At 11.00am yesterday, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, on behalf of the Commonwealth of Australia, formally apologised to generations of Australians who were subjected to harm in children’s homes through the twentieth century.
Some could no longer be cared for in their families, yet were labeled ‘orphans’. Others were child migrants, sent out from Britain to have a chance of a better life in Australia. Many lived in a series of residential institutions, from infancy to adolescence, with every move damaging their development.
There are some 500,000 of these ‘Forgotten Australians’ and ‘Lost Innocents’. They all suffered hurt and distress. Many were victims of abuse and assault. Many never experienced a hug. Many were kept separate from siblings. Many never knew until years later that they actually had a mother and a family. All were at risk of attachment disorder and most lived with a fractured identity. Many struggled later in life to develop relationships. Most finished their very inadequate schooling at the age of fourteen and were used as cheap labour.
Many live heroic, resilient lives, holding on to hope. Some, as the Prime Minister acknowledged, ‘could not cope and took their own lives in despair’.
They were all innocent.
The survivors have been struggling for recognition, respect, healing and compensation for over a decade. After three Senate Inquiries and unanimous calls to start a healing process – Lost Innocents (2001), Forgotten Australians (2004) and the recent Lost Innocents and Forgotten Australians Revisited (2009) – an apology has at last been delivered.
Rudd offered his apology via a carefully crafted speech in the presence of hundreds of former residents of these institutions, some euphoric and some distressed, in the Great Hall of Parliament House. He accepted that this was ‘an ugly story’ and that ‘its ugliness must be told without fear or favour’.
Some of us who worked in or were associated with these children’s homes may not like this judgement. The rationalists will heartlessly say we should stop scratching at old scabs, get over it, and move on. The apologists will defensively say that we did the best we could with limited resources, and that it wasn’t all bad, that the children were very unruly, and that at least they got three meals a day, and that more child abuse occurs in families than in institutions. The lawyers will probably and allegedly say, ‘say nothing’.
It takes heart to be able to listen to