tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/stolen-generations-3057/articlesStolen Generations – The Conversation2023-10-17T19:06:51Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138992023-10-17T19:06:51Z2023-10-17T19:06:51Z‘Reflect, listen and learn’: Melissa Lucashenko busts colonial myths and highlights Indigenous heroes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553899/original/file-20231016-25-zrb6u1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C36%2C8179%2C5420&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Melissa Lucashenko</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Glenn Hunt/UQP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article mentions ongoing colonial violence towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.</em></p>
<p>Melissa Lucashenko’s latest novel, <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/edenglassie">Edenglassie</a>, takes the reader on a journey through magnificent and heartbreaking dual narratives set five generations apart. The reader steps through time, and weaves back and forth between the early 19th century and 2024, on the precipice of these stories possibly meeting. </p>
<p>Edenglassie is written with an intrinsic understanding of Country as kin. Both Country and Ancestors remind the reader of the lessons Country has guided mob by: </p>
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<p>Patience. You are not the centre on which the world turns</p>
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<p>Alongside this, we see the continual disturbances of Country and kin caused by colonial violence and unrest – through kidnapped children and massacres.</p>
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<p><em>Review: Edenglassie – Melissa Lucashenko (UQP)</em></p>
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<p>Lucashenko gifts us with characters impossible to not to invest in. They are perfectly whole and lovable, with minor flaws. As an Aboriginal woman, I found them all relatable – I could picture various Community members just like them. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-wit-and-tenderness-miles-franklin-winner-melissa-lucashenko-writes-back-to-the-whitemans-world-121176">With wit and tenderness, Miles Franklin winner Melissa Lucashenko writes back to the 'whiteman's world'</a>
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<h2>It’s Granny Eddie’s world</h2>
<p>The first character we meet is Granny Eddie, who has been hospitalised after a fall. She is as stubborn as she is wise, at the ripe age of 103. Her growl expresses that familiar balance of hard-to-swallow truths that make you realise when you’re wrong, even if you want to argue. Her grandaughter Winona is on the receiving end of it – and knows when to shut her gob “like a real Goorie must do when being growled by her elder”. </p>
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<p>Winona – fiery, hot and Blak – is perfectly captured through vivid details. I could visualise her, with her <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/three-years-on-from-the-black-lives-matter-marches-indigenous-deaths-in-custody-are-at-a-record-high/ma6sjvm32">Black Lives Matter hat</a> and <a href="https://hausofdizzy.com/">Haus of Dizzy</a> earrings, drinking a can of Pepperberry <a href="https://sobah.com.au/">Sobah</a>. Winona laments not seeing her Granny Eddie enough, while also trying to find a job, disrupt the colony and make sure her granny is safe and cared for.</p>
<p>At the hospital, we meet Dr Johnny. Respectful, kind and considerate, he is trying his best to care for Granny Eddie – and finds himself pushing professional boundaries as he falls head over heels for fiery Winona. At first, she resists his attraction: sparks fly in opposing directions. She and Dr Johnny have much to learn from each other as they bond over their care for Granny Eddie.</p>
<p>These deep characterisations are counterbalanced with <em>laugh or you’ll cry</em> characters, like the predatory white anthropologist, ready to record any Blak story he can, while he tells you about the “fullbloods he knew in the territory”. Or the gronk white guy with dreads making money off the Yidaki, who tells Winona: “Yeah, I’m Indigenous, sis […] Indigenous to Australia, I mean”. </p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-didnt-we-know-is-no-excuse-non-indigenous-australians-must-listen-to-the-difficult-historical-truths-told-by-first-nations-people-208780">'Why didn't we know?' is no excuse. Non-Indigenous Australians must listen to the difficult historical truths told by First Nations people</a>
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<h2>Shifting time</h2>
<p>Lucashenko transports you, shifting through time. In 1844, we meet Mulanyin, saltwater man, whose inner complexities are explored in depth as he learns the Law and lessons from Country and Ancestors. </p>
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<p>With that thought, the boy had the electric realisation that all his life he had been eating the decisions of his Ancestors. Every fish, every mudcrab, every ugari or turtle or vegetable or egg or fruit, they all came to him – to all his people – from generations of nurture. None of it was accidental, or random. And if his Old People hadn’t cherished the biggest fish and the female turtles, if they hadn’t sung up the Country, and protected the fecund of every species since the dawn of time, then he would not have eaten the results from the fire that night. […] The thought consumed him with wonder; it made him feel small, yet at the same time as though he belonged in a universe of meaning; part of a web of ceaseless and sacred connection across thousands of generations.</p>
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<p>I am reminded of the poem, The Past, by the late <a href="https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A12345">Oodgeroo Noonuccal</a>: </p>
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<p>Let no one say the past is dead.<br>
The past is all about us and within.<br><br>
Haunted by tribal memories, I know<br><br>
This little now, this accidental present<br>
Is not the all of me, whose long making<br><br>
Is so much of the past.<br></p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Oodgeroo Noonuccal reads her poem, The Dispossessed. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this video contains names and images of deceased people.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Mulanyin’s reflections, relationships and actions are at the heart of this story. He’s balancing the complexities of being off Country while meeting his new obligations. His unwavering love for his beloved Nita, from the first day he laid eyes on her, brings an endearing romance to the story – an incredible, deep love. Nita and Mulanyin are bound together in a moment of care from their first touch: Nita dressing Mulanyin’s wound with fresh oodgeroo branches. </p>
<p>Mulanyin has a central goal – he wants to earn enough money to get a whale ship and set sail with Nita, back to home Country. He imagines fishing and all the bingkin he could catch. Imagines not working for the coloniser. </p>
<p>I found myself hanging on every word, taking in the Yagara language of Magandjin, or Brisbane. (You can learn more about the Yagara name of Brisbane by reading <a href="https://meanjin.com.au/essays/makunschan-meeanjan-miganchan-meanjan-magandjin/?fbclid=IwAR3dg2IFlhQFxnnJ9WXY1KJG9xHgWJAM4MXsHJP7a0qik9xqBBO033yxpjs">this essay</a> by Gaja Kerry Charlton.) </p>
<p>There’s an extra layer for readers living in Magandjin, who will make connections to local places. They will know about the histories of the book’s locations (for instance, that Woolloongabba was a swamp) and will be able to recognise present-day local details, like Story Bridge, which spans the Brisbane River. </p>
<p>Complex current realities of Indigenous life are seamlessly woven into the book. Mental health challenges are represented early on, through what Winona describes as <em>the Voice</em>. This voice eats at her insecurities – calling her a loser and the “numbawan dumb dawwwwwwg”.</p>
<p>The novel also touches on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/stolen-generation-redress-scheme-wont-reach-everyone-affected-by-the-policies-that-separated-families-166499">Stolen Generations</a>, white control of Blak bodies and the ongoing violence of the colony through vitriolic racism, abuse and murder. We are presented with the origins of contemporary realities, too, through the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-australian-war-memorial-must-deal-properly-with-the-frontier-wars-203851">Frontier Wars</a> and acts of genocide. </p>
<p>And we’re reminded of the ongoing nature of this violence, through injustice towards and racialisation of Blak bodies – exemplified through Mulanyin’s observations of drunk white men prowling to assault Aboriginal women, and white people exerting control through addictive substances such as alcohol, tobacco and opium. </p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-day-i-dont-feel-australian-that-would-be-australia-day-36352">The day I don’t feel Australian? That would be Australia Day</a>
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<h2>‘Your body is not your own’</h2>
<p>Edenglassie also acknowledges Indigenous global relatives around the world. In the 1800s, Mulanyin is interested to learn about the Goories of all countries, and surprised to learn about Native Americans: their opposition to settlers and their “great flat plains full of game, antelope and buffalo”. </p>
<p>In the present, Winona and Granny Eddie interact and relate with Māori mob, through shared understandings of birthing practices and opposition to white cultural appropriation. Winona recieves an “Ey, good onya sis” from a Māori woman after educating a whitefella, and Granny Eddie is farewelled with lots of waving from a Māori family leaving the hospital with their new family member.</p>
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<p>I found myself laughing, crying and fighting off goosebumps as I read. There were moments when I had to put the book down, to sit with what I was reading. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/authors/melissa-lucashenko">Lucashenko</a> has once again crafted a novel that is gritty, emotive and funny – like her previous novels, the 2019 Miles Franklin winning <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/too-much-lip-1">Too Much Lip</a> and <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/mullumbimby-2">Mullumbimby</a> (2013). In Edenglassie, she continues her art of affirming our Indigenous futures. </p>
<p>We see this through staunch Winona, who dreams big and is headstrong and unwavering. </p>
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<p>She imagined endless offices filled with endless Blak bodies, mob all around typing emails and having meetings and doing whatever the fuck else office workers did, (not much in her experience), until each Blak body in turn closed their laptop stood up and walked out the door never to return. Because the whole mob of em had bought back the farm, over and over and over, in their tens of thousands, till they once more owned the continent they had never agreed was lost. Imagine it. Streets and suburbs and country towns, all owned by happy blackfellas.</p>
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<p>As you make your way through Edenglassie’s two narratives and timelines, you will find how and why they collide – and the nature of the past informing the present, and vice versa. This structure highlights the impacts and the depth of the ongoing strengths of Indigenous cultures. </p>
<p>This novel is a gift to all who pick it up and journey with the stories it holds. It is clear Lucashenko has done extensive research to position this historical fiction through past and present Magandjin localities. </p>
<p>This is further evidenced by Lucashenko’s extensive acknowledgments and thanks to contributors and knowledge holders in the book’s author notes. Among them are Boe Spearim and his groundbreaking podcast <a href="https://boespearim.podbean.com/">Frontier War Stories</a>: a must-listen for those wanting to learn more about the wars on Australian soil.</p>
<p>Infinite lessons can come from this brilliant novel, for those who are ready to reflect, listen and learn – and to sit in potential discomfort as colonial narratives are unwoven and corrected.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213899/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tamika Worrell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Melissa Lucashenko’s latest novel is an epic, affirming pathways for Indigenous futures – and she gifts us with characters impossible not to invest in.Tamika Worrell, Lecturer in the Department of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2127922023-09-19T20:09:52Z2023-09-19T20:09:52ZHidden women of history: disabled Australian author Dorothy Cottrell was ‘the Liane Moriarty of the Jazz Age’ but is almost unheard of here<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548710/original/file-20230918-19-b52r2q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C5%2C862%2C923&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dorothy Cottrell pictured in the Saturday Evening Post, 10 June 1950. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trove</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the late 1920s, poet <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gilmore-dame-mary-jean-6391">Mary Gilmore</a> – the woman on the A$10 note – declared she’d encountered only two instances of “genius” during her four decades in Australian literature. The first was a man who remains a household name: Henry Lawson, bush poet, author of iconic stories like The Drover’s Wife, who upon his death received a state funeral. Today, Lawson’s work is still widely taught in schools. </p>
<p>But what of Gilmore’s second genius? The writer who “wrote an Australia never before presented in prose”? This second virtuoso was a young, disabled woman and – funnily enough – she has been largely forgotten. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-leftist-feminist-poet-dame-mary-gilmore-became-aunt-mary-in-the-pms-political-narrative-176151">Friday essay: how leftist, feminist poet Dame Mary Gilmore became 'Aunt Mary' in the PM's political narrative</a>
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<p>In the 1920s and 30s, Dorothy Cottrell (1902-1957) was an international bestselling novelist – not to mention a disability advocate, world traveller, and, disturbingly, a settler woman who effectively stole an Aboriginal child. Her short life was rich in drama and incident. But these days her works are out of print, and almost nobody knows her name. </p>
<p>Cottrell burst into the literary world in 1927 as an unknown 24-year-old from Ularunda, a remote sheep station on Bidjara land in southwest Queensland. That year, the unpublished author sent a fiction manuscript called The Singing Gold to the Ladies Home Journal, an American monthly that serialised fiction read by millions of subscribers. This was an audacious act: a complete nobody from the boondocks daring to submit her work to one of the world’s most prominent magazines. </p>
<p>But Cottrell’s gamble paid off. Barely six weeks later, she received a telegram from the Journal’s editor Barton Currie. “Glad to publish your novel in Ladies’ Home Journal and pay you 5000 dollars for all American and Canadian serial rights,” Currie wrote. </p>
<p>At the time, $5,000 was a small fortune. Currie also offered to help Cottrell find a book publisher. It was a fairy tale come true, every writer’s fantasy. At first, Cottrell didn’t believe it could be real. When the news finally sunk in, she “nearly died of joy”. </p>
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<span class="caption">A 1956 edition of The Singing Gold.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/Singing-Gold-Cottrell-Dorothy-1902-1957-Angus/30870828067/bd">Abebooks</a></span>
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<p>After the Sydney press got hold of the story, Cottrell was heralded as a “new star in the world of fiction”. She was a “brilliant new comet” whose “sensational rise to fame” promised to advertise the “spirit of Australia” to the world. In the Ladies Home Journal, Cottrell’s novel was introduced to American readers as “a work of genius” unsurpassed in recent years. </p>
<p>Within a year, Cottrell and her husband Walter were on a steamship to Los Angeles, where she was given a welcome fit for a film star. Everyone wanted a piece of the prodigy from Down Under. In a testament to her celebrity, the couple were gifted five acres of land in southern California’s Lake Elsinore, where they set about building an adobe mansion. </p>
<h2>A stolen child</h2>
<p>It was a dramatic beginning, but Cottrell always had a taste for drama. A few years earlier, she’d secretly married Walter – the bookkeeper from her family’s station – then ran off with him to remote Dunk Island on the Great Barrier Reef, much to the shock and horror of her relatives. The couple spent six months on Dunk, sleeping in a rustic shack and living off coconuts and fresh-caught fish. Later, they moved to Sydney, then worked as pedlars in rural NSW. </p>
<p>These adventures provided the raw material for her novel The Singing Gold. Notably, Cottrell did all this with a significant disability. A childhood bout of polio had left Cottrell paralysed from the waist down, and thereafter she spent her days in a wheelchair. </p>
<p>Cottrell also loved cars and guns. Aged ten, she was already a crack shot with a rifle. Later, she had automobiles adjusted so she could operate the controls by hand. After buying a six-cylinder Oaklands car with her earnings from the Ladies Home Journal, she and Walter set off on a road trip throughout Queensland and the Northern Territory during winter 1927. </p>
<p>Here we encounter a distressing part of Cottrell’s story. During this road trip, while at Alexandria Downs, the writer took an Aboriginal girl from her mother. The child, called May, was six years old. Under colonial law, this was all above board. Under the government policy of the day – <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/aborigines-protection-act">protectionism</a> – taking May from her family was encouraged. </p>
<p>Cottrell sought and was given approval from the local <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/collection/featured-collections/remove-and-protect">Protector of Aboriginals</a>. In her mind, she was rescuing a vulnerable child. Today, however, it’s clear May was a member of the Stolen Generations, and Cottrell was the thief. </p>
<p>After returning to Ularunda, Cottrell was distracted by her writing, and soon lost interest in May. Female relatives stepped in to raise the child. When the writer left for California the following year, May – now renamed Barbara Cherry Lee – remained in Sydney in the care of an elderly aunt. As far as we know, May/Barbara was never reunited with her mother or Country. </p>
<h2>‘The starving writer has vanished’</h2>
<p>In 1929, with Cottrell now in California, The Singing Gold was published by Houghton Mifflin to rave reviews. The novel was an autobiographical <em>bildungsroman</em>, classic bush Australiana with a “sunburnt, hoydenish” heroine reminiscent of Sybylla in Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career (1902). The book ended up as the top six bestseller of 1929. Alongside US publication, The Singing Gold was also serialised in Australia and published in London. There was even talk of a Hollywood film adaption. </p>
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<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-my-brilliant-career-and-its-uncompromising-message-for-girls-today-145452">Guide to the classics: My Brilliant Career and its uncompromising message for girls today</a>
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<p>In 1930, Cottrell’s second novel hit the shelves. Tharlane was another tale of outback Australia, this time with a male protagonist. That year, the Los Angeles Times reported Cottrell’s two novels “have aroused more interest throughout the English-speaking world than have any other pair by one author in the last few years.” </p>
<p>Thanks to all this hype, Cottrell was raking in the cash. “There is very great wealth in American writing,” she reported home. She was the Liane Moriarty of the Jazz Age. </p>
<p>After this stellar beginning, Cottrell’s career hit the skids during the Great Depression. As the literary market contracted, her income plummeted. Although a critical success, Tharlane had modest sales. Walter lost his job at the local bank. By 1932, the couple had lost their Lake Elsinore home. </p>
<p>They hit the road and eventually settled in Florida, where Cottrell made a living selling short fiction to magazines. Thanks to financial troubles and health concerns, the Cottrells found it impossible to return to Australia. In 1939, they became US citizens. For the next 15 years, Florida would be their base. Yet the couple remained keen travellers and crossed the US by road on six occasions. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40532082-wilderness-orphan">Goodreads</a></span>
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<p>As economic conditions improved, Cottrell once again began to earn good money. She worked with top literary agents Eric Pinker and Paul Reynolds, and comfortably supported herself and her husband with her pen. “The starving writer has vanished,” she told one correspondent, “writing today is a very well-paid trade.” </p>
<p>By the 1940s, Cottrell was a regular contributor to the Saturday Evening Post, then known as the top US literary/news magazine. In her mind, this was the ultimate sign she’d “made it”. Cottrell also published children’s fiction and in 1936 her story Wilderness Orphan was adapted for the screen by Sydney’s Cinesound studios.</p>
<h2>‘How to Wear a Wheelchair’</h2>
<p>In 1950, Cottrell published a Post feature called “How to Wear a Wheelchair” – a rare occasion in which this private woman spoke about her disability. In this piece, Cottrell challenged the stigma around disability, criticising the tendency to pity or recoil from those she called “the handicapped”.</p>
<p>In her analysis – which anticipated the “social model” of disability that emerged in the 1980s – disability was not an individual tragedy but “a fact of existence” that could be accommodated via environmental adjustments. “I have had a radiantly happy life,” she assured readers. </p>
<p>After leaving Australia in 1928, Cottrell did not return until 1954. That year, she and her husband came home to take over the family station. While in Queensland, they adopted an 11-year-old boy called Wayne. When the Cottrells returned to Florida in 1956, Wayne came with them. Tragically, Dorothy died of heart attack soon after, in June 1957. She was only 54. The next year, her widow and adoptive son made a permanent return to Queensland. </p>
<p>By the time of her death, Cottrell had been largely forgotten in her home country. The author did not receive a single obituary in the Australian press. In the 1970s, the librarian Barbara Ross – one of few researchers to study Cottrell’s work – had to fight to have her included in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. At the time, the dictionary’s internal reviewers dismissed Cottrell as a “trashy writer” who was “moreover an expatriate”. </p>
<p>This dismissal speaks volumes about the hierarchies of Australian culture. Although once hailed as a “genius” on two continents, Cottrell’s expatriatism and her success in the feminised world of commercial fiction ensured she would be sidelined by the local literary establishment. </p>
<p>She was too female, too popular, too “unAustralian” – and perhaps, too disabled – to be taken seriously. Lawson would be commemorated with a bronze statue in Sydney’s Domain, while Cottrell would remain an obscure footnote in the story of Australian literature.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212792/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yves Rees does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Was international bestselling author Dorothy Cottrell too female, too popular, too ‘unAustralian’ and perhaps, too disabled, for the local literary establishment?Yves Rees, Lecturer in History, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1976852023-09-07T04:45:50Z2023-09-07T04:45:50ZWhy is truth-telling so important? Our research shows meaningful reconciliation cannot occur without it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542733/original/file-20230815-29-tity3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C4%2C613%2C409&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Invasion Day Reflection and smoking ceremony on parliament steps, Melbourne.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Invasion+day+2022&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article mentions ongoing colonial violence towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and contains references that feature antiquated language.</em></p>
<p>Truth-telling is a key demand in the <a href="https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement/">Uluru Statement</a> and is seen as a vital step for both the Voice to Parliament and a Treaty. However, there has been <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-12/voice-to-parliament-language-barrier-hear-the-same-truth/101956684">ongoing debate</a> as to whether historical injustices against First Nations peoples need to be addressed today.</p>
<p>Wiradjuri and Wailwan lawyer Teela Reid <a href="https://www.griffithreview.com/articles/2020-year-of-reckoning/">posed a question</a> in a 2020 essay, is Australia ready to Gari Yala (speak truth) and reckon with its past? </p>
<p>We recently conducted a <a href="https://www.reconciliation.org.au/publication/recognising-community-truth-telling/">study</a> to investigate this question by looking at First Nations community truth-telling practices. Our study found these communities have shown significant leadership in truth-telling, often without resources or support. Importantly, they have invited non-Indigenous people to also take part in truth-telling.</p>
<p>Truth-telling can take the form of memorial and commemorative events, repatriation of remains and cultural artefacts, the renaming of places, and the creation of public artworks and healing sites. A recent example is the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s truth-telling commission. Yoorrook released the truth-telling <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/hub/media/tearout-excerpt/20323/Yoorrook-for-Justice-Report-summary-w-foreword-(1).pdf">report</a> this week, providing 46 recommendations for reforms into Victoria’s justice and child protection systems.</p>
<p>We found when non-Indigenous people participated in truth-telling with First Nations communities, it helped build a deeper shared understanding of the past and the achievements of First Nations peoples. This is why truth-telling is a collective social responsibility and non-Indigenous Australians are crucial participants.</p>
<p>But there is still much work to do. Many important historical events and First Nations achievements remain largely unrecognised. Sustained funding and support and the recognition of Australia’s difficult historical truths are crucial.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-nations-people-have-made-a-plea-for-truth-telling-by-reckoning-with-its-past-australia-can-finally-help-improve-our-future-202137">First Nations people have made a plea for 'truth-telling'. By reckoning with its past, Australia can finally help improve our future</a>
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<h2>Our research findings</h2>
<p>Our research focused on documenting community truth-telling that reclaimed First Nations sovereignty and self-determination, as well as recognising colonial violence. We did in-depth investigations through 25 case studies, including ten in which we held yarning interviews with community organisers. These interviews helped shed new light on rich and diverse ways to engage with the truths of colonial history. </p>
<p>In the MacArthur region of New South Wales, reconciliation group <a href="https://wingamyamly.com/">Winga Myamly</a> worked to make sure the <a href="https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/appin_massacre">1816 Appin massacre</a> on Dharawal Country is recognised and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-17/200-years-since-aboriginal-massacre-outside-sydney-appin/7331502">commemorated annually</a>. </p>
<p>In the massacre, at least 14 <a href="https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/unsettled/fighting-wars/appin-massacre/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwib2mBhDWARIsAPZUn_kqp2NWnY_XL4e7JekAd2wt2T6sTJulDelYN3p1-4ZHpS2iJ37nlWgaAg3PEALw_wcB">(likely more)</a> Aboriginal men, women and children were killed by members of a British Army regiment. The regiment chased the group to nearby cliffs at Cataract Gorge where many jumped to their deaths.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/01/when-glenda-met-sandy-descendants-of-massacre-survivor-and-soldier-unite-in-grief">2019 commemoration</a> brought together Dharawal Elder Aunty Glenda Chalker, a descendent of Giribunger, one of the survivors of the massacre, and Sandy Hamilton, descended from Stephen Partridge, who served with the regiment that carried out the attack. </p>
<p>In Portland, Victoria, a towering gum leaf sculpture, <a href="https://natureglenelg.org.au/from-mountain-to-sea-the-kang-o-meerteek-project-celebrates-the-power-of-community-art-history-and-story-telling/">Mayapa Weeyn</a> (meaning “make fire”) was erected near the site of the <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C2699521">Convincing Ground massacre</a>. This is where between 20 and 200 members of the Kilcarer Gunditj clan were killed by British whalers. </p>
<p>The sculpture recognises all 59 Gunditjmara clans, many of whom were killed during the <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/how-the-fighting-gunditjmara-used-country-to-wage-a-15-year-war-of-resistance/1ghh36cu1">Eumeralla Wars</a> that followed the Convincing Ground massacre. Gunditjmara Elder Walter Saunders, who designed the sculpture, spent two years building it and talking with local residents in an informal process of truth-telling.</p>
<p>In Tasmania, the <a href="https://www.oric.gov.au/publications/spotlight/breathing-mannalargenna">Mannalargenna Day Festival</a> commemorates Pairrebeenne/Trawlwoolway leader Mannalargenna. Mannalargenna tried to negotiate to save the lives of Aboriginal people in Tasmania who had been devastated by the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/the-black-line">Black War</a> during the 1830s.</p>
<p>Our study found truth-telling is more effective when it occurs through immersive experiences. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural practices, such as smoking ceremonies, walking on Country, storytelling and personal engagements with survivors, contributed to healing, dialogue and a deeper shared understanding of history. </p>
<p>Through these events Indigenous people deepened their connections to community, history and Country and non-Indigenous people learned about these connections from them. The increasing attendance at events such as the Appin massacre memorial, the Mannalargenna Day Festival and similar commemorations is evidence of the impact of this type of truth-telling. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-didnt-we-know-is-no-excuse-non-indigenous-australians-must-listen-to-the-difficult-historical-truths-told-by-first-nations-people-208780">'Why didn't we know?' is no excuse. Non-Indigenous Australians must listen to the difficult historical truths told by First Nations people</a>
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<h2>Why is truth-telling important?</h2>
