The National Inquiry into the Forced Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families took oral and written testimony from over five hundred Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across Australia, as well as from Indigenous organisations, foster parents, State and Territory Government representatives, church representatives, other non-government agencies, former mission and government employees and individual members of the community. The 524 page final report, tabled in Parliament on 27 May 1997, includes many of these personal testimonies. All of the testimonies quoted in the final report can be read here.
- Confidential evidenceLocation:KinchelaInstitution:Kinchela Boys' HomeAge at time of removal:Unknown
These are people telling you to be Christian and they treat you less than a bloody animal. One boy his leg was that gangrene we could smell him all down the dormitories before they finally got him treated properly.
Confidential evidence, New South Wales: man removed to Kinchela Boys' Home in the 1960s.
- Confidential evidence & submission 65Location:TasmaniaInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:2 months
Pg. 155. I've often thought, as old as I am, that it would have been lovely to have known a father and a mother, to know parents even for a little while, just to have had the opportunity of having a mother tuck you into bed and give you a good-night kiss - but it was never to be. Confidential evidence 65, Tasmania: child fostered at 2 months in 1936. Pg. 201. He was about 6 month because he was just sitting up. And we loved him very much. And my sister use to visit him on the veranda sitting in a cot but when I use to visit him they told me that he was not my brother because I was a half cast child and because of that they wouldn't let me see him because he was a dark child same as my sister. Confidential submission 65, Tasmania: child fostered at 2 months in 1936.
- Confidential evidence 10Location:CootamundraInstitution:Cootamundra Girls' HomeAge at time of removal:Unknown
They were very cruel to us, very cruel. I've done things in that home that I don't think prisoners in a jail would do today ... I remember once, I must have been 8 or 9, and I was locked in the old morgue. The adults who worked there would tell us of the things that happened in there, so you can imagine what I went through. I screamed all night, but no one came to get me (p. 139).
I was being molested in the home by one of the staff there ... I didn't know what she was doing with me. I didn't know anything about sex or anything like that, we weren't told. I can remember a piece of wood shaped like a walking cane only on a smaller scale, like the candy striped lollipops they make today approximately 30cms long. She was telling me all about the time she was with my mother when she died and how my mother had told her how much she loved me. She also had a large bag of puffed wheat near the bed, because she knew how much I loved it. All this time she was inserting this cane into my vagina. I guess I was about 9 or 10. I know she did this to me many times over the years until she left the Home when I was about 14 years old. We were totally isolated in the Home. You never knew anything of the outside world. We didn't know if that was right or wrong. Every time I knew she was coming, when matron was going on holidays, I would beg to matron not to go, because I knew she'd be there. She was always there - in my life, in my life in the Home. Her bedroom used to open out onto the dormitory ... I'd hear my name being called ... It was always me ... One night I hid under the bed. I held onto the bed and she pulled me out and flogged me with the strap. She is my biggest memory of that home (p. 141).
I was there for 16 years and I was brainwashed every day of the week. You never go near Blacks. Your people don't want you anyway. They're just dirty. They don't want anything to do with you ... We were playing in the schoolyard and this old black man came to the fence. I could hear him singing out to me and my sister. I said to [my sister], 'Don't go. There's a black man'. And we took off. It was two years ago I found out that was my grandfather. He came looking for us. I don't know when I ever stopped being frightened of Aboriginal people. I don't know when I even realised I was Aboriginal. It's been a long hard fight for me (p. 184).
Confidential evidence 10, Queensland: NSW woman removed in the 1940s and placed in Cootamundra Girls' Home.
- Confidential evidence 109Location:Palm IslandInstitution:Palm Island DormitoryAge at time of removal:5 years
Dormitory life was like living in hell. It was not a life. The only thing that sort of come out of it was how to work, how to be clean, you know and hygiene. That sort of thing. But we got a lot bashings (p. 138).
I wanted to be a nurse, only 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 strived every year from grade 5 up until grade 8 to get that perfect 100% mark in my exams at the end of each year, which I did succeed in, only to be knocked back by saying that I wasn't fit to do these things ... Our education was really to train us to be domestics and to take orders (p. 148-149).
