Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

‘neglect’ was not a justification for removing Aboriginal children to the settlements. ‘Inmost instances I should prefer to see the children left with their parents … the system ofdealing with the parents should be improved in order that they might keep their children.’(quoted by Paisley 1995 on page 266). In her opinion government administrations wereforcibly removing children ‘because it was cheaper than providing the same system ofsupport which operated for neglected white children’ (Paisley 1995 page 266).Aboriginal women from Broome sent a petition to the Commission in which theyasked ‘would you like to think that when you send your children to school that you wouldnever see them again?’ (quoted by Paisley 1995 on page 267).Neville’s response to these attacks on his policies was to argue that removal was inthe best interests of children.I say emphatically there are scores of children in the bush camps who should be taken away fromwhoever is looking after them and placed in a settlement … If we are going to fit and train suchchildren for the future they cannot be left as they are … I want to give these children a chance …Unless those children are removed, social conditions in those places will go from bad to worse …I want to teach them right from wrong. How are the children to fight against these conditions?The conditions in the absence of teaching, are going to become infinitely worse than they are now(quoted by Jacobs 1990 on page 235).Moseley was sufficiently impressed by Neville’s views to recommend the extensionof his powers to all people of Aboriginal descent. The Native Administration Act 1936defined ‘natives’ to include nearly all people of full and part descent regardless of theirlifestyle and expanded restrictions on movement and lifestyle.Virtually any child of Aboriginal descent could now be taken forcibly from his or her family andplaced in a government institution to be trained in the ways of ‘white civilisation’ and ‘society’.The Commissioner of Native Affairs, not their parents, had total control over their lives until theyreached the age of twenty-one. From this age any person of ‘quarter-caste’ or less was prohibitedby law from associating with persons deemed to be ‘natives’. In this way they were to be forcedto live in the white community, although no measures were introduced to force white people toaccept them (Haebich 1988 on page 351).Sister Kate’sIn the early 1930s Kate Clutterbuck, an Anglican nun, offered to open a home inPerth for ‘half-caste’ children if government funding were provided. She informedNeville that ‘we should of course like to have the poorest and most neglected children notthose who have mothers who love and care for them, but those who are most unwanted inthe State’ (quoted by Jacobs 1990 on page 218). Neville took advantage of the offer toput his ideas into practice. Once the home commenced operations in 1933 he began tosupply Sister Kate with the lightest skinned children.Some kids who were brought to Moola Bulla and who were too white would be sent to SisterKate’s in Perth and some of them who were too dark for Sister Kate’s were sent to MoolaBulla. There was a half-caste boy who was at Moola Bulla, his mother was half-caste and his