<p>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have <a href="https://www.reconciliation.org.au/our-work/truth-telling/">long called</a> for Australia’s history to be told truthfully. The local truth-telling activities we have documented are examples of how communities have responded to this desire. They emphasise the importance of supporting communities to tell their stories, rather than government directing how truth-telling occurs. </p>
<p>While truth-telling does not guarantee reconciliation, the participants in our study stressed that meaningful reconciliation cannot occur without it. They emphasised the importance of reconciliation between First Nations and non-Indigenous communities because for some people these relationships have never existed, or are in need of repair.</p>
<p>Truth-telling is also crucial for political and social transformation. For example, the Queensland government is using <a href="https://www.qld.gov.au/firstnations/treaty/truth-telling-healing#:%7E:text=Queensland's%20truth%2Dtelling%20and%20healing,the%20First%20Nations%20Treaty%20Institute">truth-telling</a> to help inform the path to Treaty. In Victoria, the <a href="https://yoorrookjusticecommission.org.au/hearings/">Yoorrook Justice Commission</a> is investigating historic and ongoing injustices experienced by First Nations peoples, alongside ongoing Treaty negotiations.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-naidoc-week-how-did-it-start-and-what-does-it-celebrate-208936">What is NAIDOC week? How did it start and what does it celebrate?</a>
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<p>Community truth-telling can demonstrate the power of Indigenous identity and self-determination. It can also counter <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25617044">past attempts</a> to erase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from Australian history. </p>
<p>Truth-telling highlights the crucial roles and contributions of First Nations peoples. Their acts of bravery and sacrifice, resistance against colonialism and contributions to communities.</p>
<p>Although some local governments have played a key role in supporting truth-telling, more support for local initiatives is required. National proposals, such as a <a href="https://antar.org.au/issues/native-title/make-mabo-day-a-national-public-holiday/">national recognition</a> of Mabo Day and a <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/dean-ashenden/2022/10/2022/remembrance-or-forgetting">formal remembrance</a> for frontier conflicts, have the potential to create a better environment for truth-telling.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197685/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vanessa Barolsky received funding to conduct research on community truth-telling from Reconciliation Australia, Deakin University and the Centre for Inclusive and Resilient Societies. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yin Paradies receives funding to conduct research on community truth-telling from Reconciliation Australia, Deakin University and the Centre for Inclusive and Resilient Societies.</span></em></p>Truth-telling between First Nations and non-Indigenous people is a vital step in recognising past colonial wrongdoing. And research has found it is also a step towards self-determination and healing.Vanessa Barolsky, Research Associate, Deakin UniversityYin Paradies, Professor of Race Relations, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2015712023-06-13T20:05:24Z2023-06-13T20:05:24ZBrenda Matthews was ripped from a loving family twice. But she was born too late to be officially recognised as Stolen Generations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531497/original/file-20230613-15-fmujwv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=62%2C80%2C1061%2C641&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brenda Matthews</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The woman’s face is in profile, her eyes looking into the distance – or the past, or the future. This is a quiet woman, a thoughtful one; possibly one who also carries sadness in her soul. This woman’s face is natural, a face with features as familiar as my own – a strong brow, deep-set and dark eyes, and full unvarnished lips set with an appealing cupid’s bow. Her hair is swept up, the background is purple-blue – evocative of a beautiful night sky. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531261/original/file-20230612-154575-laev6g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531261/original/file-20230612-154575-laev6g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531261/original/file-20230612-154575-laev6g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531261/original/file-20230612-154575-laev6g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531261/original/file-20230612-154575-laev6g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531261/original/file-20230612-154575-laev6g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531261/original/file-20230612-154575-laev6g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531261/original/file-20230612-154575-laev6g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>I don’t know why it takes me the full read of her book before I see the photograph of two children superimposed on her right cheek: one child white-skinned with blonde hair, the other dark-skinned with dark hair. It’s a happy photo, as natural as they come. </p>
<p>Before this photograph of the children came into focus, my mind’s eye assumed it was white ochre, placed ready for a ceremony of some sort. The book, <a href="https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/the-last-daughter">The Last Daughter</a>, recounts the woman’s life to a certain midlife point. It ends with insight into the making of a <a href="https://www.thelastdaughter.com.au/">documentary feature film</a>, released this week. </p>
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<p><em>Review: The Last Daughter – Brenda Matthews (Text Publishing)</em></p>
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<p>The book is a ceremony of sorts: a bringing together of the woman’s story of families, Country, love, separation, heartache. And at its centre, a truth-seeking quest to right the wrongs perpetrated by a government hell-bent on doing “as they saw fit” when it came to Aboriginal peoples, with little regard for the consequences. The woman is Brenda Matthews, née Simon, born 1970.</p>
<p>This birth year renders her officially ineligible for being recognised as part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/stolen-generation-redress-scheme-wont-reach-everyone-affected-by-the-policies-that-separated-families-166499">Stolen Generations</a>: the New South Wales Aborigines Protection Act was repealed and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/capturing-the-lived-history-of-the-aborigines-protection-board-while-we-still-can-46259">Aboriginal Welfare Board</a> abolished in 1969. She was removed from her family four years later, in 1973.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531508/original/file-20230613-29-fkv5cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531508/original/file-20230613-29-fkv5cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531508/original/file-20230613-29-fkv5cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531508/original/file-20230613-29-fkv5cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531508/original/file-20230613-29-fkv5cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531508/original/file-20230613-29-fkv5cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531508/original/file-20230613-29-fkv5cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531508/original/file-20230613-29-fkv5cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Last Daughter ends with insight into the making of a documentary feature film, released this week.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>Stolen, again and again</h2>
<p>Brenda was one of eight children, seven of whom were heartbreakingly removed from and then haphazardly returned to their parents, Brenda Simon née Hammond and Gary Simon. Brenda was the last to be returned home: after five years. She was two years old when she was taken and seven when she was returned.</p>
<p>She describes her mother’s memory of doing the household chores with a friend one day, “a few days” after she took her sick child Karla to the local hospital. “A car pulled up outside and two Welfare Department officers got out.” Her friend asked if they’d come to inspect the house. “Welfare officers were often inspecting Aboriginal homes to check if they were clean, which was often an excuse and a precursor to taking the children.” </p>
<p>But they had arrived “to take the kids”, on mysterious charges of neglect. Local knowledge about collusion between the local hospital matron and the Welfare Department does not escape mention.</p>
<p>After three months in a home, Brenda was fostered by a White family, who had a daughter of a similar age. “She is my younger sister and I love her,” recalls Brenda in the book. They believed they had adopted Brenda, and that a single mother had given her up. Five years later, she was returned home, with almost no transition. “I was ripped from both these families,” she writes later in the book, looking back.</p>
<p>This memoir reveals Brenda reconciling with this past, 40 years later, bringing her “Black family” and her “White family” together. The trauma impacts of these separations can be read through this life story, not least when 18-year-old Brenda tells no one she is pregnant and ends up giving birth alone in her bedroom: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think deep down inside, I’m scared of this baby being taken from me because I was taken away from my Mum and Dad. I don’t want history to repeat itself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Baby Keisha enjoys unbroken bonds with her parents and both extended families. Later, she is joined by four brothers, then by four more siblings, through her mother’s marriage to stepfather Mark. By the end of this book, Keisha has two children of her own – who become central to Brenda’s commitment to her story, her families, and a future free from cruel intervention. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531506/original/file-20230613-15-wcvsxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531506/original/file-20230613-15-wcvsxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531506/original/file-20230613-15-wcvsxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531506/original/file-20230613-15-wcvsxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531506/original/file-20230613-15-wcvsxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531506/original/file-20230613-15-wcvsxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531506/original/file-20230613-15-wcvsxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531506/original/file-20230613-15-wcvsxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Brenda with her children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>History as told in The Last Daughter – family separation and its resulting trauma – does not repeat for future generations. But its effects continue to find sad reverberation in the life experiences of Brenda, her parents and her siblings. </p>
<p>Before her own children were “shoved” into a government car, Brenda’s mum had lived in fear of exactly this – as a teenager, she witnessed a cousin taken from her Aunty Greta.</p>
<p>Thinking about these removals under false charges, Brenda wonders what other lies are recorded as fact in government files about other family members, particularly after uncovering – with the help of historian and Wiradjuri woman Kim Burke – that Brenda’s maternal grandmother and great-grandmother were also stolen. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What chance did we have? Stolen, again and again and again. This is one family heirloom that didn’t need passing down, and the only blessing is that Mum was not stolen.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/vince-copley-had-a-vision-for-a-better-australia-and-he-helped-make-it-happen-with-lifelong-friend-charles-perkins-192097">Vince Copley had a vision for a better Australia – and he helped make it happen, with lifelong friend Charles Perkins</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘This is real history’</h2>
<p>Members of Brenda’s White family are also left affected by the brutality of government policy: they provided a home to a little girl they fell in love with and whom their biological children considered a sibling. The youngest of this family, Brenda and Rebecca, are the girls on the cover image. And while there was nothing natural about how they became siblings, the love and joy between them is impossible to ignore. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531262/original/file-20230612-202521-sv7e7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531262/original/file-20230612-202521-sv7e7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531262/original/file-20230612-202521-sv7e7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531262/original/file-20230612-202521-sv7e7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531262/original/file-20230612-202521-sv7e7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531262/original/file-20230612-202521-sv7e7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531262/original/file-20230612-202521-sv7e7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531262/original/file-20230612-202521-sv7e7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This photo of Brenda with her ‘White sister’ Rebecca is part of the book’s cover image.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Brenda tells the story of reconnecting with her White family. The young ones – Mark’s daughters – prove pivotal in this; their internet sleuthing and Facebook friend requests prove the bridge to the reconnection. Kiara gets a notification ping while in class and her teacher “reminds her that she is in a history lesson”. Kiara replies, “this is real history”, as she walks out. Later, she is able to confirm with Brenda that her White mum wants to see her. </p>
<p>Brenda’s ability, with the help of her husband Mark, to blend a new family across culture and history – despite the intergenerational trauma – is another feature of this life story. </p>
<p>There are many moments in The Last Daughter that make a reader pause and reflect on the power of love and belonging. When Brenda and her mum uncover, with the help of historian Kim Burke, that they are Wiradjuri rather than Wailwan, it’s a difficult adjustment to make. But after much work, Brenda is now comfortable saying she is a proud Wiradjuri woman. </p>
<p>“I can see her wrestling with this new information and who she thought she was all along,” writes Brenda of watching her mother in their moment of discovery. “This is common for a lot of Indigenous people who were taken from their Country and placed somewhere else,” Kim tells them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531507/original/file-20230613-17-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531507/original/file-20230613-17-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531507/original/file-20230613-17-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531507/original/file-20230613-17-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531507/original/file-20230613-17-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531507/original/file-20230613-17-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531507/original/file-20230613-17-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531507/original/file-20230613-17-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brenda with her mother (centre left) and her ‘White parents’, Mac and Connie.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Reconnecting with Country and culture is part of Brenda’s story. She learns the ancient art of weaving and works with Mark running camps on Country, in northern New South Wales and South East Queensland (with the endorsement of influential Indigenous figure <a href="https://40stories.com.au/people/kyle-slabb/">Kyle Slabb</a> from Fingal). This informs and deepens Brenda’s strength of Aboriginality.</p>
<p>It is at one of these camps where Mark encourages Brenda to tell her story: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I walk up to the line that Mark has drawn in the sand where he’d like me to stand, and I rub it out with my foot, drawing a new one a bit further back where I’m more comfortable. I am about to tell my story to strangers for the first time in my life. I’m fiddling with my hands and fingers. I take a deep breath and as the words start coming out of my mouth, memories come flooding back, and tears roll down my cheeks.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531509/original/file-20230613-17-o7nsp1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531509/original/file-20230613-17-o7nsp1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531509/original/file-20230613-17-o7nsp1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531509/original/file-20230613-17-o7nsp1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531509/original/file-20230613-17-o7nsp1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531509/original/file-20230613-17-o7nsp1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531509/original/file-20230613-17-o7nsp1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531509/original/file-20230613-17-o7nsp1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Learning the ancient art of weaving has been part of Brenda’s process of reconnecting with Country and culture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-we-are-the-voice-why-we-need-more-indigenous-editors-182222">Friday essay: we are the voice – why we need more Indigenous editors</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Countering lies and bearing witness</h2>
<p>Finding voice, being heard and validated, is part of the human condition. The Last Daughter expresses it so well.</p>
<p>Brenda tells her story simply, with nothing exaggerated for effect; known facts, recalled memory and renewed encounters are drawn together in spare, first-person prose. A memoir born from journal entries reproduced as exposition throughout, The Last Daughter is inspired by Brenda’s need to know and share the truth. </p>
<p>She is motivated to counter lies about her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents – recorded as fact in government files. In just one example, the files record Brenda’s mother requesting a photograph and progress report on Brenda while she was with her White family; it says these were supplied, but Brenda’s mother never received anything. Even the date Brenda was returned to her family was incorrect.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/q29vqBO1CM0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for Brenda Matthews’ feature film, The Last Daughter.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Brenda’s motivation increases when she and her siblings are excluded from formal recognition as being part of the Stolen Generations. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The letter leaves me feeling like a microcosm of this land. It has been declared <a href="https://theconversation.com/pastoral-ponderings-and-settler-politics-how-a-colonial-judge-and-poet-wrote-terra-nullius-into-law-199962">terra nullius</a> – empty land – despite my people living here. Now my emotions, my memories, my trauma don’t exist in the eyes of the government.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Brenda’s pursuit of truth is reflected in the difficult conversations she has with herself, and with so many others in her Black, White, own (and eventually blended) family. </p>
<p>I can’t fully imagine the courage, fear, heartache and dedication it took for Brenda to peel back the years and the layers to find truth for so many. The book is a project of love and reconnection. </p>
<p>Keeping everyone inside the warmth of that fire cannot have been easy. That fire and its warmth are offered with immense grace to readers – and now viewers – of Brenda’s story. It is up to us to step inside that embrace and bear witness. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>The documentary feature film, <a href="https://www.thelastdaughter.com.au/film/">The Last Daughter</a>, will screen in cinemas Australia-wide from 15 June 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandra Phillips receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Brenda Matthews’ story is a truth-seeking quest to right the wrongs perpetrated by a government hell-bent on doing ‘as they saw fit’ when it came to Aboriginal peoples, writes Sandra Phillips.Sandra Phillips, Associate Professor of Indigenous Australian Studies, School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1829352022-06-16T00:04:38Z2022-06-16T00:04:38ZFirst Nations mothers are more likely to die during childbirth. More First Nations midwives could close this gap<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467344/original/file-20220607-15930-xc5ni1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-midwifes-hands-measuring-tape-round-1925367620">shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While Australia is one of the safest places in the world to give birth, First Nations women are three times more likely to die in childbirth than other Australian women <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/mothers-babies/maternal-deaths-australia">(17.5 vs 5.5 per 100,000 women from 2012-2019)</a>. </p>
<p>And First Nations infants are almost twice as likely to die in the first month of life (<a href="https://www.indigenoushpf.gov.au/measures/1-21-perinatal-mortality">16% vs 9% per 1,000</a>), with <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(21)00172-8/fulltext">preterm birth</a> the biggest cause of mortality. </p>
<p>The causes of these gaps in life expectancy are complex and stem from colonisation, including:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>racism and lack of cultural safety in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7908636/">hospitals</a> and from <a href="https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S1871519222000749?token=9E0C7F920EADC1F378015E5CF46910716AFAB9FEC6A19BE88B31A8F0AA75817285E50F267063DFC5F46A276F02AB17C3&originRegion=us-east-1&originCreation=20220602235052">healthcare providers</a> </p></li>
<li><p>pregnant First Nations women avoiding antenatal care for fear of <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/healthcare/terrified-they-will-take-their-babies-aboriginal-midwives-break-cycle-of-distrust-in-health-services-20170422-gvq75x.html">child protection services</a> taking their children. This is a legacy of the “stolen generations” with continuing <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-nations-children-are-still-being-removed-at-disproportionate-rates-cultural-assumptions-about-parenting-need-to-change-169090">high rates of child removals</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.rdaa.com.au/documents/item/1288">closures</a> of regional and remote birthing services requiring more First Nations women to leave home and travel long distances to give birth, often alone. Some women opt to give birth without a midwife, which can have significant issues for mother and baby.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Ensuring First Nations children are born healthy and strong is the second <a href="https://www.closingthegap.gov.au/national-agreement/targets">Closing the Gap</a> target - a critical foundation for “everyone enjoying long and healthy lives”. A much needed step to guarantee this is to increase First Nations health workers, particularly midwives and nurses.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1521249507262218241"}"></div></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/does-the-pre-election-budget-address-ways-to-realistically-close-the-gap-for-indigenous-people-180312">Does the pre-election budget address ways to realistically 'close the gap' for Indigenous people?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Addressing the health impacts of colonisation</h2>
<p>Before colonisation, in some First Nations, new parents were supported using principles of <a href="https://www.caac.org.au/uploads/pdfs/Borning-Ampe-mbwareke-pmere-alaltye-the-Congress-Alukura-by-the-grandmothers-law-report.pdf">“Grandmothers” law</a>. This is traditional childbearing knowledge held by senior community women. Children’s development was nurtured through extended kinship and community care.</p>
<p>These holistic care systems have been disrupted and western maternity services are informed by research conducted “on” First Nations people instead of in collaboration with or by First Nations people. This has led to a focus in the medical literature on the “five Ds” – <a href="https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n2140/pdf/ch05.pdf">disparity, deprivation, disadvantage, dysfunction and difference</a>, rather than evidence reflecting the strengths of First Nations people and culture. </p>
<p>This is reflected in Australia’s policies, health and education systems which reinforce the legitimacy of “western” knowledge over First Nations knowledges. This leads to ongoing failures to improve First Nations people’s health and maternity services. </p>
<p>Western maternity services are often too <a href="https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/publications/our-culture-how-it-is-to-be-us-listening-to-aboriginal-women-abou">busy and task-orientated with rigid structures</a> not suited to providing holistic women-centred maternity care that enables flexibility for cultural birthing practices. </p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(21)00061-9/fulltext">Birthing in Our Community</a>” study showed culturally-safe models which enable care from a known midwife throughout pregnancy, birth and up until six weeks after birth, can significantly improve health outcomes for First Nations women and babies. </p>
<p>This research found women were approximately 50% more likely to attend the recommended number of antenatal visits, 38% less likely to give birth prematurely, and 34% more likely to be “exclusively” breastfeeding when they leave hospital.</p>
<p>The key to this success was leadership and care provision that included First Nations midwives. Similar improvements in access for women have been reported from similar models including the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-06/first-nations-midwife-program-baggarrook-helping-indigenous-mums/101042136">Baggarrook Yurrongi program</a>, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-28/birthing-on-country-success-on-nsw-south-coast/12593534">Waminda South Coast Birthing on Country program</a>, and <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2020/05/05/mob-mob-midwives-making-difference-our-mums-and-bubs">Waijungbah Jarjums program</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uluru-statement-must-be-core-to-promises-made-by-all-parties-in-the-lead-up-to-the-federal-election-182296">The Uluru Statement must be core to promises made by all parties in the lead-up to the federal election</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The vital role of First Nations nurses and midwives</h2>
<p>First Nations midwives and nurses foster a sense of cultural safety and trust in maternity services for First Nations women. In addition to western midwifery training, First Nations midwives draw on cultural and community knowledge systems, including understanding the importance of including key family members and cultural practices specific to that community. </p>
<p>First Nations nurses and midwives currently represent <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-health/culturally-safe-healthcare-indigenous-australians">1.1%</a> of the workforce. If we want to close the gap in outcomes and ensure a culturally safe birthing experience for First Nations women, we need a much bigger proportion of First Nations midwives.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-nations-children-are-still-being-removed-at-disproportionate-rates-cultural-assumptions-about-parenting-need-to-change-169090">First Nations children are still being removed at disproportionate rates. Cultural assumptions about parenting need to change</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How can we increase the number of First Nations midwives and nurses?</h2>
<p>Universities need to increase their proportion of First Nations students by:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>providing better support for First Nations students from application through to graduation</p></li>
<li><p>implementing all 32 recommendations from the <a href="https://catsinam.org.au/getting-em-and-keeping-em/">Gettin em and keepin em</a> report into First Nations nursing education, which includes integration of First Nations health issues into core midwifery curricula and having streamlined application and enrolment
procedures</p></li>
<li><p>promoting <a href="https://aurorafoundation.com.au/our-work/indigenous-pathways-portal/scholarships/page/2/?studytopic=97%2099&orderby=featured">scholarships</a> to attract students.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Maternity services need to increase the number of First Nations midwives employed, through: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>implementing the government’s <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2019/11/woman-centred-care-strategic-directions-for-australian-maternity-services.pdf">woman-centred care strategy</a> to ensure Australian maternity services are equitable, safe, woman-centred, informed and evidence-based; that women are the decision-makers in their care; and maternity care reflects women’s individual needs</p></li>
<li><p>directing <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-24/cadetship-programme-helping-close-the-gap-in-indigenous-health/10732118">cadetship</a> and graduate midwife programs at First Nations nurses</p></li>
<li><p>supporting midwifery career development, leadership roles, and representation at all levels of governance.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Both universities and maternity services need to:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>improve cultural safety, as per the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workforce <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/national-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-health-workforce-strategic-framework-and-implementation-plan-2021-2031">strategic plan</a></p></li>
<li><p>ensure <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30341005/#:%7E:text=Conclusions%3A%20Midwifery%20academics%20requireprofessional%20development,cultural%20safety%20for%20midwifery%20academics.">midwifery academics</a> undertake cultural safety training as part of professional development</p></li>
<li><p>regularly assess health providers’ behaviours and parent experiences to ensure cultural safety training results in a culturally safe workplace.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Now is a great time for First Nations people to think about a midwifery career. Let’s work towards a future where every pregnant First Nations woman has access to a First Nations midwife, so they and their baby can have the best possible start in life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182935/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pamela McCalman receives funding from the Lowitja Institute.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Chamberlain receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (Fellowship and project funds), the Ian Potter Foundation and the Medical Research Future Fund. She is a member of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Machellee Kosiak is affiliated with Rhodanthe Lipsett Indigenous Midwifery Charitable Fund
<a href="http://indigenousmidwives.org.au">http://indigenousmidwives.org.au</a>
First Nations woman, Wiradjuri and Ngunnawal
Midwifery lecturer -The Away from Base Bachelor of Midwifery Programme Australian Catholic University.