Confidential evidence 109, Queensland: woman removed at 5 years in 1948 to the dormitory on Palm Island.
- Confidential evidence 11Location:CootamundraInstitution:Cootamundra Girls' HomeAge at time of removal:2-3 years
They sent me when I was 16 from Parramatta Girls' Home out to M, a property 137 miles from Nyngan. We never had a holiday. We weren't allowed to go into town with them. If you did go in or go anywhere and you saw any Aboriginal people, you weren't allowed to speak to them. So you had to live that isolated life. We never, ever got our wages or anything like that. It was banked for us. And when we were 21 we were supposed to get this money, you see. We never got any of that money ever. And that's what I wonder: where could that money have went? Or why didn't we get it?
Confidential evidence 11, Queensland: NSW woman removed to Cootamundra at 2 or 3 years in the 1940s, spending the ages of 13-16 in Parramatta Girls' Home.
- Confidential evidence 132Location:VictoriaInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:10
Pg. 130 & 135. All the teachings that we received from our [foster] family when we were little, that black people were bad ... I wanted my skin to be white. Pg. 207. I couldn't deal with it, I couldn't accept my father and his family. They were like strangers to me. Confidential evidence 132, Victoria: fostered at 10 years in 1964.
- Confidential evidence 133Location:VictoriaInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:6 months
I clearly remember being put in line-ups every fortnight, where prospective foster parents would view all the children. I wasn't quite the child they were looking for. Confidential evidence 133, Victoria: man removed at 6 months in the 1960s; institutionalised for 3 years before being fostered by a succession of white families.
- Confidential evidence 136Location:DarwinInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:3 months
Pg. 11. I've got everything that could be reasonably expected: a good home environment, education, stuff like that, but that's all material stuff. It's all the non-material stuff that I didn't have - the lineage. It's like you're the first human being at times. You know, you've just come out of nowhere; there you are. In terms of having a direction in life, how do you know where you're going if you don't know where you've come from? Confidential evidence 136, Victoria: man adopted into a non-Indigenous family at 3 months; still grieving that he was unable to meet his birth mother before she died. Pg. 56-57. See what happened was, [my adoptive] dad served up near Darwin during the Second World War, and he seen how bad black fellas got treated up there. So he decided if he could he would do something to help Aboriginal people. Now, back in the sixties obviously, the way society was then, they felt the best thing was, you know, adopting kids and stuff like that ... On the adoption forms it's got written there in somebody else's handwriting - not [my mother's], because it just doesn't match her signature and stuff like that - reason for giving up the child is 'no visible means of support'. Now, generally that could be accurate, but in the case of [the] Aboriginal community and kids, that's on nearly every form or whatever. Considering I come from a big family - my mother had lots of brothers and sisters who could've looked after me ... So, I mean, why was I different? Confidential evidence 136, Victoria: man adopted at 3 months when his mother was 22. At the time his mother had 2 sons and 2 daughters who remained with her. She died two years later at 24.
- Confidential evidence 138 - JackLocation:Fiji, Torres StraitInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:Unknown
... the Australian Government owes a historical debt to Jack's grandmother (my sister) which it can only repay by granting Jack the right to remain in this country. Jack's birthright was stolen from him by Missionaries acting with the consent of the Queensland Government at the turn of the century and he is morally entitled to compensation. The least that can be done to compensate him would be to grant him a right to reside in his own country.
