On Wednesday 5 April, Terence Darrell Kelly was sentenced in the Perth District Court to thirteen years and six months imprisonment. He had abducted four-year-old Cleo Smith from her parents on a camping trip in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia in November 2021.
The abduction and eventual finding of young Cleo attracted much media attention at the time, both in Australia and overseas. The image of Terence, arrested and in a leg and neck chain, made the front page of newspapers. Understandably, there was much rejoicing in the safe reunion of Cleo with her parents.
We will never know how much the separation from her parents affected Cleo at the time and what she will remember in later life. We can hold some confidence that her mental health will be carefully monitored, hopefully building on some of that resilience she appeared to show during her abduction.
In sentencing Kelly, the Chief Judge Julie Wager revealed details about his life and the ‘chronic and complex trauma and profound disadvantage’ that had shaped and broken his existence. Here was an example of generational trauma handed on from an abusive father and drug dependent mother. ‘Sadly’, the Judge noted, ‘many people have suffered from the adverse impact of colonisation. I accept you are one of them’.
Sad indeed. However, Terence Kelly is not an isolated example of the intergenerational trauma that colonisation has brought to many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The great colonisation of the north of Australia has had an enormous impact of those who were already living there. As cattle, goats and sheep replaced the native fauna, Aboriginal people were cajoled, pressured, invited, and even forced into missions, settlements, and reserves where they could be with family, housed and fed. Despite the authoritarian regimes that existed in such artificially created communities, where different tribal groups were often located together, Aboriginal people largely experienced some peace and security.
'Chief Judge July Wager accepted that Terence Kelly had suffered from the adverse impact of colonisation. There are many others who have similarly suffered, but whose Voice we still do not hear.'
In the late 1960s and early 1970s a new wave of colonisation affected many Aboriginal people. The winds of change blowing across the nation promised new life. Institutions like missions and reserves began to be dismantled and the dormitories that had separated children from their parents were closed. Alcohol and other drugs became available as did access to motor vehicles and unemployment benefits. Many adults became adrift in this new ‘promised land’. Some families thrived. Some did not. But all were impacted to some degree.
I have much admiration for those non-Aboriginal people who live off the land in northern and remote Australia. It has not been easy for these settlers, facing floods, fire, and drought at various times. It can be very demanding on body and soul. Some families go back generations, committed in good times and bad to living close to the land.
It cannot be easy for these new generations of settlers to see, if not daily then at least on a regular basis, the effects which colonisation has had on many Aboriginal people. Children roaming streets at night, restless, angry, and hungry. The noise of drunks and domestic violence. Police sirens. Shortage of houses and overcrowding. People living in poverty. The effects for many have been soul destroying. Every day these relatively recent settlers witness the historical effects of colonisation and the dislocation of people from their traditional homelands. It calls to mind the words of Psalm 51, composed in the context of David’s adultery with Bathsheba and the planned violent death of her husband, ‘my sin is ever before me’.
This ‘sin’, visible and audible day and night in many parts of north and remote Australia, reveals that we stand on ground which for millennia provided life and spiritual meaning for ancient bodies and souls. We new Australians have benefitted directly and indirectly from the dispossession of the original custodians of the land, and yet we can still wonder why we see so much hurt, pain and damage around us.
While the imprisonment of Terence Kelly may be seen as a just result for his crime, it is hard to see that spending years in jail will address his serious mental health issues. His voice will be muted and we will avoid facing the complex of factors that led to his trauma and crime.
Those who see men and women like Terence Kelly every day are likely to wish that change will come quickly to those most affected. It can be tempting to focus on the immediate and practical without addressing the deeper, wounded soul of our nation. And this is an issue for each of us as Australians to address. There was no treaty, no agreement to the forced acquisition of Aboriginal land. There was no appreciation of the costs of separation to the soul of those who had lived for generations in close connection to the land and the ruination of their spirituality and culture.
Listening to an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice will not come simply or easily, because there is no one single voice but many, just as there are many faces of trauma. But these are voices and faces all Australians need to hear and see in an ongoing relationship. At risk is the health and soul of our nation. In these present times, we are called to listen more deeply and carefully than we have ever done before. We need the courage and leadership to find a deeper and more united national way of moving forward, one that holds and pays attention to the deep wounds that people, like Terence Kelly, have carried since they were born. The longer a wound festers the longer it hurts and takes time to heal.
Hopefully, we will also pay attention to children, like Cleo, who suffer trauma at an early age and may need support at a later age to face it and any of its harmful consequences. We need skilled counsellors to accompany those most in need. We need to pay attention to the trauma that has affected many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and adults, and all its evident social consequences. But we also need a mechanism at the highest level of government that can hear the Voice of First Nations people and, together with them, begin to heal this legacy of trauma. This will be no easy task to achieve. If we fail, our sin will always remain before us. And that will be a shameful legacy to pass on to future generations.
Chief Judge July Wager accepted that Terence Kelly had suffered from the adverse impact of colonisation. There are many others who have similarly suffered, but whose Voice we still do not hear. Silencing voices will only increase the pain and suffering that too many of our sisters and brothers have endured for far too long.
Brian F. McCoy SJ has spent around half of his adult life from 1973 in the north of Australia and with involvement in some dozen urban and remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities: from Townsville and Palm Island in the east to Broome and Warmun in the west, from Bathurst Island and Wadeye in the north to the south-eastern Kutjungka desert region in the Kimberley. He is a former Jesuit Provincial and the author of Holding Men: Kanyirninpa and the health of Aboriginal men.
Main image: Terence Darrell Kelly boards a plane after being taken into custody. (Photo by Tamati Smith/Getty Images)