Member of Research Project -Birthing in our Community </span></em></p>First Nations women and their newborns are considered high risk due to fatality rates and access to care. Research shows First Nations-led culturally safe healthcare could prevent further deaths.Pamela McCalman, PhD Candidate and Midwife, La Trobe UniversityCatherine Chamberlain, Professor Indigenous Health Equity, The University of MelbourneMachellee Kosiak, Midwifery Lecturer, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1794802022-05-30T23:43:06Z2022-05-30T23:43:06ZThe way we talk about First Nations issues is striking, as our analysis of 82 million words of Australian news and opinion shows<p>“We say sorry”.</p>
<p>With just three words, then-prime minister Kevin Rudd said in 2008 what his predecessor wouldn’t say in parliament.</p>
<p>And so swelled the tears, emotion and silent pain of generations of Indigenous Australians who looked on from the gallery above, together with those glued to the broadcast all over the country.</p>
<p>Sometimes words really <em>do</em> matter.</p>
<p>But this significant step towards Indigenous reconciliation in Australia didn’t occur in a vacuum. Sometimes our discourse – our narratives of disadvantage, freedom, hope and fear – take on a momentum all their own.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/forgiveness-requires-more-than-just-an-apology-it-requires-action-177060">Forgiveness requires more than just an apology. It requires action</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Can discourse be quantified?</h2>
<p>But demonstrating this momentum is hard.</p>
<p>The federal election is a case in point. Indigenous people <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/19/a-forgotten-story-of-the-election-is-first-nations-voices-are-often-excluded-from-the-conversation">tell us time</a> and <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/voice-is-not-enough-what-happened-to-indigenous-issues-in-the-campaign-20220512-p5akkh.html">again</a> that First Nations concerns are often excluded from the public conversation. Major surveys suggest many voters <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-22/vote-compass-federal-election-issues-data-climate-change-economy/101002116">don’t seem to care</a>. </p>
<p>But what if we could quantify our discourse? What if we could apply statistical tools to chart trends, shifts and deflections in our national narrative around First Nations issues? What would we learn?</p>
<p>To answer these questions, we <a href="https://www.monash.edu/data-futures-institute/research/mdfi-flagship-projects/narratives-of-disadvantage">analysed</a> more than 82 million words of Australian public discourse. We obtained nearly 500,000 Australian news and opinion articles from 1986 to 2021 and filtered these down to 143,923 pieces speaking to broad issues of disadvantage in Australia. You can explore the data for yourself in our <a href="https://prfviz.org/">interactive dashboard</a>.</p>
<p>So what did we find?</p>
<h2>Discourse momentum and the Apology</h2>
<p>Our analysis revealed the relative attention our news and opinion pieces gave to First Nations peoples began to grow steadily from around 2005, with a huge peak (58%) in May 2007 coinciding with the tenth anniversary of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/bringing-them-home-report-1997">Bringing them Home</a> report, which was about the Stolen Generations.</p>
<p>This peak was followed in February 2008 around the Apology itself. Remarkably, in that month, over two thirds (68%) of the news and opinion pieces that spoke to issues of disadvantage referred to First Nations peoples.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465952/original/file-20220530-22-ut39ys.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Line plot of the relative intensity of discourse related to First Nations since 2006 in Australia." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465952/original/file-20220530-22-ut39ys.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465952/original/file-20220530-22-ut39ys.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465952/original/file-20220530-22-ut39ys.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465952/original/file-20220530-22-ut39ys.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465952/original/file-20220530-22-ut39ys.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465952/original/file-20220530-22-ut39ys.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465952/original/file-20220530-22-ut39ys.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">First Nations relative discourse intensity in Australian news and opinion peaked around the ‘Sorry’ event, and has been on the up and up around Australia Day in the last few years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data: Factiva, Dow Jones, Visualisation: SoDa Laboratories, Monash Business School</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You can see from the chart above the Apology was almost like a pressure valve being released: the relative share of First Nations discourse dropped steadily thereafter, bottoming out in 2012. Just in time protests of 2012 around <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16736054">Australia Day</a>, or what many First Nations people call Survival Day or Invasion Day.</p>
<p>But we can also see that in the last few years, First Nations discourse is once again on the move. Like arms being lifted to the air, First Nations discourse share in our public media is rising up.</p>
<p>Some peaks speak to external triggers: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/26/rio-tinto-blasts-46000-year-old-aboriginal-site-to-expand-iron-ore-mine">Rio Tinto’s destruction of the sacred, 46,000 year old Jukkan Caves</a> (May 2020), followed in quick succession by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/13/australia-protests-thousands-take-part-in-black-lives-matter-and-pro-refugee-events-amid-health-warnings">Australia’s own Black Lives Matter marches</a> (June 2020) both stand out.</p>
<p>But then there’s also a metronomic drum beat visible in our recent First Nations discourse.</p>
<p>The beat’s name? <em>January</em>.</p>
<h2>When we talk about First Nations – and when we really don’t</h2>
<p>To explore these trends further, and put some stronger statistical basis to our initial findings, we undertook a second form of analysis.</p>
<p>This time, instead of simply eye-balling line-plots, we used models that can uncover significant shifts in relative narrative intensity around certain key events in our national conversation.</p>
<p>Specifically, we fed in the exact date of federal budget night, and the federal election, dating back to 1986, and added to these dates the annual Australia Day/Invasion Day date across all years (January 26).</p>
<p>The models we used effectively ask, “did the relative share of First Nations discourse in Australian news and opinion change significantly during this week?”</p>
<p>To give some context, we also checked whether our discourse relating to a range of other groups shifted, and widened the search to the five weeks before and after these key events.</p>
<p>If anything, our work stands right behind Indigenous voices who’ve been saying the same thing for years.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Bar chart panel plots of significant changes in relative discourse intensity by week, around the Federal Budget week, Federal Election and Australia Day." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464937/original/file-20220524-30932-xp1omu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464937/original/file-20220524-30932-xp1omu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464937/original/file-20220524-30932-xp1omu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464937/original/file-20220524-30932-xp1omu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464937/original/file-20220524-30932-xp1omu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464937/original/file-20220524-30932-xp1omu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464937/original/file-20220524-30932-xp1omu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">First Nations relative discourse intensity significantly drops around federal budget week (a) and federal elections (b), but peaks strongly around Australia Day (c).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data: Factiva, Dow Jones, Visualisation: SoDa Laboratories, Monash Business School</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the last four decades, in the weeks leading up to the federal budget and the election, Australian news and opinion talks relatively, and statistically significantly, <em>less</em> about First Nations peoples than at other times of the year.</p>
<p>The magnitudes may seem small (-6 to -8%), but these should be read against the background of average First Nations discourse intensity of around 20%. </p>
<p>So the deflection to our normal discourse is, in fact, very large, comprising a 25-50% decline against the baseline.</p>
<p>In collaboration with Paul Ramsay Foundation, Monash University researchers have created an interactive visualisation system to showcase the data and analysis resulting from this research. The <a href="https://ialab.it.monash.edu/discourse/then/">visualisation</a> allows visitors to read data-driven stories about narratives of disadvantage discussed in the Australian media and parliament over recent decades.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465450/original/file-20220526-23-qo0vf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465450/original/file-20220526-23-qo0vf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465450/original/file-20220526-23-qo0vf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465450/original/file-20220526-23-qo0vf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465450/original/file-20220526-23-qo0vf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465450/original/file-20220526-23-qo0vf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465450/original/file-20220526-23-qo0vf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465450/original/file-20220526-23-qo0vf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So what of the January bump?</p>
<p>Without question, the biggest single deflection we uncovered in our national discourse was towards First Nations during the week of Australia Day/Invasion Day each year: a huge 14% point climb during the week, and 4% in the week after.</p>
<p>But our results broadened the conversation. Not only do we discuss First Nations more at Australia Day/Invasion Day, we also significantly expand our share of discourse for migrants, refugees, and racial minorities.</p>
<p>January 26, it seems, is the closest Australia has to a national discourse of identity day. In effect, we collectively ask, “Who are we, and where have we come from?”</p>
<h2>A new day</h2>
<p>With a new government comes new opportunities.</p>
<p>With the Albanese Labor government committing to significant progress on the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-24/federal-election-anthony-albanese-indigenous-uluru-statement/101092816">Uluru Statement from the Heart</a>, coinciding with a new <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/09/australians-urged-to-back-indigenous-voice-to-parliament-in-history-is-calling-campaign">grassroots campaign</a> to build support for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, the indications are there that 2022 may see a significant shift in our national discourse.</p>
<p>We were surprised then, when we checked our most recent data.</p>
<p>First Nations discourse share in our national news and opinion flatlined during the weeks leading into the election campaign. </p>
<p>Granted, this was an improvement on the significant negative shift in First Nations discourse share the models had uncovered over the last decades.</p>
<p>However, for the week starting Monday May 23, two days after the election, something remarkable happened in our discourse. First Nations share doubled from 14% over the week of the election to over 31%.</p>
<p>What a difference a new week can bring.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/thirteen-years-after-sorry-too-many-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-children-are-still-being-removed-from-their-homes-159360">Thirteen years after 'Sorry', too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still being removed from their homes</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon D Angus receives funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation, the Judith Neilson Institute, and the Defence, Science & Technology Group (Department of Defence). He is a co-founder of SoDa Laboratories, Monash Business School, and co-founder and the Director of the Monash IP Observatory, Monash University, and co-founder and director of KASPR Datahaus Pty Ltd. He serves on the board of City on a Hill Movement Pty Ltd. This story is part of The Conversation's Breaking the Cycle series, which is about escaping cycles of disadvantage. It is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Dwyer currently receives funding from Paul Ramsay Foundation, the Defence Science and Technology Group and Victorian Institute for Forensic Medicine. He is a Professor at Monash University and directs the Monash Data Visualisation and Immersive Analytics Lab within the Faculty of Information Technologies. A philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation supported the development of the visualisation system mentioned in the article. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacinta Elston does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our analysis revealed the relative attention our news and opinion pieces gave to First Nations peoples began to grow steadily from around 2005, with a huge peak in 2007.Simon D. Angus, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Monash UniversityJacinta Elston, Adjunct Professor, Monash UniversityTim Dwyer, Professor, Department of Human Centred Computing, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1836182022-05-25T20:23:15Z2022-05-25T20:23:15ZNational Sorry Day is a day to commemorate those taken. But ‘sorry’ is not enough – we need action<p><em>This article contains mentions of the Stolen Generations, and policies using outdated and potentially offensive terminology when referring to First Nations people.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>May 26 is National Sorry Day. On this day, we commemorate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were forcibly removed from their families under government policies during the <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/catalogue_resources/18801.pdf">Assimilation era</a> (officially 1910-70).</p>
<p>Those children stolen from their families have become known as the <a href="https://healingfoundation.org.au/stolen-generations/">Stolen Generations</a>. Many <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/awaye/a-memoir-of-the-stolen-generations/10566324">survivors</a> have provided an account of the violence they endured and the ongoing pain they experience as they try to find their families. While some have managed to <a href="https://bth.humanrights.gov.au/the-report/part-3-consequences-of-removal/chapter-12-reunion">find their families</a>, many have not. This has left an indelible pain that resonates in all aspects of their lives. </p>
<p>While this is a national day of commemoration, shamefully, it barely rates a mention in the media. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities however, never forget. How can we, when <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/stolen-generations">so many</a> of our families have been impacted by this legacy?</p>
<p>The exact number of children who were removed may never be known. However, there are very few families who have been left unaffected. In some families, children from three or more generations were taken.</p>
<p>On this day, we acknowledge the ongoing grief and loss experienced by many individuals and families, and we recognise the pain and intergenerational trauma that continues. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1265021083817836545"}"></div></p>
<h2>Oppression and discrimination of past government policies</h2>
<p>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been subject to various government policies that resulted in oppressive and discriminatory conditions. In what has been referred to as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2019/mar/04/massacre-map-australia-the-killing-times-frontier-wars">The Killing Times</a>” massacres of Aboriginal people occurred from 1788 to 1928. The survivors of this frontier violence were then subject to <a href="https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/the-protection-era-a-settler-colonial-system-of-paternalistic-control/">“protection” policies</a>. </p>
<p>During this era, “protectors” were appointed, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations were segregated onto reserves, missions and government settlements.</p>
<p>This time of “protection” was not an era of benevolence. Beginning in the late 19th century, the “protection” era involved controlling every aspect of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s lives. This included forced confinement, institutionalisation and forcible <a href="https://healingfoundation.org.au/who-are-the-stolen-generations/#:%7E:text=The%20Stolen%20Generations%20refers%20to,mid%2D1800s%20to%20the%201970s.">child removals</a>. </p>
<p>An official policy of <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/catalogue_resources/18801.pdf">assimilation</a> was established in 1937. The <a href="https://www.alrc.gov.au/publication/recognition-of-aboriginal-customary-laws-alrc-report-31/3-aboriginal-societies-the-experience-of-contact/changing-policies-towards-aboriginal-people/">policy was defined</a> at the 1961 Native Welfare Conference of Federal and State Ministers in these terms:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The policy of assimilation means that all Aborigines (sic) and part-Aborigines (sic) are expected to attain the same manner of living as other Australians and to live as members of a single Australian community, enjoying the same rights and privileges, accepting the same customs and influenced by the same beliefs as other Australians.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But this was never the case. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had no say on this policy, nor any freedom to decline it. The notion they were ever intended to enjoy the same rights and privileges as white folk is a lie.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1397334223942524932"}"></div></p>
<h2>National Sorry Day</h2>
<p>The first National Sorry Day was held on May 26 1998, one year after the tabling of the report from the <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/bringing-them-home-report-1997">National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families</a>. The inquiry examined the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and communities. A key recommendation of the report was that <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/pubs/bn/0708/bringingthemhomereport">reparations</a> be made. </p>
<p>Almost a decade after that, on February 13 2008, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1-9NO6G_dw">apology</a> to members of the Stolen Generations. This is often heralded as a historic day, and indeed it was important for people who had been impacted by being forcibly removed from their families to finally have a government tell the truth. Rudd, however, firmly stated the government had <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/rudd-rules-out-compensation-20080202-ge6oe1.html">no intention</a> to consider compensation.</p>
<p>While there is yet to be a <a href="https://www.nit.com.au/greens-call-for-national-stolen-generations-compensation/">national reparation scheme</a>, various states and territories have developed reparation strategies to provide monetary compensation to members of the Stolen Generations. Sadly, many members of the Stolen generations have passed before they could receive reparations and there is no mechanism to pay it forward to their families.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-bill-in-nsw-could-prove-crucial-to-helping-reduce-numbers-of-first-nations-children-in-out-of-home-care-170795">New bill in NSW could prove crucial to helping reduce numbers of First Nations children in out-of-home care</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘Sorry’ means you don’t do it again</h2>
<p>When Rudd delivered his apology 14 years ago, there were <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/research/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2018/community-services/child-protection/rogs-2018-partf-chapter16.pdf">9,070</a> Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care in Australia. That number has since <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/news-media/media-releases/2021-1/may/rate-of-children-in-out-of-home-care-remains-stabl">risen to about 18,900</a>, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children now represent more than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/14/people-think-its-all-in-the-past-push-to-reform-system-taking-aboriginal-kids-from-families">41%</a> of all children in out-of-home care.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1484284727490191364"}"></div></p>
<p>Aboriginal journalist Allan Clarke has referred to the growing number of our children in out-of-home care as a terrible crisis that has continued since Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were first snatched from their families <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/allanclarke/new-stolen-generation-of-indigenous-children">almost a century ago</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"678756744265269248"}"></div></p>
<p>Commemorations such as Sorry Day serve as a permanent link between present and past generations – committing them to memory and assigning them with importance, meaning and purpose.</p>
<p>National Sorry Day commemorates not only the past but the continuity of injustice borne by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. All the “sorrys” in the world won’t provide justice, support or compensation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were forcibly removed from their families. Remembering this significant day is the least we can do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183618/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bronwyn Carlson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Today is National Sorry Day. This is when we commemorate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were forcibly removed from their families.Bronwyn Carlson, Professor, Indigenous Studies and Director of The Centre for Global Indigenous Futures, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1707952022-03-25T05:17:02Z2022-03-25T05:17:02ZNew bill in NSW could prove crucial to helping reduce numbers of First Nations children in out-of-home care<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452108/original/file-20220315-21-yb0miw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C24%2C5431%2C3612&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/photo/mum-and-dad-arriving-home-and-lifting-up-little-royalty-free-image/1189064120?adppopup=true">Getty</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In New South Wales, as of June 2021, <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/research/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2022/community-services/child-protection">42%</a> of children in out-of-home care were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. </p>
<p>This stark over-representation has been the subject of multiple child welfare reviews, from <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/bringing-them-home-report-1997">Bringing them Home</a> to <a href="https://www.familyisculture.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/726329/Family-Is-Culture-Review-Report.pdf">Family is Culture</a>.</p>
<p>The NSW parliament is now considering a bill, sponsored by Greens MP David Shoebridge, proposing crucial child protection reforms. The legislative assembly passed the <a href="https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/bills/Pages/bill-details.aspx?pk=3908">bill</a> in late February. Whether it passes the lower house in the coming weeks will be a test of the parliament’s commitment to reducing the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care. </p>
<p>The bill’s passage (or otherwise) will also lay bare the extent of the government’s resolve to address ongoing harms caused by generations of forced, systematic removals of Aboriginal children.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stolen-generation-redress-scheme-wont-reach-everyone-affected-by-the-policies-that-separated-families-166499">Stolen Generation redress scheme won't reach everyone affected by the policies that separated families</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Findings of past reports</h2>
<p>Inquiries such as Family is Culture have repeatedly identified three crucial policy changes needed to address the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families in child protection systems across Australia:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>services must become transparent and accountable to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and communities</p></li>
<li><p>self-determination in service design and delivery is crucial to ensure culturally safe and trusted services that properly address the needs of families</p></li>
<li><p>proper funding and resourcing of services is needed to address the legacies of racist laws and policies, which have resulted in intergenerational trauma and poverty.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The NSW bill takes meaningful steps towards addressing recommendations for reform from the Family is Culture review. It does this through its acknowledgement of historical harms and the importance of Aboriginal family and cultural connections. The bill also aims to improve the child protection system’s accountability towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, families and communities. </p>
<p>The bill increases legal protections for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families at the different stages of their involvement with the child protection system. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stolen-generation-redress-scheme-wont-reach-everyone-affected-by-the-policies-that-separated-families-166499">Stolen Generation redress scheme won't reach everyone affected by the policies that separated families</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What the bill proposes to do</h2>
<p>Importantly, the bill clarifies the functions of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child and Young Person Placement Principles. The purpose of these principles is to prioritise children’s placement within their own extended family, community and culture.</p>
<p>Yet, there are ongoing, serious problems with compliance with the principles. For instance, just under 50% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in care in NSW are placed with <a href="https://www.familymatters.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/FamilyMattersReport2021.pdf">non-Aboriginal carers</a>.</p>
<p>The bill incorporates the five key elements of the principles, which provide clearer provisions for:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>prevention of children’s separation from families, by providing supports that address underlying causes of child protection concerns</p></li>
<li><p>partnership with communities, through the involvement of community representatives in the design and delivery of services and in care decision-making</p></li>
<li><p>ensuring children and families participate in decisions about children’s placement</p></li>
<li><p>participation of children and young persons and their parents in all key decision-making concerning children’s care and protection</p></li>
<li><p>maintaining children’s connections with family, community, culture and country, when children are placed in out-of-home care.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The bill also includes important provisions regarding accountability. It requires the NSW Department of Communities and Justice make “active efforts” to support families to access culturally appropriate services, designed and delivered where possible by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations. </p>
