lost years, the misunderstandings and feelings of abandonment and loss, they now have a relationship that they both value and she has a relationship with her grandchild. But so many other stories do not have that happy ending—children and mothers who could never overcome the feelings of loss and abandonment to reach out; children who were not sent to loving homes but instead experienced abuse, neglect or institutionalised living; mothers and children who died before they could reconnect.

This is a shameful part of our shared history that caused very real harm to so many. The apology was well overdue. At the time of the apology, the Gillard government sought to match important words of sorrow and regret with concrete action to help survivors of forced adoptions. Today the government continues to provide $1.8 million annually to forced adoption services, which includes a national helpline, case work and assistance and counselling for those assisted. Minister Rishworth announced this morning that the government is committing an extra $700,000 to ensure that aged-care providers and forced adoption support service providers can offer trauma informed care that is targeted to people who have experienced forced adoption as mothers or as children. This will see the delivery of training packages for allied health, aged-care services and support services to help them deliver the trauma informed care as people age.

I'll finish as I started, with some words from former prime minister Julia Gillard. In delivering the apology, she spoke directly to those who had suffered from forced adoptions. She said:

We can declare that these mothers did nothing wrong.

That you loved your children and you always will.

And to the children of forced adoption, we can say that you deserved so much better.

You deserved the chance to know, and love, your mother and father.

We can promise you all that no generation of Australians will suffer the same pain and trauma that you did.

We must always remember what happened so that we can ensure that we don't repeat the mistakes of the past.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Boothby and indeed all members for their contribution to the debate this evening.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:30