Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

whatever. Considering I come from a big family – my mother had lots of brothers andsisters 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 thetime his mother had 2 sons and 2 daughters who remained with her. She died two years later at24.The low level of financial support that non-government agencies received to keepchildren in their institutions meant that the agencies were keen to find permanent homesfor these children as quickly as possible. Non-Indigenous parents have told the Inquirythat they responded to appeals that stressed the unwanted nature of these children andhow they faced a lifetime in an institution. They feel they were deceived by not beingtold the circumstances under which the children were removed from their families. Someare still suffering grief and shock from unwittingly being part of a process of forcibleremoval.In 1960 my wife and I applied to adopt an Aboriginal baby, after reading in the newspapers thatthese babies were remaining in institutionalised care, going to orphanages, as no one would adoptthem. Later that year we were offered a baby who had been cared for since birth in a Church runBabies Home in Brunswick. We were delighted! We had been told, and truly believed that hismother was dead and his father unknown. Where we lived there seemed to be no Aboriginalsaround. We knew some were grouped in Northcote and in Fitzroy but the stories told about themwere so negative, we felt we should avoid them at least until Ken was much older. [By the timeKen was a teenager] he was in fact an isolated individual, alienated from the stream of life withno feeling for a past or a future, subject to racism in various forms day in and day out. No wonderhe withdrew to his room, and as he told me later, considered suicide on occasions. When Ken waseighteen he found his natural family, three sisters and a brother. His mother was no longer living.She died some years earlier when Ken was four. Because of the long timespan, strong bonds withhis family members could not be established.Confidential submission 266, Victoria.Children from inter-StateVictoria was also a destination for holidays arranged by welfare organisations andgovernment departments in other States. One of those schemes was the ‘Harold BlairAboriginal Children’s Holiday Project’ which brought groups of children fromQueensland settlements, and later the Dareton area of NSW, to Melbourne for up to threemonths.Well, I was fostered when I was 7. I was staying with my foster parents and they rang upone day and said that my mother had died and would they consider fostering me. That wasover the phone. I know there was nothing signed for me and that, and I want to know whybecause my father was still alive, and he didn’t die until I was 10. [I was with these people]through the ‘Harold Blair Scheme’ for Christmas holidays and when I come down me andmy two sisters got split up. We used to live in Coomealla on the mission, across the borderfrom Mildura. They just rang me up and said that my father had died, that’s all …