<p>Families can apply for a declaration from the Children’s Court of New South Wales that the department has failed to make active efforts. The minister must report such declarations to parliament, and also report on measures taken by the department to prevent children’s separation from their families.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/forgiveness-requires-more-than-just-an-apology-it-requires-action-177060">Forgiveness requires more than just an apology. It requires action</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Steps to help keep families together</h2>
<p>Significantly, the bill responds to longstanding <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-controversial-child-protection-reforms-in-nsw-could-lead-to-another-stolen-generation-106330">concerns</a> about legislative amendments made in 2018, which set a maximum of 24 months for parents to address protective issues, or face permanent removal of their children. </p>
<p>The current bill increases these time frames, allowing parents up to 48 months to address broader protective issues, such as finding safe housing, escaping family violence or accessing services to support mental health and other concerns.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A young First Nations person stands in cultural paint, trying to ignite fire." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454268/original/file-20220324-25-aft6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454268/original/file-20220324-25-aft6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454268/original/file-20220324-25-aft6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454268/original/file-20220324-25-aft6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454268/original/file-20220324-25-aft6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454268/original/file-20220324-25-aft6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454268/original/file-20220324-25-aft6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maintaining children’s connections with family, community, culture and country should be a high priority.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/brisbane-australia-aboriginal-children-perform-traditional-1735131911">shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The bill also provides that the Children’s Court must give a representative of the relevant Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community the opportunity to be heard in individual care matters. Importantly, it introduces a rebuttable presumption that removing an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander child from their family causes harm. This means that there is a presumption that removal will cause harm unless evidence is presented to the contrary. </p>
<p>The Children’s Court must explain how it has considered this presumption when making care orders, and how it has considered other legal principles concerning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, including those regarding family and community organisations’ participation and the placement principles.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/reunifying-first-nations-families-the-only-way-to-reduce-the-overrepresentation-of-children-in-out-of-home-care-175513">Reunifying First Nations families: the only way to reduce the overrepresentation of children in out-of-home care</a>
</strong>
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</p>
<hr>
<h2>Future directions</h2>
<p>The bill is not perfect. There remains a worrying lack of oversight for children who are permanently placed under the independent care of a guardian. The legislative assembly did not pass recommendations in Shoebridge’s original bill protecting Aboriginal children from being adopted. The assembly also did not pass Shoebridge’s recommendation prohibiting the accreditation of for-profit out-of-home care agencies and agencies that do not meet minimum standards.</p>
<p>However the bill provides a crucial opportunity. It represents an improved pathway to safety and stability for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who have been failed across decades of reforms.</p>
<p>Moreover, the bill provides measures with respect to accountability and supports for some of the most vulnerable children, which can and should be extended nationally.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170795/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terri Libesman has nothing to disclose. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eloise Chandler and Wendy Hermeston do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new bill in NSW seeks to reduce First Nations children in out-of-home care. Before the bill can become law, it must pass the lower house.Terri Libesman, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Technology SydneyEloise Chandler, Research Associate, University of Technology SydneyWendy Hermeston, Indigenous Research Fellow, National Centre for Reconciliation Practice, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1783982022-03-24T04:57:28Z2022-03-24T04:57:28ZFirst Peoples in Victoria have a right to the truth about the impact of colonisation<p>Formal hearings of the <a href="https://yoorrookjusticecommission.org.au/">Yoorrook Justice Commission</a> began today in Melbourne. This is timely because March 24 is the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/right-to-truth-day">International Day for the Right to the Truth</a>.</p>
<p>Yoorrook is a royal commission to establish an official public record of the systemic injustices of colonisation based on the experiences of the First Peoples of Victoria. This is reflected in its name: “Yoorrook” is a word in the Wemba Wemba/Wamba Wamba language for “truth”.</p>
<p>It is the first such body in Australia to have this function and the first in the world to be Indigenous-led. Four of Yoorrook’s five commissioners are Indigenous, three of them Victorian Traditional Owners. </p>
<p>The scope of this Indigenous-led pursuit of truth-telling reflects the role of the <a href="https://www.firstpeoplesvic.org/">First Peoples Assembly of Victoria</a> in calling for the establishment of Yoorrook in 2020. In addition, Yoorrook is independently connected with the Victorian treaty-making process.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1506738400149516290"}"></div></p>
<h2>Enforcing human rights law in Victoria</h2>
<p>Under international human rights law, establishing the truth about gross or systematic human rights violations is a <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G05/109/00/PDF/G0510900.pdf?OpenElement">fundamental legal right</a> to which the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/right-to-truth-day">International Day</a> draws attention. It forms part of a broader <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/4721cb942.html">right to reparations</a> and making sure such violations never happen again. </p>
<p>States are obliged to give effect to human rights law in their systems of justice, including through official fact-finding mechanisms like royal commissions and institutional reforms.</p>
<p>The Yoorrook Justice Commission was established within this justice framework. The Commission’s founding <a href="https://yoorrookjusticecommission.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Yoo-rrook-Letters-Patent.pdf">Letters Patent</a> list the key international human rights instruments that support Indigenous peoples’ right to truth. </p>
<p>Among these documents are a <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G05/109/00/PDF/G0510900.pdf?OpenElement">set of principles</a> agreed by the United Nations to protect human rights. These state that all peoples have the right to “know the truth” about past events involving heinous crimes and human rights violations.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-dispossession-to-massacres-the-yoo-rrook-justice-commission-sets-a-new-standard-for-truth-telling-170632">From dispossession to massacres, the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission sets a new standard for truth-telling</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Acknowledging human rights violations and the right to truth</h2>
<p>Human rights violations can occur in different settings. One example is a conflict situation during a political transition from dictatorship to democracy, during which violations such as torture and disappearances have sadly been common tactics.</p>
<p>Another example is settler colonialism, as happened in Victoria. Violations such as massacres of Indigenous peoples and dispossession of their territories can occur, which Yoorrook will examine and place on the public record.</p>
<p>In all such settings, the impacts of violations are commonly hidden by the perpetrators, which governments must actively prevent. If they fail to fulfil their obligation to investigate and bring perpetrators to justice, this can give rise to a harmful culture of impunity, both in the institutions of governnment and in broader society.</p>
<p>For the public not to know or deny the truth magnifies the suffering of victims, and their family and broader community. It creates circumstances in which trauma can be experienced individually and collectively, generation after generation, as many First Peoples in Victoria experience. </p>
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<h2>Examples of truth commissions abroad</h2>
<p>There have been more than 40 truth commissions throughout the world since the second world war. Their main focus has been on conflict and like situations. Perhaps the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/">Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa</a> is best known. But it was not tasked with examining and reporting on the colonial underpinnings of apartheid. It could only tell a partial truth. </p>
<p>More recent commissions have examined particular injustices caused by colonisation. For example, the <a href="https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1450124405592/1529106060525">Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada</a> examined First Nations residential schools, a mechanism for forced assimilation of Indigenous children. Some 150,000 children were removed and separated from their families and communities to attend these schools. </p>
<p>On the Commission’s recommendation, a compensation scheme (among many other things) was established. According to the <a href="http://www.iap-pei.ca/media/information/publication/pdf/FinalReport/IAP-FR-2021-03-11-eng.pdf">report</a> of the oversight committee, this amounted to more than C$3.2 billion in reparations in 2021. This commission told a fuller truth about a systemic injustice of colonisation and cultural genocide. </p>
<p>Truth and justice commissions in developed countries having colonial origins (like Australia) now commonly apply these concepts and methods. This is termed a “<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/transitional-justice">transitional justice</a>” approach because it enables states to transition out of situations invovling human rights violations and systemic abuses with justice for victims. In a recent <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N21/197/81/PDF/N2119781.pdf?OpenElement">UN report</a>, Yoorrook is discussed as a prime example of this approach. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/forgiveness-requires-more-than-just-an-apology-it-requires-action-177060">Forgiveness requires more than just an apology. It requires action</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Truth-telling and treaty-making in Victoria</h2>
<p>The Uluru <a href="https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement/">Statement from the Heart</a> calls for Voice, Treaty and Truth. Substantive recognition of Indigenous people in Australia requires institutional reform across multiple inter-connected domains. </p>
<p>Yoorrook fits into this pattern. It is a truth and justice commission with a strong mandate to recommend institutional reform addressing systemic injustice. It is also connected with other processes that are underway. One is treaty-making in a way that supports self-determination for First Peoples. Another is recognising and compensating the Victorian Stolen Generations. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.vic.gov.au/stolen-generations-reparations-steering-committee-report">Stolen Generations Reparations Steering Committee</a> was also the product of Indigenous leadership. On its recommendation, the Victorian government has established a reparations scheme for individuals and families affected. Under the scheme, $155 million will be made available so that about 1,200 survivors can can access payments of $100,000. </p>
<p>As the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/right-to-truth-day">International Day</a> recognises, the right to the truth is a human right of great importance that forms part of a broader justice framework. Truth and justice commissions may apply this framework when examining historic and ongoing systemic injustices caused by colonisation in settler states like Australia. Yoorrook is doing so in the Victorian context. It will be delivering an interim report this June and its final report in July 2024.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: this article originally stated Yoorrook’s interim report was due in July 2023, but the correct date is July 2024. This has been corrected.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178398/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maggie Walter receives funding from the Australian Research Council and NHMRC </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span> Senior Researcher and Claimant in the Yorta Yorta Struggle for land justice that culminated in the Yorta Yorta Native Title Case 1994-2002. President of the Koori Heritage Working Group that achieved major reforms of the Cultural Heritage Legislation in Victoria in the mid-1980s. Key advocate for the United Nations Decleration of Self Determination for First Nations Peoples. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eleanor Bourke, Kevin Bell, and Sue-Anne Hunter do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Formal hearings of the Yoorrook Justice Commission have begun in Melbourne. This is the first Indigenous-led justice commission of this kind in the world.Kevin Bell, Professor and Commissioner, Yoorrook Justice Commission, Monash UniversityEleanor Bourke, Professor and Chair of the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission, Indigenous KnowledgeMaggie Walter, Commissioner, Yoo-rrook Justice Commission, University of TasmaniaSue-Anne Hunter, Commissioner at Yoo-rrook Justice Commission, Indigenous KnowledgeWayne Atkinson, Commissioner of the Yoorrook Justice Commission, 2021-2024: Senior Fellow School of Social and Political Science, University of Melbourne., The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1770602022-02-14T06:05:55Z2022-02-14T06:05:55ZForgiveness requires more than just an apology. It requires action<p>It has been 14 years since then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered his <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Visit_Parliament/Art/Exhibitions/Custom_Media/Apology_to_Australias_Indigenous_Peoples">apology to the Stolen Generations</a> from parliament house. Words which were so longed for from survivors and descendants of horrific government policies, and which echo through to today.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry. To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry. And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Scott Morrison’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2022/feb/14/australia-politics-news-live-scott-morrison-anthony-albanese-coronavirus-covid-omicron-weather-nsw-victoria-?CMP=share_btn_tw&page=with:block-6209aa378f082cb98bbaad4a#block-6209aa378f082cb98bbaad4a">speech today</a> on the anniversary of this momentous day made headlines for a different reason. Many have taken umbrage with this line: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sorry is not the hardest word to say. The hardest is ‘I forgive you’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Morrison almost demanding forgiveness belies a false understanding of both how apologies work, and the nature of what it is the government apologised, and is apologising, for. </p>
<p>The policies of the Stolen Generations were acts of government, designed to assimilate us and deprive us of culture. They are also actions which can be remedied by government. To frame the apology in this way is, as Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe tweeted, “outright disrespect”, and “not an apology”.</p>
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<h2>A stain upon the nation</h2>
<p>The Stolen Generations remain a national shame for this country. Over several decades, roughly <a href="https://healingfoundation.org.au/app/uploads/2021/05/Make-Healing-Happen-Report-FINAL-May-2021.pdf">one in five</a> First Nations children were taken from their families between 1910 and 1970, countless communities broken up, and our cultures forcibly suppressed. </p>
<p>In some jurisdictions such as Western Australia, the figure is over one in three First Nations children removed. Nationally, these generations and their descendants make up close to two in five First Nations people, according to a <a href="https://healingfoundation.org.au/make-healing-happen/">report</a> from The Healing Foundation.</p>
<p>The apology, which many thought would not come, and many sadly did not live to see, remains an important part of Australian and First Nations history. Finally the wrongs of the Stolen Generations were not only acknowledged by the government, but apologised for. The apology was, and shall remain, in the <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/lives-damaged-and-destroyed-pm-apologises-to-one-group/news-story/7efb10fdbe72a51f9ea2cf7e3b0a60b9">words</a> of Linda Burney, a “cultural moment shared by the country”.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Dild-xAzJ0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Kevin Rudd’s 2008 Apology to the Stolen Generations was a watershed moment.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/thirteen-years-after-sorry-too-many-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-children-are-still-being-removed-from-their-homes-159360">Thirteen years after 'Sorry', too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still being removed from their homes</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Apology not without dissent</h2>
<p>However, it is easy to remember the apology as a moment of national unity, free from dissent, which is not the case. John Howard, who proceeded Rudd as prime minister from 1996-2007, <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/from-the-archives-1998-thousands-say-sorry-but-not-pm-20210521-p57tyr.html">famously refused</a> such an apology, alongside other measures including a treaty, partly due to the practices of removal being “<a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/john-howard-has-criticised-kevin-rudd-s-2008-apology-to-the-stolen-generations/4cf0aa6f-e71e-4000-a39b-3cc22b641eec">believed to be in the best interests of the children concerned</a>”. </p>
<p>Howard has continued to defend this failure to issue an apology even decades later, declaring the apology “<a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/john-howard-says-kevin-rudd-s-national-apology-to-the-stolen-generations-was-an-an-empty-gesture/92b31fdd-ecdb-486a-b819-5e41e4dd4fd2">meaningless</a>” in a January interview. </p>
<p>Howard was of course, not present in the parliament in 2008, having lost his seat at the 2007 landslide election which saw Labor gain government. However, some members of the Liberal and National parties <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/libs-stage-boycott-as-nelson-heckled-20080214-gds0zo.html">boycotted the event</a>, including controversial former MP Sophie Mirabella, and most notably current Defence Minister Peter Dutton, both of whom have <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/qanda/conservatives-comedians-and-political-correctness/10662980">defended their boycott of the apology</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-nations-children-are-still-being-removed-at-disproportionate-rates-cultural-assumptions-about-parenting-need-to-change-169090">First Nations children are still being removed at disproportionate rates. Cultural assumptions about parenting need to change</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Action needed to write the wrongs of the past</h2>
<p>For those survivors of the Stolen Generations, and their descendants, the effects of these policies are ongoing, and not confined merely to the removal of children and the destruction of families. </p>
<p>The trauma and pain of these policies, and of being disconnected from country, culture, and community, extends down to their children, and their children’s children. </p>
<p>According to The Healing Foundation’s <a href="https://healingfoundation.org.au/make-healing-happen/">Make Healing Happen report from 2021</a>, Stolen Generations survivors are more likely to not own a home, have worse finances, have experienced violence, suffer from a disability, and to have a criminal record. </p>
<p>Additionally, rates of child removal in Australia have continued to rise over the last decade, with First Nations children <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2021/12/09/theyre-unacceptable-rates-removal-indigenous-children-increasing">ten times more likely</a> to be removed, with over 21,000 in out of home care as of December 2021. This number is projected to increase by a further 54% by 2031. We are going in the wrong direction, and worse, we are doing very little about it. </p>
<p>All of these problems are fixable, and by the government. Presuming forgiveness on the part of those you have wronged, is not going to solve any of these issues. Indeed they are likely to have the opposite effect, reducing the ability of the government to engage with these communities, and impacting upon the mental and physical health of Stolen Generations survivors and their families. </p>
<p>What is needed is a national approach to healing, including reparations for survivors and their descendants (something the government has begun to <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2022/02/08/govt-broadens-eligibility-stolen-generation-reparations-1">deliver on</a>). However, increased services for ageing survivors and a national strategy addressing intergenerational effects of child removal are also needed.</p>
<p>In addition, there needs to be accountability going forward on current child removal practices, with an effort to reduce the number of First Nations children removed, and greater supports and structures for those who are, and a <a href="https://ulurustatement.org/">Voice for First Nations peoples</a> within our political system. </p>
<p>Action is a much greater apology than words. Forgiveness can only truly come when there is action. </p>
<p>Morrison’s comments today show he does not understand that. I’m not sure if he ever will.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177060/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Blackwell is a member of the Australian Greens, and a member of the Uluru Dialogue at UNSW.</span></em></p>Scott Morrison’s comments on the 14th anniversary of the Stolen Generations’ Apology show a lack of understanding of what is really needed to ensure healing for First Nations peoples.James Blackwell, Research Fellow (Indigenous Diplomacy), Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1755132022-01-28T04:34:23Z2022-01-28T04:34:23ZReunifying First Nations families: the only way to reduce the overrepresentation of children in out-of-home care<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442409/original/file-20220124-25-16l8gq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com.au/photos/aboriginal-family?assettype=image&license=rf&alloweduse=availableforalluses&agreements=pa%3A112117&family=creative&phrase=Aboriginal%20family&sort=best&page=2">Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are edging closer to another anniversary of Kevin Rudd’s National Apology to the Stolen Generations on February 13.</p>
<p>At the time of the National Apology in 2008, there were <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/research/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2018/community-services/child-protection/rogs-2018-partf-chapter16.pdf">9,070 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children</a> in out-of-home care in Australia. Today, that number has increased to approximately 18,900, with First Nations children representing <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/child-protection">more than 40%</a> of all children in out-of-home care.</p>
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<p>The Family Matters Report led by SNAICC <a href="https://www.familymatters.org.au/the-family-matters-report-2021/">estimated</a> that by 2030, the number of First Nations children in out-of-home care will more than double again without “profound and wholesale change to legislation, policy and practice”. </p>
<p>Australian governments are responding to this crisis at both the national and state levels. One of the <a href="https://www.closingthegap.gov.au/national-agreement">Closing the Gap</a> targets is to reduce the number of First Nations children in out-of-home care by 45% by 2031.</p>
<p>Most recently, <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/our-responsibilities/families-and-children/programs-services/protecting-australias-children">the national framework for supporting Australia’s children</a> prioritises addressing the overrepresentation of First Nations children in out-of-home care. </p>
<p>Likewise, all states and territories in Australia are also focusing on “permanency” outcomes to reduce the number of children living in out-of-home care.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-nations-families-need-support-to-stay-together-before-we-create-another-stolen-generation-159131">First Nations families need support to stay together, before we create another Stolen Generation</a>
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<h2>Permanency policies</h2>
<p>Permanency refers to recent changes in child protection legislation, policies and casework practice aimed at providing all children in care with a permanent, safe and stable home throughout their childhoods. </p>
<p>Permanency policies appear to be motivated by the best interests of children, but moving Aboriginal children to permanent care orders has a range of benefits for the state. Not only does it appear progress is being made towards reducing overrepresentation in out-of-home care, it also absolves child protection departments of any further financial, practical or moral responsibility to these children or their families.</p>
<p>Of significant concern is these permanency policies do not necessarily mean these children will return to their families. Rather, it means many will move out of the care system through guardianship or adoption. </p>
<p>Under permanency policies, parents must prove within two years of their child’s removal they can address the child protection department’s safety concerns for their child, otherwise these other options <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/c3b0e267-bd63-4b91-9ea6-9fa4d14c688c/aihw-cws-78.pdf.aspx?inline=true">will be pursued</a>. </p>
<p>Aboriginal community-controlled organisations and advocates strongly oppose permanent care orders that result in the adoption of First Nations children or their guardianship by non-Aboriginal carers. They also argue this two-year timeframe is unrealistic for parents struggling to navigate a range of interpersonal, social and bureaucratic systems to meet the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Social_Policy_and_Legal_Affairs/Localadoption/Submissions">department’s requirements</a> to have their children returned.</p>
<p>Child reunification (also called restoration) is the process of returning children to their parent or caregiver from out-of-home care following a statutory removal. Across all states and territories in Australia, reunification is the <a href="https://www.supportingcarers.snaicc.org.au/rights-of-the-child/reunification/">preferred policy pathway</a> for children exiting out-of-home care. </p>
