Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

Confidential evidence 450, New South Wales: woman removed at 2 years in the 1940s, firstto Bomaderry Children’s Home, then to Cootamundra Girls’ Home; now working to assistformer Cootamundra inmates.… in the case of one of our clients, the decision to dispense with his mother’s consent toadoption was based on ‘inability to locate mother’, although the file reveals very littleattempt to locate her. This occurred during a ‘temporary’ placement of our client in a babieshome, due to ill health. The next time our client’s mother went to visit her son, she was facedwith an empty cot. Her requests for her son’s return were not met (Phillips Fox Melbournesubmission 20 page 4).I was at the post office with my Mum and Auntie [and cousin]. They put us in the policeute and said they were taking us to Broome. They put the mums in there as well. Butwhen we’d gone [about ten miles] they stopped, and threw the mothers out of the car.We jumped on our mothers’ backs, crying, trying not to be left behind. But thepolicemen pulled us off and threw us back in the car. They pushed the mothers awayand drove off, while our mothers were chasing the car, running and crying after us. Wewere screaming in the back of that car. When we got to Broome they put me and mycousin in the Broome lock-up. We were only ten years old. We were in the lock-up fortwo days waiting for the boat to Perth.Confidential evidence 821, Western Australia: these removals occurred in 1935, shortly afterSister Kate’s Orphanage, Perth, was opened to receive ‘lighter skinned’ children; the girlswere placed in Sister Kate’s.Duress‘Duress’ differs from ‘compulsion’ in that it can be achieved without the actualapplication of force. However, we usually understand it to involve threats or at leastmoral pressure. One meaning of ‘duress’ is ‘the infliction of hardship’ (Garner 1995page 300) while another encompasses the threat of such infliction (Mozley andWhiteley 1988 page 153). Definitions commonly refer to illegally appliedcompulsion, a feature which distinguishes duress from compulsion becausecompulsion can be either legal or illegal. The last feature of duress is that it does notexclude acceptance by those affected by it. Rather the individual submits to what isdemanded.The Inquiry heard evidence of a range of practices which in our view amountedto duress. For example, we were told that a large number of parents relinquished theirchildren to the care of the Lutheran mission, Koonibba, in South Australia to protectthem from being removed by the Protector and placed further away. At Koonibba theparents were permitted limited and supervised access (Dr Nick Kowalenko evidence 740,Lutheran Church SA submission 262).I remember another friend of mine in St Ives. She wanted to adopt a little Aboriginalbaby. And she was telling me when she got this little one that she went out to themission and said she wanted a little baby boy. The mission manager said, ‘Mrs J has acouple of boys [already], we’ll take her third one’. So they adopted that child. If Mrs Jwould have objected, she said the welfare officer says, ‘Well, if you don’t give us thatchild, we’ll take the other two’.Confidential evidence 613, New South Wales.I joined the [Victorian] Aborigines Welfare Board shortly after a most appalling episode inwhich a young woman aged 14 gave birth to a child in Gippsland. One of our Welfare Boardofficers went to her and said, ‘Look, you’re giving birth to this illegitimate child, fatherless