Page 5058 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
These approximately 500,000 forgotten Australians are the survivors of emotional, physical and sexual abuse in state, church-run and charitable orphanages, foster homes and institutions at the hands of those who had the responsibility to care for them. It is now eight years since the first Senate inquiry and five years since the 2004 Senate inquiry recommended that an apology be issued. Those inquiries enabled many people who had been children in the Australian institutional care system to tell their stories.
While the Prime Minister’s apology and the apology that also came from the opposition leader yesterday are most welcome, they have still been a long time coming for the forgotten Australians. Five years after it was recommended by the Senate is too long to prolong the suffering for people, some of whom were lied to and told they were orphans when they had living parents. Some were later reconciled with family, and some never got to know the love of a parent and the comfort, sense of place and identity that come from being raised by their families.
It is horrifying to read reports of the suffering and yesterday to listen to the accounts of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and former Senator Andrew Murray of what survivors had told them about their experiences of loss, pain, abuse and trauma, of lost childhoods and the ongoing and debilitating impacts this had on so many throughout their adult years. It really brings home the responsibility that we all have in the Assembly to manage our present-day responsibilities in relation to children and young people in the ACT who, due to abuse and neglect, have to be raised in out-of-home care.
Only last week in the Assembly, my colleague Caroline Le Couteur delivered an MPI on behalf of the Greens on tackling Australia’s biggest social problem—child abuse and neglect. In that, we mentioned that, within the ACT and other Australian jurisdictions, there are growing numbers of children in out-of-home care and that there is much to do if we are to make significant inroads into tackling these issues. If we are to learn anything from the apology delivered by the Prime Minister and others at Parliament House yesterday and the countless stories of abuse suffered by the forgotten Australians, it is how to provide safe and supportive homes for our children and young people in out-of-home care today.
There are many wonderful foster and kinship carers who deserve our support and respect for ensuring that these children in need of care are nurtured and not neglected. That is why last week I raised the issue in question time about the money that had been promised to kinship and grandparent carers. I do hope that I do get some details of that this week. It is this much needed financial assistance, as well as proper advice, advocacy and information on entitlements, that will go a long way towards ensuring we are all doing what we can to make sure we do not have another group of forgotten Australians.
We note that the Australian government will table in parliament within the next few days a comprehensive response to the recommendations contained in the two Senate reports, Lost innocents and Forgotten Australians. It is essential that the responses to these reports commit Australia to recognising the harm done and that we work in
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video