<p>However, this is not reflected in child protection statistics, which show the number of exits to guardianship orders <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/c3b0e267-bd63-4b91-9ea6-9fa4d14c688c/aihw-cws-78.pdf.aspx?inline=true">increasing</a> from 18,919 children in 2017 to 21,523 in 2020.</p>
<p>In addition, of the 10,612 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children for whom restoration was a possibility in 2019-20, <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/c3b0e267-bd63-4b91-9ea6-9fa4d14c688c/aihw-cws-78.pdf.aspx?inline=true">only 14.8% were returned home</a>.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/thirteen-years-after-sorry-too-many-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-children-are-still-being-removed-from-their-homes-159360">Thirteen years after 'Sorry', too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still being removed from their homes</a>
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<h2>First Nations families are set up to fail</h2>
<p>Current approaches to child reunification come from a perspective where parents are blamed for the problems leading to a child’s removal and preventing their return home. Their perceived failings are considered instead of the external factors that prevent children from returning to their families (and indeed contributed to their removal in the first place). </p>
<p>For example, research for the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute examined the intersections between housing and domestic and family violence experienced by First Nations women. This research <a href="https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/final-reports/320">found</a> homelessness and insecure housing played a significant role in preventing reunification for children who had been removed from their mothers.</p>
<p>Government departments also need to be held accountable when bureaucratic processes and poor decision-making prevent or delay children’s return home. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.familyisculture.nsw.gov.au/home">2019 Family is Culture Review</a> found a restoration rate of 17.5% of the 1,318 Aboriginal children taken into care in NSW in 2015-16. The review noted this rate could have been much higher if the NSW Department of Communities and Justice explored the possibility of more families being reunited in these cases and worked towards that goal. </p>
<p>Instead, children remained in out-of-home care or were moved to other permanency orders.</p>
<p>The review cited unclear reunification processes for these families. Parents were often dismissed and discriminated against by child protection services, and there was also as a pattern of mothers being too scared to report domestic violence for fear of having their children taken away. </p>
<p>The review also found impossible goals are set by child protection services for parents living with disability and disadvantage.</p>
<p>Inaccessible and inappropriate services are also barriers to parents achieving their reunification goals in the timeframes. These include securing housing or undergoing a mental health or rehabilitation treatment program, for which waitlists can be very long. </p>
<p>The National Apology was delivered to the many thousands of First Nations peoples impacted by the <a href="https://apo.org.au/node/4534">genocidal protection and assimilation policies</a> that dominated the 20th century in Australia. We like to think these harmful policies are behind us, but they have merely shifted to the guise of promoting a “<a href="https://caring.childstory.nsw.gov.au/support-for-carers/a-safe-home-for-life/chapters/types-of-placements">permanent home for life</a>” for Aboriginal children. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stolen-generation-redress-scheme-wont-reach-everyone-affected-by-the-policies-that-separated-families-166499">Stolen Generation redress scheme won't reach everyone affected by the policies that separated families</a>
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<p>If governments are truly committed to reducing the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care in a way that meets the needs of families and communities, then a whole-of-system approach is needed.</p>
<p>Parents cannot be expected to manage complex social and structural factors beyond their control. These external challenges should not keep children separated from their parents.</p>
<p>The focus on reducing the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care needs to shift. We need not be preoccupied with the number of children who leave care, but rather the ultimate goal of increasing the number of children returning home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>BJ Newton receives funding from the Australian Research Council to lead the research project 'Bring them home, keep them home: charting the experiences, successful pathways and outcomes of Aboriginal families whose children have been restored from Out-of-Home Care'. Aboriginal community-controlled organisations and AbSec partner on this research.
</span></em></p>As we edge closer to another anniversary of Kevin Rudd’s National Apology to the Stolen Generations, the number of First Nations children in out-of-home has increased.BJ Newton, Senior Research Fellow in Social Policy and Social Work, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1664992021-09-01T20:10:29Z2021-09-01T20:10:29ZStolen Generation redress scheme won’t reach everyone affected by the policies that separated families<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417535/original/file-20210824-15-86hovu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children display banners at the Redfern Community Centre after watching the live telecast of the formal Apology to the Stolen Generations.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.commons.wikimedia.org/">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article contains mentions of the Stolen Generations, and policies using outdated and potentially offensive terminology when referring to First Nations people.</em></p>
<p>There has been a long debate around whether First Nations people should be compensated for the past acts and conduct of settlers. Recently, the Commonwealth government created the Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme to compensate Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory and Jervis Bay Stolen Generations survivors. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nationalredress.gov.au/resources/information/territories-stolen-generations?gclid=CjwKCAjw9uKIBhA8EiwAYPUS3Kx2QenW2C_BucnNnbxigcpvRqW7E50LRl4zCg1BBp-1EU2ItF3Z5hoCHBsQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds">primary purpose</a> of the redress scheme is to</p>
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<p>help the Stolen Generations to heal the trauma from being forcibly removed from their family.</p>
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<p>The redress scheme <a href="https://www.nationalredress.gov.au/resources/information/territories-stolen-generations?gclid=CjwKCAjw9uKIBhA8EiwAYPUS3Kx2QenW2C_BucnNnbxigcpvRqW7E50LRl4zCg1BBp-1EU2ItF3Z5hoCHBsQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds">seeks to</a> specifically “recognise the harm and ongoing trauma of forced removal from family for Stolen Generations survivors” and “assist with the healing of this trauma for the Stolen Generations survivors”.</p>
<p>A way to consider the nature and purpose of any redress scheme is to reflect on whether reconciliation can be achieved through engaging with injustices of the past.</p>
<p>This redress scheme raises questions about the ability of Australia to address the needs of First Nations peoples. Australia still hasn’t properly compensated First Nations people after the recommendations of the <a href="https://apo.org.au/node/4534">Bringing Them Home report</a> 20 years ago. </p>
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<h2>Addressing past injustices</h2>
<p>Damage was created through injustices against First Nations people, and it is the legacy of this damage that Australia needs to address.</p>
<p>This legacy stems from the history of <a href="https://globalsocialtheory.org/concepts/settler-colonialism/">modern settler colonialism</a>, which is defined as </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a distinct type of colonialism that functions through the replacement of Indigenous populations with an invasive settler society that, over time, develops a distinctive identity and sovereignty. Settler colonial states include Canada, the United States, Australia, and South Africa.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-discovery-of-indigenous-childrens-bodies-in-canada-is-horrific-but-australia-has-similar-tragedies-its-yet-to-reckon-with-164706">The discovery of Indigenous children's bodies in Canada is horrific, but Australia has similar tragedies it's yet to reckon with</a>
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<p>In 1997, the Human Rights Commission issued the <a href="https://apo.org.au/node/4534">Bringing Them Home</a> report. This landmark document identified the intention of the removal policies was to destroy Aboriginal culture:</p>
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<p>one principal effect of the forcible removal policy was the destruction of cultural links. This was of course their declared aim.</p>
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<p>The report noted this practice was a form of genocide:</p>
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<p>When a child was forcibly removed that child’s entire community lost, often
permanently, its chance to perpetuate itself in that child. The inquiry has concluded that this was a primary objective of forcible removals and is the reason they amount to genocide. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>On this basis, federal and state governments have been well informed that policies imposed on First Nations people were genocidal in nature.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/morrison-government-sets-up-redress-scheme-for-survivors-of-stolen-generation-in-territories-165617">Morrison government sets up redress scheme for survivors of Stolen Generation in territories</a>
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<h2>Limitations of the recent redress scheme</h2>
<p>The redress scheme concedes the finding by the Bringing Them Home report that “most [Aboriginal] families have been affected in one or more generations, by the forcible removal of one or more children.” </p>
<p>However, there are limitations to this proposed scheme.</p>
<p>First, the Bringing them Home report is over 20 years old. It would have been more accurate to refer to a more recent report. Organisations such as <a href="https://healingfoundation.org.au/">The Healing Foundation</a> have created many recent reports while working with Stolen Generations survivors.</p>
<p>Second, the purpose behind the redress scheme is to provide financial compensation for the damage caused by the policies and actions impacting Stolen Generations survivors — but only in the territories. It raises questions about other states committing to compensating and providing redress for Stolen Generations survivors.</p>
<p>Third, the nature of trauma requires greater consideration. This ongoing trauma is not just the loss of immediate and extended family and community – but the disconnect from respective lands and culture. </p>
<p>Genocide affects more than one member of the family, and is carried on through generations. So, the issue of trauma suffered by Stolen Generations survivors and their descendants needs to be considered more broadly. </p>
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<h2>What government should do to help survivors</h2>
<p>Over the years, Stolen Generations survivors have attempted to seek justice through litigation, such as the case of <a href="http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA/2000/1084.html">Cubillo v Commonwealth</a>. This case sought redress and compensation for the past injustices of policies and practices designed to separate Lorna Cubillio and Peter Gunner from their families when they were children. </p>
<p>However, the High Court found the plaintiffs were not able to sue the Commonwealth for negligence, despite the abuse they endured. </p>
<p>A one-off payment to Stolen Generations survivors isn’t the best way to approach long-term and intergenerational trauma. It would be more effective to provide ongoing support for these survivors through culturally safe health services. It would also be more beneficial for the government to have discussions with Stolen Generations survivors and their families about their respective needs to heal.</p>
<p>This would need to include the consideration of trauma experienced by other Stolen Generations survivors who might not qualify under the eligibility criteria of the redress scheme. </p>
<p>For example, descendants of Stolen Generations are not covered by the redress scheme proposal, despite many of them being impacted by intergenerational trauma.</p>
<p>Australia has a colonial settler legacy, and its effects continue to cause suffering to the families who had their children taken from them. Most have yet to be recognised or compensated. These are the silent victims of policies designed to destroy their culture and the future of their families.</p>
<p>A just society would be able to engage with its past and not shy away from it. However, the colonial settler society of Australia is yet to fully face its past and the legacy of the foundations it was built on, as it struggles to comprehend the nature of a just society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166499/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lorna Cubillo was my Aunty. She was in the Retta Dixon Home with my Mother.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jim Morrison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Recently, the Commonwealth government created a redress scheme to compensate Stolen Generations survivors. But more needs to be done to address the trauma.Brendan Loizou, PhD Candidate, University of Technology SydneyJim Morrison, Managing Director, West Australian Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation, Indigenous KnowledgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1601682021-06-02T00:02:27Z2021-06-02T00:02:27ZCOVID-19 restrictions have left many Stolen Generations survivors more isolated without adequate support<p>Research undertaken by <a href="https://healingfoundation.org.au/">The Healing Foundation</a> has revealed that public health restrictions introduced to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia have had a significant impact on some Stolen Generations survivors, retriggering trauma among already vulnerable community members.</p>
<p><a href="https://healingfoundation.org.au/app/uploads/2021/04/HF_Impacts_of_COVID-19_on_Stolen_Generations_Survivors_Report_Apr2021_V5.pdf">The Healing Foundation’s report</a> outlines how the measures aimed at protecting Stolen Generations survivors instead had a devastating negative effect on their physical and mental health and wellbeing. This research presents input from 60 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders and Stolen Generations survivors.</p>
<p>The report provides data showing significant effects on survivors and their loved ones, including a heightened sense of vulnerability and increased disconnection from family, community, and Country. The report also found that 20% of Stolen Generation survivor respondents said they had no support during COVID-19, while only 58% reported having some support.</p>
<p>While it can be argued Australia’s response to the pandemic was largely successful when compared to other parts of the world, there are key lessons to be learned to prepare for future pandemics, especially for those most vulnerable in the community. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/thirteen-years-after-sorry-too-many-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-children-are-still-being-removed-from-their-homes-159360">Thirteen years after 'Sorry', too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still being removed from their homes</a>
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<h2>How restrictions impacted communities</h2>
<p>The Healing Foundation is a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisation that partners with communities to heal the trauma caused by the widespread and deliberate disruption of peoples, cultures, and languages over 230 years. This includes specific actions like the forced removal of children from their families.</p>
<p>Work done by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Group on COVID-19 ensured that infection rates were very low in First Nations populations. </p>
<p>Only <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2020/04/impact-of-covid-19-in-australia-ensuring-the-health-system-can-respond-summary-report.pdf">minor outbreaks in Aboriginal communities were recorded in Australia</a>, and they were quickly contained. But the COVID-19 restrictions disrupted many cultural, relational, and collective practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, which included collective healing activities.</p>
<p>Physical distancing put a hold on celebrations and ceremonies, including important and traditional family and cultural occasions like births and funerals.</p>
<p>Lockdowns meant survivors were disconnected from family for <a href="https://www.supportingcarers.snaicc.org.au/connecting-to-culture/sorry-business/">Sorry Business</a> and attending community gatherings like NAIDOC Week. Events such as <a href="https://www.reconciliation.org.au/national-sorry-day-2020/">the Apology anniversary</a> were cancelled, keeping people away from marking important cultural dates. </p>
<h2>Increased isolation and loneliness</h2>
<p>The devastating combination of isolation, loneliness, distance from family, and tight public health directions brought difficult memories back for some survivors of the Stolen Generations, retriggering their trauma.</p>
<p>Survivors highlighted the following findings across the 23 social and emotional wellbeing indicators that were surveyed:</p>
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<li><p>The vast majority said they had a significantly increased sense of isolation (more than 90% of respondents) and loneliness (more than 80%). A majority also reported having too much time on their own (65%) and feeling trapped in their own thoughts (more than 70%).</p></li>
<li><p>More than 90% reported feeling disconnected from family, community, and culture, while 77% felt disconnected from Country. This is concerning given the degree to which connection to family, community, culture, and Country enhances health and wellbeing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, especially for Stolen Generations survivors and descendants.</p></li>
<li><p>Two-thirds of respondents reported a decline in their physical health and a decreased ability to cope with stress during COVID-19, while 75% reported a decline in their mental health and wellbeing.</p></li>
<li><p>Importantly, 66% of respondents said the degree to which they felt safe was impacted by COVID-19, and more than 75% were worried about not being able to get places. Half of respondents said they were worried about not being able to get to a doctor/hospital and/or access the services they require.</p></li>
<li><p>And three-quarters experienced an increase in family responsibilities and 70% an increase in cultural responsibilities. Alongside this, more than 90% of respondents experienced stress being placed on important relationships.</p></li>
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<p>
<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-for-australia-to-drop-its-phased-approach-to-the-vaccine-rollout-161584">It's time for Australia to drop its phased approach to the vaccine rollout</a>
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<h2>How governments can do better</h2>
<p>This research undertaken by the Marumali Program on behalf of The Healing Foundation should assist governments and the broader public health sector to plan for future pandemics and build on Australia’s world-leading response.</p>
<p>It has also raised some important questions, such as how can we use technology and social media to not only communicate important public health messages but also feelings of isolation? Or how can Stolen Generations survivors use technology to connect with family, community, culture, and Country?</p>
<p>Technology is just one area for consideration. But what happens when future restrictions have a negative impact on a survivor’s healing journey? And what strategies or policies can help to support such unavoidable effects?</p>
<p>Researchers Shaan Peeters and Dr John Prince hope the study will lead governments to undertake further analysis to assess the needs, risks, and vulnerabilities of Stolen Generations survivors and their descendants into the future. </p>
<p>Stolen Generations survivors have long told us what they need to heal. Now, we need to understand what they require as Australia emerges from the pandemic and finds its way to a new normal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160168/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor Steven Larkin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a survey of Stolen Generation survivors, two-thirds reported a decline in their physical health as a result of COVID restrictions, while 75% reported a decline in their mental health and wellbeing.Professor Steven Larkin, Chief Executive Officer, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary EducationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1593602021-05-25T19:36:30Z2021-05-25T19:36:30ZThirteen years after ‘Sorry’, too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still being removed from their homes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400986/original/file-20210517-15-kr9r9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Big Elders meetings are conducted annually in Perth as part of community consultation and governance for the Ngulluk Koolunga Ngulluk Koort (Our Children Our Heart) project.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Provided by author</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On February 13, 2008, then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-02-13/cheers-tears-as-rudd-says-sorry/1041628">we are sorry</a>” to members of the Stolen Generations. This was a significant moment in the shameful history of Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. </p>
<p><a href="https://info.australia.gov.au/about-australia/our-country/our-people/apology-to-australias-indigenous-peoples">The Apology</a> represented a formal acknowledgement that the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children was based on racist policies that caused unspeakable harm to our communities. </p>
<p>Children were forced off their lands. They were disconnected from their kin, Country, traditional languages and culture.</p>
<p>Today on Sorry Day, 13 years since the Apology, our Elders, families and communities still grieve these losses. And many families are being repeatedly traumatised by <a href="https://www.familymatters.org.au/the-issue/">contemporary child removal practices</a>. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are nearly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/16/alarming-rate-removal-of-australias-indigenous-children-escalating-report-warns">10 times more likely</a> than non-Indigenous children to be in out-of-home care.</p>
<p>To find new ways to confront this problem and promote community-identified solutions, the Ngulluk Koolunga Ngulluk Koort (Our Children, Our Heart) project conducted consultations with over 100 Elders and senior Aboriginal community members in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajs4.160">Perth</a>. </p>
<p>The Elders and community members repeatedly expressed concerns they were not being consulted or included in decisions being made about child protection interventions. </p>
<h2>Families still being separated</h2>
<p>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children have a right to be kept safe and free from harm. Removing them from their families has been proven to have <a href="https://bth.humanrights.gov.au/the-report">devastating consequences</a>. They are vulnerable to a lifetime of grief and loss, shattered identities, poor health outcomes and <a href="https://www.familyisculture.nsw.gov.au/?a=726329">intergenerational trauma</a>.</p>
<p>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families involved with the child protection system represent some of the most marginalised and stigmatised members of our community. We are witnessing child removals across multiple generations, yet policymakers are not making connections between the past harms of the Stolen Generations and the current problems families are experiencing.</p>
<p>This leaves little room to redress the harm that past policies have inflicted. </p>
<p>We need a new strategy for creating a <a href="http://www.powertopersuade.org.au/blog/child-protection-4-pillars-of-institutional-justice-capital">more responsive and just child protection system</a>. </p>
<p>This requires a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14407833211010220">public debate</a> about the thresholds for child removal and for clearly defining what it means to be a “good enough” parent to maintain guardianship of a child. And we need to reassess what actually constitutes <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13698575.2020.1828303">risky parenting</a>. </p>
<p>There is a lack of national leadership and coordinated, inclusive and culturally secure practice in the child protection system. Decisions are no longer made explicitly based on race, but there are <a href="https://www.familymatters.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FamilyMattersReport2020_LR.pdf">enduring problems</a> with how the actions taken by authorities affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-nations-families-need-support-to-stay-together-before-we-create-another-stolen-generation-159131">First Nations families need support to stay together, before we create another Stolen Generation</a>
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<h2>The role of Elders bringing families together</h2>
<p>In the Ngulluk Koolunga Ngulluk Koort project, most of the Elders were either part of the Stolen Generations themselves, or have directly experienced the effects of that era. </p>
<p>They called for a recognition of the harm these past policies caused, and for this to be used as a foundation for formulating future policies and practices. They highlighted the deep distrust of “the welfare” (child protection services) that continues to flow through communities. </p>
<p>The Elders also discussed the ongoing disregard of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajs4.160">child placement principle</a>. <a href="https://www.familymatters.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FamilyMattersReport2020_LR.pdf">Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are disproportionately</a> being placed with non-Indigenous carers, despite the placement principle’s recommendation against this. </p>
<p>As part of the project, the <a href="https://www.telethonkids.org.au/our-research/brain-and-behaviour/mental-health-and-youth/aboriginal-health-and-wellbeing/ngulluk-koolunga-ngulluk-koort/elder-co-researchers/">Elder co-researchers</a> developed <a href="https://www.telethonkids.org.au/contentassets/2d5a0f1c3a26453c9d209614bc2ac4b7/nknk-recommendations-child-protection-removal-.pdf">principles and practice recommendations</a> of their own. </p>
