Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

The Inquiry’s recommendations are directed to healing and reconciliation for thebenefit of all Australians.Scope of the InquiryTracing the historyPart 2 of this report traces the history of forcible removal of Indigenous children.The Inquiry’s first term of reference requires the tracing of ‘laws, practices andpolicies which resulted in the separation of Indigenous children from their families bycompulsion, duress or undue influence’. Throughout this report, for ease of reference,we refer to ‘forcible removal’. The term contrasts the removals which are the subjectof this Inquiry with removals which were truly voluntary, at least on the part ofparents who relinquished their children, or where the child was orphaned and therewas no alternative Indigenous carer to step in.Compulsion‘Compulsion’ means force or coercion (Garner 1995 page 183). It encompassesboth the officially authorised use of force or coercion and illegally exercised force orcoercion. It clearly extends to the removal of a child by a government delegate such asa protector or police officer pursuant to legislative powers. These officers exerted‘compulsion’ by virtue of their office and the power of the legislation under whichthey acted. The term clearly extends to removal of a child on a court order. Indeed acourt is the ultimate power which can ‘compel’ the removal of children from theirfamilies.A common practice was simply to remove the child forcibly, often in the absenceof the parent but sometimes even by taking the child from the mother’s arms. The lawfirm Phillips Fox advised the Inquiry that ‘[o]ne of our clients had instructed us thathe was taken from his parents while his mother was in hospital having her fourthchild. Another client was one of six children taken from their home by the policewhile their mother was in hospital having her seventh child’ (Phillips Fox Melbournesubmission 20 page 5, both clients named).In a letter to the WA Commissioner of Native Affairs in November 1943,Inspector Bisley of Port Hedland wrote, ‘I recommend that this child be removedwhen she is old enough as she will be probably handed over to some aged blackfellowat an early age’. With respect to the same child, Inspector Neill in Broome wrote tothe Commissioner in December 1944, ‘[t]here may perhaps be an objection to thechildren being removed from the Hospital without first returning to the Station fromwhich they came as it means breaking faith with the mothers who either left them atthe Hospital or sent them in for treatment but knowing how hard it is to arrange forthe removal of children such as these once they are back on the Station I consider itjustified, the fact that they have been separated from their mothers for some timealready will also make the removal easier for the children’ (documents submitted withconfidential submission 498, Western Australia: woman removed from hospital at the age of 4years).My mother told us that the eldest daughter was a twin – it was a boy. And in those days,if Aboriginals had twins or triplets, they’d take the babies away. Mum swore black andblue that boy was alive. But they told her that he had died. I only found out a couple ofyears ago – that boy, the nursing sister took him. A lot of babies were not recorded.