nly to be told that I was nothing but an immoral black lubra, and I was only fit to work on cattle and sheep properties ... I [got] that perfect 100% in my exams at the end of each year ... only to be knocked back ... Our education was really to train us to be domestics and to take orders. "
"I was the best in my class, I came first in all the subjects ... [At age 15] I ... wanted to continue in school, but I wasn't allowed to ... I was sent out to the farms just to do housework. "
The first Aboriginal magistrate, Pat O'Shane, recalls her ambitions to study medicine, but her teacher "responded that I didn't have the brains to go on to high school ... notwithstanding that I had always had an above average record through school. "
A three-year study in Melbourne during the 1980s of both children taken from families in childhood (33 per cent) and those raised in their communities found that those removed were: less likely to have undertaken tertiary education; much less likely to have stable living conditions; twice as likely to have been arrested by police and been convicted of an offence; three times more likely to have been in jail; and twice as likely to be using illegal drugs.
A national survey by the Bureau of Statistics in 1994 found no significant difference in standards of education, ability to find work, or the large numbers living on incomes under $ 12,000 between those removed and those not. But those removed were twice as likely to have been arrested more than once in the last five years. And 70.9 per cent of those taken away assessed their own health as good or better, compared with 84.5 per cent of those not taken.
The effects of the atrocities of the past haunt people's lives to this very day. And in any case, those children who could point to some positives such as education to weigh up against the devastation of separation are very much in the minority.
A majority of the stolen children spent all or part of their childhoods in institutions, and in many cases, this was a prelude to a life in and out of other institutions, such as prisons and psychiatric hospitals.
"They grew up to mix with other troubled children in Tardon ... they only knew how to mix with the other boys they grew up with and these boys were into stealing, so my sons went with them. I couldn't tell them anything ... because they felt that coloured people were nothing ...
"One of my sons was put into jail for four years and the other one died before he could reach the age of 21 years. It hasn't done my sons any good, the Welfare ... taking them away from me, they would have been better off with me their mother. "
To say that any stolen child "benefited" from the experience is not only utterly false with respect to material advantage for the vast majority, it also reflects the racist view that there is nothing of value in Aboriginal culture and denies the significance of cultural identity for Indigenous people.
Howard says that he "understands" the concerns and anxieties of those white Australians who feel their cultural identity is under threat (people who are attracted to Pauline Hanson's One Nation for instance). He is also an active promoter of "family values". Yet he shows absolutely no sympathy for or understanding of the cultural identity and family relationships of Indigenous people. This, plus his contemptuous dismissal of the report and its recommendations, is further evidence of his inherently racist world view.
There are none so blind as those who will not see. Bringing them home documents criticism of and opposition to the practice and methods of forcible removal, as well as the extreme cruelty and abuse suffered by children, from the very beginning, and all around the country. It quotes Members of Parliament, government officials (including police and patrol officers), newspaper editorials, welfare organisations and of course Aboriginal organisations.
The historian Henry Reynolds has recently published a book, The Whispering in Our Hearts (Allen and Unwin 1998), about opposition to the treatment of Aborigines from 1790 to 1940. He notes that the word "reconciliation" was used in the 1830s in much the same way as it is used today, showing that "this tradition has much deeper roots than people suppose. "
In an official report commissioned by the Queensland government in 1896, Archibald Meston wrote:
"Kidnapping of boys and girls is another serious evil ... [They] are frequently taken from their parents and tribes, and removed far off whence they have no chance of returning; left helpless at the mercy of ... white people responsible to no-one and under no supervision by any proper authority ... Stringent legislation is required to prevent a continuance of abuses concerning the women and children. "
In 1915, the NSW parliament passed the...