<p>These call for child protection services to harness resources from the vast social networks that exist in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and communicate respectfully with these community members. By doing this, trust can begin to be restored to families and damaged relationships can begin to heal. Hope can be cultivated, and the need for removing children in the future can be reduced.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402477/original/file-20210525-23-1hmsyc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two elders and a young child at Christmas time." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402477/original/file-20210525-23-1hmsyc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402477/original/file-20210525-23-1hmsyc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402477/original/file-20210525-23-1hmsyc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402477/original/file-20210525-23-1hmsyc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402477/original/file-20210525-23-1hmsyc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402477/original/file-20210525-23-1hmsyc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402477/original/file-20210525-23-1hmsyc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Child protection services need to consider the potential role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders in offering solutions that avoids separating families.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com.au/">Julieanne Birch/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What the Elders call for resonates with the concept of <a href="https://31c5ba79-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/valeriebraithwaite/home/pdf/Responsive%20Regulation%20Edition%202009.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7crXeVwJQLcOn4ntFtPTMMAibdzvbGSd6rfA_0Hk2_sISXmwmmPx2xNHBLYMmrSoedUUnI8aLBf_mf3iXYd2-iAgzP6SVv6UyLFMyMpeTZKtuQEbnhYOu3VQi_zgYJSQ0fkklo2xWESQmi3lT2nY-_pWPtQBVtOgTNexASocsTVFduTMtYeZawd_M7bpIpt-RrmmoHbNQgDXUOoMFdKCzbrPtxXKdeiVfbywJZbPU1uRPw7ABsDdcvJVERkPlP0QOyeU_anIQAZNifsv40lP9eTZqqOXBg%3D%3D&attredirects=0">responsive regulation</a>. This means that regulators — in this case the child protection authority — need to take into account the cultures, behaviours and environments of the people they are regulating. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-i-am-anxious-to-have-my-children-home-recovering-letters-of-love-written-for-noongar-children-127809">Friday essay: ‘I am anxious to have my children home’: recovering letters of love written for Noongar children</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Responsive regulation promotes restorative practices that are relationship-centred and geared toward solving problems. These practices involve future-focused conversations that draw on the skills and insights that exist in communities.</p>
<p>Principles of responsive regulation and those developed by the Elders offer a counter-balance to the current formalistic approaches of child protection services, such as mandatory reporting, forensic investigations, court hearings, timelines for termination of parental rights, and the adoption of children in care. </p>
<p>Nationally, we need a greater commitment to using family group conferencing forums that prioritise <a href="https://www.supportingcarers.snaicc.org.au/rights-of-the-child/family-group-conferencing/">Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander decision-making</a>.</p>
<p>Elders have deep knowledge from lived experience and their voices must be heard. Their principles and practice recommendations, as well as their values and beliefs about <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/children-australia/article/abs/raising-strong-solid-koolunga-values-and-beliefs-about-early-child-development-among-perths-aboriginal-community/2C8E620069F6FBE5F3ED13F4F39A61DA">raising strong children</a>, give us a pathway to positive change. </p>
<p>The Elders advocate community-led, place-based solutions to child protection concerns. They stress this is the only way we can move forward and repair the harms from past policies that have wreaked havoc in our communities. We must do better for our children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159360/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brad Farrant receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and Lotterywest. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Maslen and Sharynne Hamilton do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We need to stop taking Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children out of their homes and listen to elders instead.Sharynne Hamilton, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Aboriginal Health, Telethon Kids InstituteBrad Farrant, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in Early Childhood Development, The University of Western AustraliaSarah Maslen, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1591312021-05-14T05:47:14Z2021-05-14T05:47:14ZFirst Nations families need support to stay together, before we create another Stolen Generation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400693/original/file-20210514-23-h2huie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Child protection services must be culturally safe and responsive to the Aboriginal children and families they serve.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com.au/">Jodie Griggs / Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) children are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.01.017">disproportionately being removed</a> from their families and placed into out-of-home care, raising concerns of another <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/stolen-generations">Stolen Generation</a>. </p>
<p>One of the main reasons is reporting to child protection services before a child is born, with separation of infants from their parents shortly after birth. This is a national crisis reflecting systemic failures, discrimination, impacts of colonisation and harmful policies, including the <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/stolen-generations">Stolen Generations</a>. </p>
<p>We must take meaningful steps to enshrine the full intent of the <a href="https://www.snaicc.org.au/">Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care’s</a> <a href="https://www.snaicc.org.au/reviewing-implementation-of-the-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-child-placement-principle-2020/">Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle</a> in legislation and implementation in practice.</p>
<h2>Another Stolen Generation</h2>
<p>In 2018-19, one in five First Nations children removed into out-of-home care was less than one year old. The same year, First Nations infants were removed at a <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/child-protection/child-protection-australia-2018-19/summary">rate of 44.1 per 1,000</a> – nine times that of non-Indigenous infants. </p>
<p>This represents failed progress towards the <a href="https://www.closingthegap.gov.au/closing-gap-targets-and-outcomes">Closing the Gap target</a> to reduce over-representation of First Nations children in out-of-home care by 45% by 2031. Rather, the gap is widening and urgent reforms are needed.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.familyisculture.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/726329/Family-Is-Culture-Review-Report.pdf">Professor Megan Davis questions</a> whether Australia is meeting its obligations as a United Nations member and signatory to the <a href="https://www.unicef.org.au/our-work/information-for-children/un-convention-on-the-rights-of-the-child">UN Convention on the Rights of the Child</a>. As she wrote,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Maintaining the best interests of the child and the integrity of Indigenous families and communities should be primary considerations in development, social families and health and education programmes.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Fear of child protection services</h2>
<p>Child protection “risk assessment” guidelines are <a href="https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/INFORMIT.167881515261979">driving increased notifications</a> from health services. These <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213417300078">can be triggered</a> by parental homelessness, previous involvement with child protection services (as a child or adult), mental ill-health, young parenthood, cognitive impairment, substance use or family violence.</p>
<p>Prenatal child protection notifications are made to ensure families get support. However, fear of child protection services is a <a href="https://20ian81kynqg38bl3l3eh8bf-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/AT.19.03_Langton_RR-FVsupport-Women.pdf">barrier to this support</a>. Many “risk factors” are <a href="https://www.familymatters.org.au/the-family-matters-report-2020/">directly related</a> to socio-economic deprivation, inadequate access to the social aspects of health, and systemic discrimination. </p>
<p>Child protection responses are often punitive, removing an infant if the mother cannot comply with directives. </p>
<p>For example, identifying family violence is crucial, but notifications can be used as an additional <a href="https://www.anrows.org.au/media-releases/barriers-preventing-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-women-from-reporting-family-violence/">threat against mothers by their perpertrators</a> in coercive relationships. Child protection involvement is then experienced as further (systemic) violence, rather than care. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bps.org.uk/sites/www.bps.org.uk/files/Policy/Policy%20-%20Files/PTM%20Summary.pdf">Increasing fear</a> of losing a baby is likely to discourage women from disclosing domestic violence to welfare workers, putting lives at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0225441">greater risk</a>. Responses to threats (for example, fight, flight or freeze) can also negatively affect <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3493169/">maternal and fetal health</a> and behaviour. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/victorias-truth-telling-commission-to-move-forward-we-need-to-answer-for-the-legacies-of-colonisation-156746">Victoria's truth-telling commission: to move forward, we need to answer for the legacies of colonisation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Lack of culturally safe support for families</h2>
<p>In a <a href="https://cope.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/COPE_Mapping-Project_WEB.pdf">survey of perinatal health care workers</a>, 98% reported that trauma, stress and grief significantly impacted First Nations parents - yet only 43% were not satisfied their service could address these issues. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.familyisculture.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/726329/Family-Is-Culture-Review-Report.pdf">Other issues that need to be addressed</a> include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a lack of culturally safe support for mothers before or after they are separated from their child. Some babies are removed shortly after birth without the mother even being told this was being considered</p></li>
<li><p>a lack of transparency, accountability and documentation by child protection services.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These systemic failures lead to immeasurable pain for First Nations families. They can also exacerbate <a href="https://www.telethonkids.org.au/globalassets/media/documents/aboriginal-health/working-together-second-edition/wt-part-4-chapt-17-final.pdf">intergenerational trauma</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/DU:30090847/magnus-controlledtrial-2016.pdf">Outcomes for children admitted to out-of-home care</a> in Australia are poor. A <a href="https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/321728/research_wards_leavingcare2.pdf">study</a> of young people leaving this mode of care reported nearly 50% attempted suicide within four years. </p>
<p>Children removed from their parents often also experience:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>lifelong interactions with child protection and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5142401/">justice systems</a></p></li>
<li><p>entrenched disadvantage and institutionalisation</p></li>
<li><p>disconnection from culture, community and family.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The high costs of out-of-home care could be better <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/car.1192">invested</a> in preventing family disruption.</p>
<h2>A better way forward</h2>
<p>Becoming a parent is a time of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0225441">optimism and hope</a>, offering an opportunity to transform vicious cycles of intergenerational trauma into reinforcing cycles of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/car.1192">nurturing, love and healing</a>. </p>
<p>This relates to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.4458">parental brain development</a> fostering “connectedness”, which is central to the <a href="https://www.telethonkids.org.au/globalassets/media/documents/aboriginal-health/working-together-second-edition/wt-part-1-chapt-4-final.pdf">social and emotional wellbeing</a> of First Nations people.</p>
<p>Health care services specialise in complex physical health issues (for example, caring for pre-term babies). Yet, complex social and emotional health issues are classified as “risk factors” and parents are referred to child protection services for “support”, despite mental health and other expertise being available.</p>
<p>According to the World Health Organisation, <a href="https://www.who.int/about/who-we-are/constitution#:%7E:text=Health%20is%20a%20state%20of,belief%2C%20economic%20or%20social%20condition">health is</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Health care services must develop expertise and resource capacity to address social and emotional complexity - including cultural expertise and ways of talking about sensitive issues. This might include <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/py/py16051">yarning</a>, <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02014/full">storytelling</a> and deep listening, or <a href="https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/INFORMIT.732386012034745">dadirri</a>.</p>
<p>Child protection notifications should only be made when concerns remain about risks to the child after support is provided. Child protection support should then be provided in partnership with health care services. Decisions must be transparent, with professional review, research and evaluation to foster expertise. </p>
<h2>Principles to follow</h2>
<p>The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle provides an organising framework to coordinate efforts, ensuring a comprehensive response with First Nations children and families at the centre. </p>
<p><strong>Examples under the placement principle could include</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><p>prevention: enabling universal access to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2021.03.011">culturally safe</a> care</p></li>
<li><p>partnership: a community-driven <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-028397">co-design</a> of an appropriate model</p></li>
<li><p>placement: ensuring all families requiring support can access alternative options to removal (such as <a href="https://bubupwilam.org.au/">full-time childcare support</a> and <a href="https://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/mo-te-puni-kokiri/our-stories-and-media/he-korowai-trust-providing-ordinary-services-in-an">supported family accommodation</a>)</p></li>
<li><p>participation: honest, transparent interactions with parents — no baby should be removed without prior authentic discussions</p></li>
<li><p>connection: if child safety concerns still remain, efforts must be made to preserve connections to family, community, culture and Country. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>These connections are essential elements for First Nations people’s cultural, social and emotional wellbeing. The welfare of parents must also be considered. Too often parents are left alone, without support, following the removal of their baby.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-children-are-leaving-out-of-home-care-to-uncertain-futures-this-is-the-support-they-need-143906">Indigenous children are leaving out-of-home care to uncertain futures. This is the support they need</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Child protection services must be culturally safe and responsive to the First Nations children and families they serve. Grounded on these foundations, the <a href="https://www.familymatters.org.au/">Family Matters Building Blocks</a> provide an evidence-informed framework, emphasising all families enjoy access to high quality, culturally safe universal and targeted family supports. </p>
<p>This is aimed at ensuring children can thrive, and are best developed and delivered by First Nations communities themselves. </p>
<p>In this <a href="https://www.familymatters.org.au/week-action/">SNAICC Family Matters National Week of Action</a>, we argue over-representation of First Nations children in out-of-home care is not accidental, and we are calling for change to support families to stay together from the start.</p>
<p>We can do this better – and we must.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Those interested in joining the Family Matters campaign can find more information <a href="https://www.familymatters.org.au/week-action/">here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Correction: this article originally stated Indigenous children are increasingly being removed from their families rather than disproportionately</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Chamberlain receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council as a Career Development Fellow, and Lead Investigator on the Healing the Past by Nurturing the Future project. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Birri O'Dea receives funding from the Australian Government (Research Training Program Scholarship) and the Alison Mary Jackson and Nancy Rosemary Kingsland Scholarship as part of her PhD Candidature.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacynta Krakouer received funding from the Australian Government (Research Training Program Scholarship) as part of her PhD candidature. She is also affiliated with SNAICC and is a member of the SNAICC Family Matters Leadership Group.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Milroy receives funding from the Million Minds Mental Health Research Mission, Telethon Trust, and Perth Children's Hospital Foundation. Helen is a board member of Young Lives Matter, Gayaa Dhuwi Proud Spirit Australia and Beyond Blue and is a Commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Gray is co-chair of the Family Matters campaign - a national campaign led by SNAICC - National voice for our children, to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people grow up safe and cared for in family, community, and culture. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council investigating effective restoration practice and consults on child protection systems and practice. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Elliott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are increasingly being removed from their families and placed into out-of-home care, raising concerns of another Stolen Generation.Catherine Chamberlain, Associate Professor Indigenous Health Equity, La Trobe UniversityAlison Elliott, La Trobe UniversityBirri O'Dea, Charles Darwin UniversityDr Jacynta Krakouer, Associate lecturer, The University of MelbourneHelen Milroy, Professor & Director, Centre for Aboriginal Medical and Dental Health (CAMDH), The University of Western AustraliaPaul Gray, Associate professor, Jumbunna Insitute for Indigenous Education and Research, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1439062020-09-02T01:07:34Z2020-09-02T01:07:34ZIndigenous children are leaving out-of-home care to uncertain futures. This is the support they need<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355709/original/file-20200901-16-1taok9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Black Lives Matter protests have highlighted concerns about white-dominated systems and structures and the oppression of Indigenous people. Most notable is the high rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-black-lives-matter-protests-must-continue-an-urgent-appeal-by-marcia-langton-143914">deaths in custody</a>. </p>
<p>Another less-publicised but equally significant concern is the large number of Indigenous children in out-of-home care. This is currently <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/child-protection/child-protection-australia-2018-19/contents/table-of-contents">estimated</a> at 18,000 children — more than one-third of children in the system. </p>
<p>An estimated 1,140 Indigenous young people <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/child-protection/child-protection-australia-2018-19/data">leave out-of-home care annually</a>, but state and territory governments provide limited assistance to them to transition to independent adulthood or reconnect with their culture and community.</p>
<p>There are several factors that help explain the large number of Indigenous children in out-of-home care. Many of these are rooted in past policies of <a href="https://australianstogether.org.au/discover/australian-history/stolen-generations#:%7E:text=various%20government%20policies.-,Between%201910%20and%20the%201970s*%2C%20many%20First%20Nations%20children%20were,known%20as%20the%20Stolen%20Generations.">forced removal of children</a> from their homes, which caused inter-generational trauma for many Indigenous communities and resulted in enduring socio-economic disadvantage. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/a364d8f1-eeee-43c3-b91e-0fb31ebecf30/AIHW214-Children-and-Stolen-Generation.pdf.aspx?inline=true">research</a> on children living in households with members of the Stolen Generations has found they experience a range of adverse outcomes, such as poor health, high stress and frequent non-attendance at school. </p>
<p>On a positive note, the <a href="https://www.familymatters.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/1097_F.M-2019_LR.%C6%92.pdf">over-representation</a> of Indigenous children in out-of-home care <a href="https://www.snaicc.org.au/media-release-snaicc-welcomes-new-national-agreement-on-closing-the-gap-to-strengthen-outcomes-for-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-children-and-families/">has recently been included</a> in the new Closing the Gap targets, with an aim to reduce the rate by 45% by 2031.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355917/original/file-20200901-14-1y8kqkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355917/original/file-20200901-14-1y8kqkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355917/original/file-20200901-14-1y8kqkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355917/original/file-20200901-14-1y8kqkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355917/original/file-20200901-14-1y8kqkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355917/original/file-20200901-14-1y8kqkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355917/original/file-20200901-14-1y8kqkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The new Closing the Gap targets have set an ambitious goal for reducing the number of children in out-of-home care.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lack of basic data on Indigenous children in care</h2>
<p>Little is known about the experiences of Indigenous children in out-of-home care, or the effectiveness of existing services to support their transition to adulthood. </p>
<p>Young people transitioning from out-of-home care (known as “care leavers”) are generally a vulnerable group due to their difficult childhoods, problematic experiences in care and accelerated transitions to adulthood. On top of that, many Indigenous care leavers face dislocation from culture and kinship structures, as well as racism.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-are-indigenous-children-ten-times-more-likely-to-be-living-in-out-of-home-care-54825">FactCheck Q&A: are Indigenous children ten times more likely to be living in out-of-home care?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There is even a lack of clarity about the number of Indigenous young people leaving out-of-home care each year. It appears Indigenous youth make up <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/85b26773-ab40-4441-8c2d-ef9b56163d2e/aihw-cws-74-data-tables.xlsx.aspx">about one-third of all children leaving care</a>, but there are discrepancies between the figures provided by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the states and territories. </p>
<p>It is also uncertain whether this data includes young people who return to live with their families, as well as those who transition into so-called “independent adulthood”. </p>
<p>As a first step, we need a nationally consistent system for collecting this data in order to adequately address their needs.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1267244200359350272"}"></div></p>
<h2>Lack of support, cultural planning and life skills</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://apo.org.au/node/307306">national study</a> of Indigenous care leavers has identified major deficits in our existing support services, programs and policies to help them, too. </p>
<p>Firstly, there is little funding specifically set aside for these young people, despite the widespread recognition of their unique cultural needs and disadvantages. </p>
<p>Only Victoria and Queensland allocate specific funding to Aboriginal community-controlled organisations to deliver leaving care services to Indigenous children so they can develop cultural connections and access housing, health services, education, training and employment.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/another-stolen-generation-looms-unless-indigenous-women-fleeing-violence-can-find-safe-housing-123526">Another stolen generation looms unless Indigenous women fleeing violence can find safe housing</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/science/article/pii/S0190740919315099/pdfft?md5=dcb166ceb07d3d14b70ff1d43d79c3ea&pid=1-s2.0-S0190740919315099-main.pdf">International research</a> shows that providing Indigenous young people with connections to culture and community can help make transitions from care much smoother.</p>
<p>Yet, in Australia, we found many Indigenous youth either do not have transition plans when exiting care, or the plans are inadequate. This contributes to poor outcomes for these care leavers, including a risk of homelessness and imprisonment. For young women, there is also the threat of family violence, early pregnancy and removal of their children.</p>
<p>Many Indigenous youth also prefer to live with family members rather than live alone. So, another challenge for Indigenous care leavers is accessing stable and affordable housing that is culturally appropriate. </p>
<p>And many young people exit care and take on responsibilities, such as caring for younger siblings or other family members, without having acquired basic independent living skills, such as cooking and budgeting. Many also struggle to access education and employment. </p>
<h2>How can we better help Indigenous care leavers?</h2>
<p>So, what does a good transition plan look like? We’ve arrived at several recommendations: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>commence as early as possible, starting as young as 12 to 15 years old</p></li>
<li><p>target independent living skills such as cooking, cleaning and budgeting</p></li>
<li><p>support relationships with wider social and community networks</p></li>
<li><p>include key transition areas, such as education, employment and housing, plus a strong connection to culture. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>It is highly preferable that Aboriginal community-controlled organisations be responsible for transition plans as they understand Indigenous youths’ cultural needs. These organisations need to be funded proportionately to develop effective leaving care programs.</p>
<p>Additionally, there is a strong belief the <a href="https://www.communityservices.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/1306594/Discussion-Paper-transition-from-out-of-home-care-to-adulthood-FINAL.pdf">National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children</a> should include a new commissioner for Indigenous youth to oversee a national strategy for care leavers. This strategy should also adhere to the <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/enhancing-implementation-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-child/aboriginal-and">Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child placement principle</a>. </p>