- Confidential evidence 139Location:VictoriaInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:12 months
Pg. 135. When I first met my mother - when I was 14 - she wasn't what they said she was. They made her sound like she was stupid, you know, they made her sound so bad. And when I saw her she was so beautiful. Mum said, 'My baby's been crying' and she walked into the room and she stood there and I walked into my - I walked into my mother and we hugged and this hot, hot rush just from the tip of my toes up to my head filled every part of my body - so hot. That was my first feeling of love and it only could come from my mum. I was so happy and that was the last time I got to see her. When my mum passed away I went to her funeral, which is stupid because I'm allowed to go see her at her funeral but I couldn't have that when she requested me. They wouldn't let me have her. Confidential evidence 139, Victoria: removed 1967; witness's mother died two years after their first and only meeting. Pg. 136. I got told my Aboriginality when I got whipped and they'd say, 'You Abo, you nigger'. That was the only time I got told my Aboriginality. Pg. 241. The Government has to explain why it happened. What was the intention? I have to know why I was taken. I have to know why I was given the life I was given and why I'm scarred today. Why was my Mum meant to suffer? Why was I made to suffer with no Aboriginality and no identity, no culture? Why did they think that the life they gave me was better than the one my Mum would give me? And an apology is important because I've never been apologised to. My mother's never been apologised to, not once, and I would like to be apologised to. Thirdly, I've been a victim and I've suffered and I'll suffer until the day I die for what I've never had and what I can never have. I just have to get on with my life but compensation would help. It doesn't take the pain away. It doesn't take the suffering away. It doesn't take the memories away. It doesn't bring my mother back. But it has to be recognised. And I shouldn't forget counselling. I've had to counsel myself all my life from a very young age. And in the homes I never showed my tears ... I've been told that I need to talk about my childhood. I need to be counselled for me to get back on with my life. Confidential evidence 139, Victoria: woman removed at 12 months in 1967.
- Confidential evidence 143Location:KewInstitution:Kew Psychiatric HospitalAge at time of removal:47
Pg. 185. Mum was kidnapped. My grandfather was away working at the time, and he came home and found that his kids had been taken away, and he didn't know nothing about it. Four years later he died of a broken heart. He had a breakdown and was sent to Kew [Psychiatric] Hospital. He was buried in a pauper's grave and on his death certificate he died of malnutrition, ulcers and plus he had bedsores. He was 51. Pg. 195. Now I understand why Mum is the way she is, why she's been strict on us, why she never used to take us to the doctors when we used to hurt ourselves, because the first thing they would have looked at was her skin and said, 'Well, you're obviously not looking after them properly'. So now I know why all those times we never used to go to the doctors and go to the hospital ... because Dad worked all his life and Mum stayed home and looked after us kids, so she was very hesitant to take us kids to doctors. Confidential evidence 143, Victoria. Pg. 292. We've got Mum's records from the department. Mum was in the home when she was about 8 or 9. She didn't get released until she was 17. I was expecting something like a thick book. She only got about, I'd say, maybe 20 pages ... Confidential evidence 143, Victoria.
- Confidential evidence 145Location:VictoriaInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:Unknown
... I mean, you realise that basically apart from us, all we've got is sort of ourselves. Because you've got no real parents that you can get close to or relate to. That's sort of where it actually ends, that I feel. You're too scared to show any emotion towards any sort of - my remaining parent. Not because it's her fault or nothing like that. You sort of don't blame her. I think if you turn around and you try and analyse it, it's basically because you don't want to lose her as well, so you turn around and you're too scared to get close in case there's something happens where she's off - she either dies or she decides to go again. I think that's been one of the causes why she sort of moved away as it is ... You just keep your distance. It's like someone that sort of manipulated you in a way that you want to turn around and make sure that it doesn't happen again. ... in the time that I've sort of known my mother I don't think I've ever actually walked up and actually showed any affection towards her, possibly because there's fear of her going again or even dying. But you just - most people have said after sort of the experience that you go through in life, you keep a wall against you, and you sort of don't let anyone in. Confidential evidence 145, Victoria.
