Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

emoved. More than one-third of those clients reported that their children had beentaken away in turn (submission 127 page 44).ViolenceProfessor Ernest Hunter has noted the very high rates of self-harm includingsuicide and domestic violence among young men in many Indigenous communities(1996). His research has led him to identify the root cause as the inappropriateconstruction of male identity in Indigenous families due to the fact that male rolemodels were either absent or had been undermined (page 10). Professor Hunterlooked beyond the contemporary Indigenous family to explain the reasons for theabsence of effective male role models.I believe that violence to significant others and self-harm are related and represent theenactment, at the centre of Aboriginal societies, that is, within the family, of theconsequences of the protracted and damaging intrusion into family life that accompanied andfollowed colonisation. I contend that the destabilisation continues as a result of the poorsocial circumstances and disadvantage of contemporary Aboriginal societies (Hunter 1996page 11).Maggie Brady’s findings on petrol sniffing strongly support Professor Hunter’sconclusion that self-destructive behaviour among young Indigenous men is aconsequence of the undermining of family roles and, in particular, of male rolemodels. Brady found that petrol sniffing was rare in communities which had notexperienced missionary or government intrusion into family life. These communitieshad been engaged in the pastoral industry. Pastoralists not only did not intrude intoIndigenous families, at least not nearly to the extent experienced on missions andgovernment stations, but they valued Indigenous families living on their traditionallands. The reasons may have been self-interested – the adult workers knew thecountry intimately and the children were a convenient current and future workforce –but the consequences include stronger Indigenous families and communities (Brady1992 pages 183-190).Unresolved grief and traumaWays of relating and ways of nurturing are passed from generation to generation.There is no doubt that children who have been traumatised become a lot more anxious andfearful of the world and one of the things that impact has is that they don’t explore the worldas much. Second, a certain amount of abuse over time certainly causes a phenomenon ofwhat we call emotional numbing where, because of the lack of trust in the outside world,children learn to blunt their emotions and in that way restrict their spontaneity andresponsiveness. That can become an ingrained pattern that becomes then lifelong really .. andit becomes far more difficult for them as parents to be spontaneous and open and trusting andloving in terms of their own emotional availability and responsiveness to their children (DrNick Kowalenko evidence 740).The Inquiry received evidence that unresolved grief and trauma are also inheritedby subsequent generations. Parents ‘convey anxiety and distress’ to their children(Professor Beverley Raphael evidence 658).