<p>Lastly, greater emphasis should be placed on early, supportive intervention for Indigenous families to prevent the removal of children in the first place, or to enhance the prospects of children’s reunification with their families at a much younger age.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/child-protection-report-lacks-crucial-national-detail-on-abuse-in-out-of-home-care-93008">Child protection report lacks crucial national detail on abuse in out-of-home care</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143906/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phillip Mendes receives funding from Sidney Myer Fund, Australian Research Council, and Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bernadette Saunders receives funding from the Sidney Myer Fund and the Australian Institute of Criminology.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacinta Walsh receives funding from the Sidney Myer Fund. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Standfield receives funding from Sidney Myer Fund, the Australian Research Council, and the Wurundjeri Woi wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samone McCurdy receives funding from the Sidney Myer Fund</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lena Turnbull does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our study of Indigenous young people leaving out-of-home care has identified major deficits in programs designed to help them transition to adulthood.Phillip Mendes, Associate Professor, Director Social Inclusion and Social Policy Research Unit, Monash UniversityBernadette Josephine Saunders, Senior Lecturer Social Work, Monash UniversityJacinta Walsh, PhD student, Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash UniversityLena Turnbull, Research Assistant, Monash UniversityRachel Standfield, Lecturer in Indigenous Studies, The University of MelbourneSamone McCurdy, Deputy Head of Department/ Senior Lecturer Researcher, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1304582020-02-19T05:34:19Z2020-02-19T05:34:19ZIndigenous pain and protest written in the history of signatures<p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains the names and voices of deceased people.</em> </p>
<p>When was the last time you signed your name? Perhaps you are more familiar with the frustrations of trying to insert a digital image of your cursive signature into an inadequate space in a PDF document? You have probably used a Personal Identification Number, a digital fingerprint, your finger or a stylus on an electronic pad. </p>
<p>In European contexts, the signature is a performative act with a <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/03/when-did-we-start-signing-our-names-to-authenticate-documents.html">long history</a>. In medieval times, rather than signing a name, people placed hands on a bible, uttered oaths, broke objects, signed the cross or exchanged a lock of hair. From these non-documentary forms, the signature developed as a form of validation to transform a written document into a legal action. It became standard practice in the 17th century – a compulsory addition to legal documents, even if the signatory was illiterate. </p>
<iframe src="https://webplayer.whooshkaa.com/episode/575856?theme=light&visual=true&enable-volume=true" height="190" width="100%" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay"></iframe>
<h2>Legal history</h2>
<p>Despite its significance, there has been little judicial guidance to defining the signature. </p>
<p>In Australia and the United Kingdom, courts have accepted different types of signatures, from seal imprints to rubber stamps, fingerprints, initials, a partial signature, words other than a name, a trade name, printed names as well as the traditional handwritten signature. More recently, signatures appearing on faxes, PDFs and on emails have all been accepted as valid. </p>
<p>Signatures are evidence of the will or intent of the person signing and provide insight into the history of legal documents. </p>
<p>In 2000, the Federal Court of Australia decided a thumbprint was a signature that proved a mother’s consent to the removal of her child. <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/their-day-in-court-20130526-2n51u.html">Peter Gunner and Lorna Cubillo</a>, members of the <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/research/finding-your-family/before-you-start/stolen-generations">Stolen Generations</a>, sued the federal government <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2000/1084.html?context=1;query=cubillo;mask_path=au/cases/cth/FCA">seeking compensation</a> for the harm they suffered as a result of being taken away from their families and sent to residential schools. </p>
<h2>Taken from Utopia</h2>
<p>Peter Gunner was seven years old in 1956 when he was taken from his home at Utopia, in the Northern Territory. </p>
<p>A significant, and notorious, piece of evidence in the case was a document titled Form of Consent by a Parent. This was a proforma document, phrased as a request that Gunner be taken away to St Mary’s Hostel and given a Western education. </p>
<p>On the bottom of the form there is a thumb or fingerprint and the name of Gunner’s mother, Topsy Kundrilba. On the basis of this evidence, the court concluded Gunner had been removed at his mother’s request.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316045/original/file-20200218-10995-11735l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316045/original/file-20200218-10995-11735l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316045/original/file-20200218-10995-11735l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316045/original/file-20200218-10995-11735l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316045/original/file-20200218-10995-11735l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316045/original/file-20200218-10995-11735l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316045/original/file-20200218-10995-11735l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316045/original/file-20200218-10995-11735l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yirrkala Bark Petition, 1963.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Signatures appear on other legal documents involving Indigenous people in Australia, such as petitions where they are signs of political action. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/collections/collections-online/digitised-collections/yirrkala-bark-petitions-1963">Yirrkala Bark Petitions</a> were sent in August 1963 to both houses of federal parliament by the Yolngu people living in the area of Yirrkala, Arnhem Land. The petition followed the granting of mining leases without any consultation with the people of Yirrkala. </p>
<p>These petitions are cross-cultural documents written in both Yolngu Matha and English. They follow the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/House_of_Representatives/Powers_practice_and_procedure/00_-_Infosheets/Infosheet_20_-_The_Australian_system_of_government">Westminster form</a> and are presented on painted bark boards depicting country. The petitions protested the excision of land from the reserve where the Yolngu people live, hunt and where their sacred sites are located. They are now on display in Parliament House. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y2qN1vKBmQY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Yirrkala Bark Petitions - considered Australia’s Magna Carta. Hear the voice of Dela Yunupiŋu reading the 1963 Yirrkala Bark Petitions in Yolngu. Dela is the daughter of Muŋgurrawuy Yunupiŋu, a senior Gumatj cultural leader who was one of the original signatories of the petition in 1963. You can view the petitions on the AIATSIS website https://aiatsis.gov.au/collections/collections-online/digitised-collections/yirrkala-bark-petitions-1963.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>More than words</h2>
<p>As bark paintings that frame paper with words and signatures, the Yirrkala Petitions demonstrate an innovative cross-cultural legal documentary form: they are symbols of Yolngu title deeds to country. </p>
<p>Because the then Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Paul Hasluck, <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/hansard80/hansardr80/1963-08-20/toc_pdf/19630820_reps_24_hor39.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%221960s%201963%2008%22">questioned the validity of the signatures</a>, the Yolngu people followed up with another document, this time on paper, which contains the names and signatory marks of the leaders of every clan group represented. </p>
<p>On 26 May 2017, 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people signed the <a href="https://www.referendumcouncil.org.au/sites/default/files/2017-05/Uluru_Statement_From_The_Heart_0.PDF">Uluru Statement from the Heart</a>, calling for a First Nations Voice in the Australian Constitution and a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement making and truth telling between government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The statement, written in the centre of a large canvas with paintings that tell the creation stories of the traditional owners of Uluru, the Anangu people, is surrounding by 250 signatures. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316115/original/file-20200219-10991-vcx5tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316115/original/file-20200219-10991-vcx5tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316115/original/file-20200219-10991-vcx5tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316115/original/file-20200219-10991-vcx5tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316115/original/file-20200219-10991-vcx5tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316115/original/file-20200219-10991-vcx5tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316115/original/file-20200219-10991-vcx5tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316115/original/file-20200219-10991-vcx5tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 2017 Uluru Statement From the Heart features artwork and signatures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Uluru_Statement.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The guiding principles for the statement draw on a lengthy history of political campaigns represented in petitions, including the Yirrkala Bark Petitions and the <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/collections/collections-online/digitised-collections/treaty/barunga-statement">Barunga Statement</a>, presented by the Jawoyn community in Northern Territory to the then Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, in 1988. It is a unique legal document that makes a formal claim on the Australian people and our governing institutions. The statement affirms the sovereignty of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and that sovereignty has never been ceded or extinguished, but it co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown. </p>
<p>Such Indigenous declarations of sovereignty demonstrate the way signatures can be mobilised as a sign to transform written documents into legal actions. In this way, they seek to inaugurate a new form of legality. </p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://historylab.net/s3e3-reading-the-signs/">Reading the signs</a> was made by <a href="https://www.uts.edu.au/partners-and-community/initiatives/impact-studios/about-us">Impact Studios</a> at the University of Technology, Sydney - a new audio production house combining academic research and audio storytelling. This podcast is available for download through the award winning <a href="https://historylab.net/">History Lab</a> podcast. It is the third episode in the four-part series, <a href="https://historylab.net/s3ep0-the-laws-way-of-knowing/">The Law’s Way of Knowing</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Trish Luker has received funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Signatures developed to replace rituals as a form of legal validation. Indigenous people have seen their marks used against them and rallied communities to use signatures in innovative protests.Trish Luker, Senior lecturer, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1278092020-02-13T19:11:45Z2020-02-13T19:11:45ZFriday essay: ‘I am anxious to have my children home’: recovering letters of love written for Noongar children<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314630/original/file-20200211-109916-13knwpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2751%2C2252&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Liliana Eira/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names of deceased people.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In the quiet of the State Records Office, I have spent many hours searching for knowledge about my family. </p>
<p>In Australia’s archives, we can find letters written by Aboriginal people to the government. We hear echoes of their voices in their words on the page. </p>
<p>Some of these letters express grief, anger and frustration. Some protest the injustice of oppressive legislation.</p>
<p>Archives in the State Records Office of Western Australia hold hundreds of letters written by Noongar people to the Chief Protector of Aborigines and other government officials from the turn of the 20th century. The letters were captured within manic record-keeping systems used to surveil and control Aboriginal people.</p>
<p>These letters are an historical record of the agency of Noongar people to reckon with systematic human rights violations under the <a href="https://www.noongarculture.org.au/impacts-of-law-post-1905/">1905 Aborigines Act</a> and in particular the cruel administration of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._O._Neville">Chief Protector A.O. Neville</a> from 1915 to 1940. </p>
<p>Aboriginal people are working to reclaim knowledge about our families in archives. The recovery of these letters has become a catalyst for storytelling, as we piece together archival fragments and living knowledge. </p>
<p>My searching has recovered many letters written by my family. It has recovered stories that had been lost for generations.</p>
<h2>Heartbreaking pain</h2>
<p>Within personal files and those relating to institutions for Aboriginal children is a collection of precious letters written by Noongar mothers and fathers to Neville pleading for children who had been forcibly removed as part of the <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/research/finding-your-family/before-you-start/stolen-generations">Stolen Generations</a>. </p>
<p>These letters are handwritten, often in faded pencil on yellowing paper with worn edges. </p>
<p>Emotions linger in words, in the handwriting itself, or in other marks on the page. A small indent is imagined to be the resting of the pencil on the page as the letter writer collected their thoughts. </p>
<p>Under the 1905 Act, Aboriginal parents were not the legal guardians of their own children. Neville unjustly became the guardian of every Aboriginal child in Western Australia under the age of 16.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-reflections-on-the-idea-of-a-common-humanity-63811">Friday essay: reflections on the idea of a common humanity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Decades of pleading for children unfold within these letters, revealing deep Noongar truths about unending love and care for children. They are love letters written by mothers and fathers, and sometimes by children themselves. </p>
<p>Reading these letters, we come to feel – rather than know – the heart-breaking pain of having a child taken from you.</p>
<p>The words on the pages of these letters sound with a spirit of tenacity to restore broken connections within families.</p>
<h2>A personal record of love</h2>
<p>One of these many histories belongs to my grandmother’s grandfather, Noongar man Edward Harris. He campaigned for more than a decade between 1915 and 1926 for the return of his four children: Lyndon, Grace, Connie and my great-grandmother Olive. </p>
<p>He wrote these letters from the heart, a place where he held his children close to him. His letters, captured within archives, have become a treasured historical record of his love for his children.</p>
<p>I never expected to find him in archives and to listen to his voice in his words on the page.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303680/original/file-20191126-112499-3vmndw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303680/original/file-20191126-112499-3vmndw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303680/original/file-20191126-112499-3vmndw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303680/original/file-20191126-112499-3vmndw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303680/original/file-20191126-112499-3vmndw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303680/original/file-20191126-112499-3vmndw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303680/original/file-20191126-112499-3vmndw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Letter from Edward Harris to A.O. Neville.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Elfie Shiosaki</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Edward’s letters are assertions of humanity and human rights. Assertions of rights as a father. </p>
<p>In a letter to Neville dated February 1 1918, he writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And now before bringing this letter to a close I again appeal to you to have my children placed in my care, and to remind you that I am their father, and if you cannot do that, I’ll have to try some other means to have my children restored to me, either through the press or else a court of justice.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Edward met all the demands Neville placed on him in their correspondence for the return of his children: he could provide good character references; he had a stable job as a farm manager; he had a good home there; he had a wife to take care of the children; he had money to send them to school. </p>
<p>In a letter dated December 31 1918, he writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am anxious to have my children home with me […] In order to have them with me, I have done what you thought was necessary.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On March 29 1919, he writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I can never convince myself that you are anxious for me to have my children back. I have told you before that you are hostile and biased, I still believe you are the same […]</p>
<p>[I]n all my dealings with you re the children you have raised too many obstacles and created too many difficulties, the result to me has always been disappointment. I have carried out all the conditions you have imposed on me, and I expect you to fulfil your promises re the children.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Neville refused to return Edward’s children from Carrolup Native Settlement near Katanning, and later Moore River Native Settlement.</p>
<p>This refusal had everything to do with oppression, and nothing to do with Edward’s ability to love and care for his children. </p>
<p>Reading these letters, from many parents, proves time and time again the structural nature of child removal.</p>
<p>Edward was a family man whose advocacy was motivated by his love and care for his children. He demanded the repeal of the 1905 Act. He held Neville to account for his abuse of power. </p>
<p>On August 21 1920, he writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] it would be a hard matter for you or anyone else to convince me that it is in the interests of the children that you are keeping them shut up at Carrolup. Your past actions show that you are malicious, you have never missed an opp[o]rtunity of hurting me. Not once. Also you have used your position as Protector and the Aboriginal Act to gratify your malice.</p>
<p>You speak of doing the best in the interests of my children. I cannot see it […]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Edward’s advocacy continued as he wrote letters, requesting a departmental inquiry into Neville’s refusal to return his children, and attempting to take his case to court. </p>
<p>In a letter to the Deputy Chief Protector of Aborigines, in March 1920, he writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Several times I have asked him [Neville] on what grounds does he refuse to restore me my children, and so far I am still in the dark as to his reasons for holding my children. Of course I will apply again for my children and also ask for an inquiry as I consider that I have been victimised by Mr Neville.</p>
<p>The way I have been treated by that gentleman is an outrage to one’s feelings and affections.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is an outrage to anyone’s feelings and affections.</p>
<p>Edward, with his brother William Harris and many other Noongar families, went on to establish the first Aboriginal political organisation in Western Australia, <a href="https://www.dlgsc.wa.gov.au/docs/default-source/aboriginal-history/right-wrongs-toolkit-part-4-aboriginal-heros.pdf?sfvrsn=95290ac4_2">the Native Union</a>, in 1926. </p>
<p>William Harris described the organisation as a “protective union” for all Aboriginal people.</p>
<p>The Native Union demanded the repeal of the Aborigines Act 1905, in particular the power of the government to forcibly remove Aboriginal children from their families. It also held Neville’s administration to account for its systematic violation of Indigenous rights. </p>
<p>The Western Mail reported that during a meeting with Western Australian premier Philip Collier in 1928 William Harris said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The department established to protect us, is cleaning us up […] Under the present Act, Mr Neville owns us body and soul […]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Taking up pen and paper, Edward Harris and many other Indigenous activists of his generation were involved in fundamental work to advocate for transformative discourses of humanity and human rights. </p>
<p>For our generation, their letters humanise histories of colonisation and intergenerational trauma.</p>
<h2>Recovery and revitalisation</h2>
<p>The recovery of this collection of letters is a practice of truth-telling about Stolen Generations. These letters reveal Aboriginal truths about unending love and care for children. They reveal truths about our collective humanity. These letters restore some humanity to the inhumanity of the Stolen Generations.</p>
<p>Recovering Aboriginal cultural heritage in archives contributes to the revitalisation of our storytelling as branches of knowledge about who we are and where we come from. </p>
<p>This is the legacy of these letters for the next generations.</p>
<p>These letters, some written more than a century ago, echo our current demands. Aboriginal people continue to contend with contemporary practices of child removal. </p>
<p>As the <a href="https://www.referendumcouncil.org.au/sites/default/files/2017-05/Uluru_Statement_From_The_Heart_0.PDF">Uluru Statement reflects</a>: “This cannot be because we have no love for them.”</p>
<p>It is an honour to recover these letters, to shine some light on the long history of this love and the love in my own family story, too.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>All excerpts of Edward Harris’s letters have been reproduced with permission. These excerpts may not be reproduced outside of the context of this article without the author’s permission.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127809/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elfie Shiosaki receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>State archives hold precious Noongar letters pleading for the return of Stolen Generations children. Among them, I find my grandmother’s grandfather: historical records of love.Elfie Shiosaki, Lecturer in Indigenous Rights, Policy and Governance, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1075222018-12-13T19:11:31Z2018-12-13T19:11:31ZFriday essay: back to Moore River and finding family<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249117/original/file-20181205-186082-gf7gbh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children at Norseman Mission. The author's mum, Violet Newman is in the middle row on the far left.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image from the collection of Elsie Lambadgee (dec.)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Untangling the web that is the history of the stolen generations is a very satisfying process. In October, I went to the Centenary Memorial gathering at Mogumber, on the site of the Moore River Native Settlement, about 130 km north of Perth. </p>
<p>The memorial was a commemoration of a tragedy that is part of the history of apartheid in Australia. The Moore River Native Settlement is a large part of many Aboriginal people’s family histories, all over Western Australia. People were sent there from the Kimberley and the Pilbara, from the Western Desert and the south west. Doris Pilkington’s book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/150723.Rabbit_Proof_Fence">Follow The Rabbit Proof Fence</a> is the most well known story of Moore River but there are thousands of others, including that of my grandparents.</p>
<p>The settlement was established in 1918 as a solution to the Aboriginal problem, as perceived by colonists. There were too many Aboriginal people “wandering about” WA, usually on reserves near ration depots where they received flour and blankets. The colonists did not want to see them. </p>
<p>Plus <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/neville-auber-octavius-7821">A.O. Neville</a>, the Chief Protector of Aborigines, had a plan to breed out the black of the Aborigines so they would not be Aboriginal anymore. The full bloods would die out and the half castes would blend in. Neville laid out clearly how he would do this in his book <a href="https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/1496210">Australia’s Coloured Minority</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248095/original/file-20181130-170229-184i14s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248095/original/file-20181130-170229-184i14s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248095/original/file-20181130-170229-184i14s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248095/original/file-20181130-170229-184i14s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248095/original/file-20181130-170229-184i14s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248095/original/file-20181130-170229-184i14s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248095/original/file-20181130-170229-184i14s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248095/original/file-20181130-170229-184i14s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shacks at Moore River Native Settlement, Western Australia, circa 1920, where the author’s grandmother was held.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of Western Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Neville issued ministerial warrants to remove Aboriginal people from their homes, Noongars from the Perth area first, but then from all over WA. He closed down ration depots to make it easier to remove people, and women with children were especially vulnerable, so they were sent to Moore River or Carrolup further south. </p>
<p>The average monthly population at Moore River was 193. Between 1915 and 1920, over 500 people were sent to the settlement, many to die away from their country as inmates of one of Australia’s largest concentration camps. </p>
<p>One of the saddest stories was from Laverton, north east of Kalgoorlie, where 17 men women and children had gathered at the police station about 1921, to get their annual blanket and clothing issue. They were put into cells instead, men separated from the women, who were also separated from the children. </p>
<p>The next day they were placed in a cattle truck with a sign on the side, “15 niggers for Mogumber”. The local whites thought blacks being terrified was hilarious and shared the story of the wailing niggers.</p>
<p>Moore River was closed down in 1951 but only to be managed by the Methodist Church who called it Mogumber Mission. It operated until 1980.</p>
<hr>
<p><iframe id="T9vXg" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/T9vXg/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<h2>Separation</h2>
<p>I discovered my grandparents’ story when I received my family’s Native Welfare files in the 1980s. Mum, Violet Newman, was stolen in 1946 and sent to Norseman Mission, between Kalgoorlie and Esperance, and my grandparents were sent to Moore River. </p>
