Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

The differences in practices and policies between States, which are in part a reflection of differentlegislative frameworks, make the seeking of access more complicated (Australian Archivessubmission 602 page 4).The key problem areas for Indigenous searchers, however, can be readily identified.The descriptive material which follows, therefore, briefly sets out those problems andconcerns and describes existing responses, some of which may serve as models for otherrecord agencies. The source of the information in this section is government submissionsand evidence to the Inquiry unless otherwise stated.Destruction of recordsMany relevant files have been lost or destroyed. Archives legislation in WesternAustralia, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria permits or permitted at one time thedestruction of some classes of records or culling a percentage of records in a particularclass. Between 1973 and 1985, for example, 95% of case files created by the SADepartment of Family and Community Services were culled. ‘The belief at the time wasthat when any child was successfully fostered or adopted, the files would not be of anyfurther use’ (Sonia Smallacombe consultancy report submitted by ATSIC submission 684page 21).This lost to them information that may have been contained within these files is both pricelessand irreplaceable to the survivors of Indigenous Family Separations and may well be lost to themforever, and therefore their links with their past and to their people and country may never be ableto be traced (Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement submission 484 page 46).In WA adoption and wardship files have been kept but the predecessor to theDepartment of Family and Community Services began destroying foster care files in1957. Also in WA the Inquiry was told by a former employee of the Department ofCommunity Services,I know that in 1984-85 there was an instruction went out to all the welfare offices to burn allthe files. There were instructions from Perth head office to all the DCS offices instructingthem to destroy files. And a couple of the officers here [East Kimberley] started to burnthem. And then they started reading some, and then they informed other people and theysaved a few. The Derby office [West Kimberley] was burnt down and that’s where our[family’s] files were.Confidential evidence 505.NSW Archives has identified an unexplained gap in Aborigines Welfare Board filesfor 1938-1948. Also in NSW adoption records from 1922 to about 1950 were culled. Afire is reported to have destroyed files in Victoria prior to the Second World War. TheInquiry was told that Torres Strait Islands administrators regularly destroyed personalfiles relating to residents (confidential evidence 631) and that personal files in theNorthern Territory were culled back to only 200 records in the 1970s due to concernstheir contents would embarrass the government (Sonia Smallacombe consultancy reportsubmitted by ATSIC submission 684 page 7).