Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

The Royal Commission also heard protests against forcible removals.In regard to the taking of our children in hand by the State to learn trades etc., our people wouldgladly embrace the opportunity of betterment … but to be subjected to complete alienation fromour children is to say the least an unequalled act of injustice, and no parent worthy of the namewould either yield to or urge such a measure (Matthew Kropinyeri quoted by Mattingley andHampton 1992 on page 119).The Royal Commission’s final position favoured ‘assimilation’, as it later becameknown, in preference to segregation, at least for people of mixed descent.… with the gradual disappearance of full blood blacks, the mingling of the black and white racesand the great increase in the number of half castes and quadroons, the problem is now one ofassisting and training the native to become a useful member of the community, not dependent oncharity, but upon his own efforts (quoted by SA Government final submission on page 9).As recommended by the Royal Commission the government took control of themissions at Point Pearce and Point McLeay. A decade later the Aborigines (Training ofChildren) Act 1923 was enacted specifically to allow Indigenous children to be ‘trained’in a children’s institution and sent out to work. Any Indigenous child could be committedto any child welfare institution and once committed could be dealt with as if ‘neglected’under the State Children’s Act 1895, which meant that the child could be apprenticed.The removal of a non-Indigenous child required a court finding of ‘neglect’ or‘destitution’. The 1923 Act dispensed with this requirement for Indigenous children. Thiswas justified on the basis that it was less traumatic for Indigenous children.The procedure is very simple, and is in no way analogous to the judicial proceeding wherebyneglected or convicted children are put under the control of the State Children’s Council. There isno publicity in the proceeding under the Bill, merely the execution of a document after anagreement has been reached between the Protector and the Council as to the transfer of theparticular child (second reading speech, Hansard 17 October 1923 page 902, quoted by SAGovernment final submission on page 13).The 1923 Act was vehemently opposed by Aboriginal families who petitioned thegovernment. In 1924 a magazine editor condemned the practice of child removal.There is not and never should be occasion for the Children to be taken away from their parentsand farmed out among white people (J C Genders, editor of Daylight (magazine), 1924, quotedby Mattingley and Hampton 1992 on page 187).The protests met with some success. The operation of the Act was suspended in1924. The South Australian Government told the Inquiry that it has been unable toconfirm whether the Act was subsequently revived, although indications are that it was(SA Government final submission on page 12). The administrative removal power in the1923 Act was re-enacted in the Aborigines Act 1934.