- Confidential evidence 146Location:VictoriaInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:Unknown
Pg. 166. I reckon all my troubles started when I was living in them homes. That's when I first started stealing because you wasn't allowed to have anything and if I wanted something the only way I could get it is get it off someone else, get me brother or sister to buy it or just take it. We were sort of denied everything we wanted, just got what we was given and just be satisfied with that. I felt second-rate. I didn't feel like I got the love I was supposed to get; like a kid's supposed to get at that age, because they're more vulnerable at that age. They just follow people that seem to look more after them. That's why I got in with the wrong crowd, I suppose. They seemed to care more. Confidential evidence 146, Victoria: a young father relating how he began stealing when he and his three siblings were in a family group home where all the other children were non-Koori and where he and his Koori brother and sisters received markedly less favourable treatment. Pg. 272. What past? There ain't none. There is more or less the past that they wanted me to have, not what I wanted, what I'd like to have. Confidential evidence 146, Victoria: one of four siblings placed in a group home.; p. 258 What I'd like to have - I'd like to have me own house, me own block of land. Like, I figure they owe me that much. I've given most of my life, surely they can pay for that. Maybe if I was with me family I'd have a decent bank account instead of one with a dollar sixty-seven credit or something like that, or overdraft. I want me own block of land, something that I don't have to pay for again. Something I can call mine and noone can take it away, because I haven't had that yet.
- Confidential evidence 148Location:VictoriaInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:Unknown
I was never proud to be black - I never was. It wasn't until I met my family for the first time in my life that I was actually proud to be who I was.
- Confidential evidence 152Location:VictoriaInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:Unknown
I didn't know any Aboriginal people at all - none at all. I was placed in a white family and I was just - I was white. I never knew, I never accepted myself to being a black person until - I don't know - I don't know if you ever really do accept yourself as being ... How can you be proud of being Aboriginal after all the humiliation and the anger and the hatred you have? It's unbelievable how much you can hold inside.
- Confidential evidence 155Location:MelbourneInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:Unknown
... they made a date to meet in Melbourne. When J. told me, I was pleased for him. I felt it was his right to know his background. 'Do you want me to help?' 'No', he said, 'I can do this by myself'. And he did.
- Confidential evidence 155aLocation:VictoriaInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:Birth
We would never have deprived any mother of her child, nor any child of its mother. This business has been very painful to us, ever since his natural mother told us she had asked for him back. The doctor told me how this child's mother was very young, first pregnancy plus the baby was never wanted right from the start. If this was true, why did she take her poor little frail baby home for three weeks or so? His mother was nearer 20 than 16 ... She took her baby home. He would not feed. [He had cerebral damage due to mother's prolonged labour and his breathing difficulties at birth.] She took him back to [the hospital] and it was the last she saw of him. She said they would not give him back ... We have the saddest situation one could possibly imagine - a total bereavement - the whole lot of them are grieving. He is very fair, somehow someone made this decision and ruined his life. Confidential submission 155a, Victoria: adoptive parents of boy born 1965; mother unsuccessfully tried to rescind adoption 'consent'; fostered by Community Services until 21 months in very disadvantaged circumstances; happily adopted; independently located his birth mother at 16 but not accepted by her family.
- Confidential evidence 155bLocation:VictoriaInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:1
We made a series of errors through our ignorance and paternalism. We brought him up separate from the Koori population ... away from the Koori people. The ones we'd heard about in the paper were having big problems, so we thought we will keep him away from these problems till he matures. We didn't understand the full ramifications of invasion, of dispossession or disbursement. We learnt all this later. So we were - in the 1960s we're talking - we were ignorant well-meaning whites. We had some problems of course when he was about 10 - identity problems. Confidential evidence 155b, Victoria: adoptive parents of a year old boy.
- Confidential evidence 156Location:VictoriaInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:Unknown
I tried to look forward. As I say, every time I'd look back as in trying to find out exactly who I was and what my history was, I'd have real bad attacks of Vic. Bitter. Confidential evidence 156, Victoria: man whose mother had also been removed as a child; he was taken from her at a very young age when she suffered a nervous breakdown and was raised in a children's home.
- Confidential evidence 160Location:VictoriaInstitution:UnknownAge at time of removal:Unknown
The culture that we should have had has been taken away. No, it's not that I don't like the people or whatever, it's just that I'd never really mixed with them to understand what it is to be part of the tribal system, which is the big thing ... Confidential evidence 160, Victoria: removed to an orphanage in the mid-1940s.