<p>Most Aboriginal people without birth certificates are given the birthday of horses, or the 1st of July, but mum got the day she was put in the mission, 19th of October. </p>
<p>From Moore River my grandfather, Len Newman, ran away and went to look for his daughter. He travelled by foot, he told my mum, because he was afraid of being picked up and sent back to Moore River as so often had happened to others. My grandfather worked around Norseman after he had located mum. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247221/original/file-20181126-140519-1kkojjb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247221/original/file-20181126-140519-1kkojjb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247221/original/file-20181126-140519-1kkojjb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247221/original/file-20181126-140519-1kkojjb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247221/original/file-20181126-140519-1kkojjb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247221/original/file-20181126-140519-1kkojjb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247221/original/file-20181126-140519-1kkojjb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247221/original/file-20181126-140519-1kkojjb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The photo is the children’s choir of the Norseman Mission. The author’s mum is the girl directly under the light shade. The photo is taken in the Norseman Mission chapel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">130491PD: Norseman Mission, 1957 John Portman State Library of Western Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My grandmother’s story was quite different. She never saw her eldest daughter again. And the other daughter she gave birth to, well, we don’t know what happened to her. She was put into Kalgoorlie hospital when my grandmother was sent to Moore River and that is the last we know. </p>
<p>We heard stories about my grandmother when we lived in Newman, in the Pilbara, in the ‘70s because all the Jigalong mob, from two hours east of Newman, had known her. </p>
<p>Apparently, my grandmother had become a local midwife after she left Moore River and lived and travelled between Cundelee, where most of her family had been moved to after Maralinga, and Wiluna and Jigalong, and even down to Mt Barker in the southwest where we also had family.</p>
<p>I have never met nor even seen a photo of my grandmother, Ruby Marwung. However my Auntie Daisy Tinker was raised by her, and she told us a lot about my grandmother when we met my auntie in Newman. When my mum went looking for her mum, she learned that Ruby was dead and buried at Wiluna. She had died in 1972 we think. Mum was shown her grave but it was unmarked and mum didn’t know to look for records. It was just what she’d been told by family. </p>
<p>It’s like the grave of my great grandmother, Clara, the mother of my grandfather Len Newman, another unmarked grave, on the edge of the Norseman reserve. The record of her death is under her second husband’s name, Flynn. Aboriginal women’s names were always unoffocial: no records of birth, or marriage, or births of children. Most often just a death certificate whose history has to be untangled.</p>
<p>My grandparents had been married tribally and my grandfather Len’s decision to stay at Norseman meant that grandmother Ruby was free to marry someone else, and so she married Dungle-Dungle aka Jimmy Stephens. They applied to get married the western way and what is sad is that on the application form they call my mum Gladys. That must have been her name before the native welfare officer named her Violet. </p>
<h2>Return</h2>
<p>I drove up to Mogumber the day before the gathering, to camp overnight. At the intersection where the Mogumber pub sits, the street sign for the Mogumber mission pointed straight ahead. </p>
<p>Knowing what the local non-Aboriginal people’s attitude would be to the Mogumber reunion I knew that someone would have pointed it in the wrong direction so I turned left instead. </p>
<p>And I was right. The sign was pointing in the wrong direction. When I went past it again the next day someone had changed it to point it the right way.</p>
<p>I couldn’t see any other Noongars so I just kept on driving until I spotted some pulled up at a community hall. I parked next to them and introduced myself. They invited me to camp the night with them and it was a wonderful night of making connections listening to them singing, they were great singers, and watching an amazing moon rise over the trees. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247900/original/file-20181129-170241-166wdtb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247900/original/file-20181129-170241-166wdtb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247900/original/file-20181129-170241-166wdtb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247900/original/file-20181129-170241-166wdtb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247900/original/file-20181129-170241-166wdtb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247900/original/file-20181129-170241-166wdtb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247900/original/file-20181129-170241-166wdtb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247900/original/file-20181129-170241-166wdtb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sign warning of asbestos at the site of the Moore River Native Settlement. The gaol is the gully beyond and there is no asbestos in it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aileen Marwung Walsh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These were all mostly Yuet Noongars, the people who own the country where Moore River and the New Norcia Mission now sit, so with few connections with me, you’d think, as my family are from the deep south. But no, a couple of my great uncles had moved to the Meekatharra area, in mid west WA, at the beginning of the 20th century and so I met a few uncles and cousins. </p>
<p>And then as well, one of my brothers had died that morning in Perth. His dad was a Narrier, that’s a Noongar family name, and so we all talked about my uncle Joe and my little brother Ronald and I told them all about a conversation I’d had with my uncle Joe decades before; with him wondering where the name Narrier had come from. </p>
<p>I told these local Yuet Noongars how I had tracked the origin of the Narrier name for uncle Joe, that the Narriers weren’t named after a place, like my uncle Joe had thought, but that the place Mt Narryer had been named after their ancestor Ned Narea who had been a Noongar guide for colonists in the 1850s.</p>
<p>I was also able to tell them how Ned Narea, which was later Anglicised to Narrier, died in 1881 and they were upset by that story because Narea and his <em>babbin</em> (special friend) Kalinga had been sent from Roebourne to Perth in chains so tightly and cruelly fastened that at the end of the 28-day voyage they were both dead.</p>
<h2>Life in a prison</h2>
<p>The next day we all drove to the mission and I made special notice of the country because the photos I had seen of Moore River in the early 20th century showed a place denuded of vegetation, just wooden huts. The landscape is different now. Mogumber Mission was run until 1981 and the missionaries made big changes. There are also pine plantations all around. </p>
<p>I met a man called Lewis Wallam; I’ve known his sister Elaine for a long time, decades, because she lives near my mum in Como, Perth. Lewis took me to the prison, part of the settlement, and that story is very interesting. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247872/original/file-20181129-170247-6exzsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247872/original/file-20181129-170247-6exzsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247872/original/file-20181129-170247-6exzsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247872/original/file-20181129-170247-6exzsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247872/original/file-20181129-170247-6exzsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247872/original/file-20181129-170247-6exzsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247872/original/file-20181129-170247-6exzsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247872/original/file-20181129-170247-6exzsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The cell where the author’s grandmother was held after she ran away from Moore River.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aileen Marwung Walsh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are four cells with no windows, just an iron grill above the thick wooden door. There is a small outside area that has strong steel grill for a roof and that was where prisoners were allowed to spend time during the day.</p>
<p>My grandmother Ruby spent time in this prison for running away from Moore River in 1949, she was sentenced to four days. Being in the gaol I was for the first time in the same place that I knew my grandmother had been. In a gaol. </p>
<p>The next time my grandmother ran away she was heavily pregnant and so when the police brought her back she did not go into the goal. She gave birth to a boy a while later and they called him Murray Newman after his grandfather. But he died, one of the many babies buried in the Moore River cemetery. </p>
<p>It was a strange sensation being in the place that is so often described as a hell hole, the whole of the Moore River Native Settlement that is, not just the goal; and as I reflect back on the memory of it, it grows stranger and stranger.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107522/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This work has been supported with The Nugget Coombs fieldwork Scholarship, an Australian Government Research Training Program Fee-Offset Scholarship (AGRTPFOS), the ANU Deep Human History Laureate PhD Scholarship (600/2017) (RDEEPPHD) and an ANU Supplementary Scholarship (S0040), Indigenous Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarship (I-CAS). As well, the University of Western Australia provides support through an Adjunct Lectureship with the Department of History.</span></em></p>Aileen Marwung Walsh’s grandparents were sent to the Moore River Native Settlement, of Rabbit Proof Fence infamy, half a century ago. In 2018, 100 years after the settlement’s founding, she returned.Aileen Marwung Walsh, ARC Laureate Research Scholarship, Rediscovering Deep Human History, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1063302018-11-13T00:59:03Z2018-11-13T00:59:03ZWhy controversial child protection reforms in NSW could lead to another Stolen Generation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245005/original/file-20181112-83564-mgbkal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C4608%2C3435&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The most commonly criticised feature of the bill is the arbitrary maximum period of two years within which a decision about permanent placement has to be made. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Among the most significant powers exercised by governments is that of removing children from their families. Potential <a href="https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/bills/Pages/bill-details.aspx?pk=3598">reforms</a> before the NSW parliament this week would <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-24/nsw-government-adoption-law-overhaul-proposed/10422140">expand this</a> power in frightening ways. </p>
<p>The reforms contained in the <a href="https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/bills/Pages/bill-details.aspx?pk=3598">Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Amendment Bill</a> represent a radical shift in basic child welfare principles. These changes could make removals more permanent, while dispensing with core safeguards and transparency measures. It is Aboriginal communities who stand to lose the most.</p>
<p>Children are already being removed from Indigenous communities at an unprecedented rate. Indigenous children make up <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/children-care">36.9% of children in out-of-home care</a> in Australia, despite being just 3% of the population.</p>
<p>And stakeholders ranging from the <a href="https://www.kinchelaboyshome.org.au/">Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation</a> to the peak body for <a href="https://www.clcnsw.org.au/">Community Legal Centres NSW</a> are fearful that, if passed, the NSW legislation <a href="https://www.clcnsw.org.au/nsw-forced-adoptions-open-letter">will force adoptions and create another Stolen Generation</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1060304328257241088"}"></div></p>
<h2>What’s been proposed?</h2>
<p>We’re especially concerned by four fundamental proposed changes: </p>
<ol>
<li>placing a two-year limit on creating a permanent arrangement for a child </li>
<li>making guardianship orders by consent outside of courts</li>
<li>amending how families can apply for restoration </li>
<li>removing parental consent to adoption for children on permanent orders.</li>
</ol>
<p>Proponents suggest the reforms are aimed at stopping children “flopping from one foster home to another”, as Pru Goward, NSW minister for family and community services, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-24/nsw-government-adoption-law-overhaul-proposed/10422140">put it</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245179/original/file-20181112-194519-wv7mb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245179/original/file-20181112-194519-wv7mb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245179/original/file-20181112-194519-wv7mb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245179/original/file-20181112-194519-wv7mb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245179/original/file-20181112-194519-wv7mb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245179/original/file-20181112-194519-wv7mb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245179/original/file-20181112-194519-wv7mb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pru Goward says the bill will bring ‘landmark reforms’ to the state’s child protection system.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dean Lewins/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, we are talking here about legally permanent care arrangements being made with arbitrary deadlines.</p>
<p>As Aboriginal advocates have argued, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/empowering-indigenous-communities-to-prevent-child-abuse-and-neglect-32875">as the evidence attests</a>, family and kin support is key to keeping Aboriginal kids home, safe and connected with their culture. The reforms proposed in the bill will make it much harder to achieve that goal.</p>
<h2>A permanent placement within two years</h2>
<p>The most commonly criticised feature of the bill is the arbitrary maximum period of two years within which a decision about permanent placement has to be made. </p>
<p>As governments increasingly outsource their child welfare responsibilities to private agencies, there is a danger that market incentives can intrude into decision-making. The incentive to cycle children into permanent arrangements, regardless of their suitability, to meet performance indicators and targets is particularly chilling. </p>
<p>In Australia, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/contemporary-out-home-care">noted the vulnerability of children in care to sex abuse</a>. Yet, once children are placed on guardianship orders or adopted, they are on their own, with no further review or oversight. They are no longer counted in the out-of-home care statistics.</p>
<p>And the <a href="http://healingfoundation.org.au/">factors that cause children to enter into care</a> – especially Aboriginal children – aren’t usually solved within a two-year time frame. They’re often related to poverty and inter-generational trauma. These include insecure housing, drug and alcohol addiction, family violence, and mental health and behavioural problems. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/child-protection-report-lacks-crucial-national-detail-on-abuse-in-out-of-home-care-93008">Child protection report lacks crucial national detail on abuse in out-of-home care</a>
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<p><a href="https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/421531/FACS_SAR.pdf">Almost half</a> of all children in out-of-home care in NSW in 2014-2015 had a parent who had contact with the child welfare department themselves when they were a child.</p>
<p>Services to address these problems (such as support for victims of domestic violence and rehabilitation facilities) are either not available or have a lengthy wait list – sometimes two years or longer.</p>
<p>And it’s hard to see how the frequently backlogged NSW Children’s Court could cope with the additional pressure of a looming two-year deadline. </p>
<p>The changes create insurmountable conditions tantamount to permanent removal with no oversight.</p>
<h2>Guardianship orders ‘by consent’ outside of courts</h2>
<p>Under the bill, permanent care orders can be made “by consent” in alternative dispute resolution without necessarily establishing a child is at risk. As the Law Society of NSW <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/344/Letter_to_Minister_for_Family_and_Community_Services_-_Children_and_Youn....pdf?1542063294">says in its submission</a> to the state government: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>While the child’s safety and best interests are of course paramount, these provisions would allow the court to make a guardianship order with the parents’ consent, even where there is no finding that a child is at risk of significant harm or should be subject to a care and protection order. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>These decisions will be made in negotiations – without judicial oversight – between families, governments, agencies and carers with vastly different legal resources, powers and goals. Families will be assisted by lawyers who may be ill-equipped to deal with a sudden influx of new cases in an unfamiliar forum.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-children-in-institutional-care-may-be-worse-off-now-than-they-were-in-the-19th-century-104395">Why children in institutional care may be worse off now than they were in the 19th century</a>
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<p>The legislation provides limited safeguards, but these cannot make the alternative dispute resolution suitable in cases where fundamental legal rights - such as the state breaking up a family - are at stake. </p>
<p>This means thousands of children who have already been transferred from foster care to private guardianship arrangements - <a href="https://public.tableau.com/profile/facs.statistics#!/vizhome/Objective2-Improvingthelivesofchildrenandyoungpeople/Dashboard1">over 894 of them Indigenous as of June 2017</a> - could soon be adopted without their parents’ knowledge or consent.</p>
<p>Once a decision has been made, the reforms narrow the criteria for reviewing them. This makes it virtually impossible for families to get permanent placement decisions changed.</p>
<p>In its own <a href="https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/download?file=633577">report</a> on the bill, the NSW government conceded most stakeholders opposed these changes.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1061807670116544512"}"></div></p>
<h2>Rushed process leaving little time for response</h2>
<p>Decisions such as these already take place in the <a href="http://aftertheapology.com/">context of the unconscious bias</a> and structural racism of the out-of-home care system. And Indigenous <a href="http://www.familymatters.org.au/aifs-releases-paper-examining-implementation-child-placement-principle/">child placement principles</a> – which aim to keep children safe while retaining their connections to family, community, culture and country – are not being properly implemented.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-are-indigenous-children-ten-times-more-likely-to-be-living-in-out-of-home-care-54825">FactCheck Q&A: are Indigenous children ten times more likely to be living in out-of-home care?</a>
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<p>We do not yet know the extent of that system failure. The NSW government is not waiting for the results of an <a href="http://www.familyisculture.nsw.gov.au/about-us/terms-of-reference">ongoing review into how it handles Aboriginal child placements</a>. A similar review in Victoria revealed that systematic failings have contributed to the over-representation of Aboriginal children in care and that over <a href="https://ccyp.vic.gov.au/assets/Publications-inquiries/always-was-always-will-be-koori-children-inquiry-report-oct16.pdf">60% of those children had been placed with non-Aboriginal carers</a>.</p>
<p>It is astonishing this bill is being rushed straight to the upper house in the last sitting days before the NSW election in March, leaving no chance for adequate debate and giving Aboriginal stakeholders just weeks’ notice to respond. A recent motion to send the bill to a short inquiry that would last mere days was voted down.</p>
<p>We know that NSW child protection laws need to change, but not this way. The Commonwealth government <a href="https://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/our-country/our-people/apology-to-australias-indigenous-peoples">has apologised</a> to the Stolen Generations, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOOJc1C6erg">the NSW government has apologised to survivors of forced adoptions</a>. Both apologies warned us of the need to learn from past policies. If this bill passes, we will have all but forgotten them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106330/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terrri Libesman has a grant from the Law and Justice Foundation, together with the Aboriginal Legal Service NSW, to investigate Aboriginal participation in child protection decision making in NSW.. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Whittaker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One of the state’s most significant powers is the ability to remove children from their families. Potential reforms in NSW could expand this already racialised power in frightening ways.Alison Whittaker, Research Fellow, University of Technology SydneyTerri Libesman, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1027222018-09-07T04:17:52Z2018-09-07T04:17:52ZMedia watchdog’s finding on Sunrise’s Indigenous adoption segment is justified<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235324/original/file-20180906-190665-164t3v1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protestors rally outside Channel 7 studios in Sydney following the controversial segment on Aboriginal adoption.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Crowdspark</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In March this year, <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/morning-shows/you-should-know-better-sunrise-breakfast-show-slammed-over-aboriginal-adoption-segment/news-story/ba50b71635590779999f1ac684990f4a">Sunrise</a> aired a panel discussion about the removal of Indigenous children from dangerous or abusive family situations. </p>
<p>It wrongly claimed that Indigenous children could not be fostered by non-Indigenous families and one panellist, commentator Prue MacSween, suggested that the Stolen Generation might need to be repeated in order to save children from physical and sexual abuse.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.bandt.com.au/media/sevens-sunrise-cops-viewer-backlash-appalling-blatantly-racist-segment">reaction</a> was swift and fierce: the segment was condemned as racist and insensitive, with many questioning why the panel featured no experts or Indigenous people. There were <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-16/sunrise-protest-held-in-martin-place/9554832">protests</a> at the show’s Sydney studio, and multiple complaints were made to the Australian Communications and Media Authority.</p>
<p>This week, ACMA <a href="https://www.acma.gov.au/theACMA/channel-seven-in-breach-for-sunrise-segment-on-indigenous-children">announced</a> that the Channel Seven breakfast show did indeed breach the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice in airing false claims that Indigenous children could not be placed with white families.</p>
<p>It was also found that the segment provoked “serious contempt on the basis of race in breach of the Code as it contained strong negative generalisations about Indigenous people as a group”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/barnaby-joyces-decision-to-sell-his-story-is-a-breach-of-professional-ethics-97458">Barnaby Joyce's decision to sell his story is a breach of professional ethics</a>
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<p>Seven has <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/morning-shows/seven-breaches-code-over-sunrise-segment-on-indigenous-children/news-story/68dbfb600717bd02d3cab883067f7b09">defended</a> their actions, labelling the ACMA’s decision as “censorship” and “a direct assault on the workings of an independent media”. They are also considering seeking a judicial review of the decision.</p>
<p>However, it is not correct to assess ACMA’s decision, nor its role, as censorship. Rather, the ACMA monitors and enforces basic journalistic principles governing ethics and responsibility.</p>
<p>The decision is more symbolic than material – Channel Seven will not be forced to pull the segment from online; indeed, it is <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/so-many-mistruths-sunrise-cops-heat-over-aboriginal-adoption-segment-20180313-p4z46h.html">widely available</a>. ACMA also has no power to order any compensation to be paid to a wronged party or fine the broadcaster; nor can it force Channel Seven to apologise or correct its error.</p>
<p>This dispute is but one of many examples that raises questions over the power of the media and what happens when media make a mistake, deliberately bend the truth or publish information that may cause harm to people, especially from marginalised groups.</p>
<p>In his research on the media portrayal of Indigenous people and issues, and the difference between sensitivity versus censorship, <a href="https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=980100566;res=IELAPA">Michael Meadows</a>argues the media are resistant to admitting there is a problem with racist or insensitive coverage. He writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Aboriginal Australians have had to be content with a portrayal which is mostly stereotypical, sensational, emotional or exotic, with an ignorance of the historical and political context in which these images are situated.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While “censorship” is a <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2013/03/18/latham-andrew-bolt-lover-of-censorship/">label</a> that is often used by the media in response to criticism, actual censorship in Australia by government or media watchdogs is thankfully rare to nonexistent. Other issue such as <a href="https://pressfreedom.org.au/defamation-ea5115c44036">defamation law</a> are greater sources of censorship.</p>
<p>In a 2018 report released by <a href="https://rsf.org/en/australia">Reporters Without Borders</a>, a worldwide organisation that advocates for a free press, Australia ranked 19th out of 180 countries on press freedom. This was a fall from ninth in 2017 due to of media restrictions on reporting on asylum seekers and refugees in offshore detention centres, not the role of ACMA. In fact, ACMA and the Australian Press Council were not even mentioned.</p>
<p>Australian journalists are expected, although not obliged, to abide by the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance’s <a href="https://www.meaa.org/meaa-media/code-of-ethics/">Code of Ethics</a>. This states that journalists should “report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts” and to “do your utmost to achieve fair correction of errors”.</p>
<p>ACMA’s finding on the Sunrise segment that featured sweeping claims such as “children left in Indigenous families would be abused and neglected”, is simply holding those responsible to the minimum standards expected, not just within the industry, but from the public, too.</p>
<p>In the era of “fake news”, it is not surprising that the public’s trust in journalists is low; a <a href="http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/7244-roy-morgan-image-of-professions-may-2017-201706051543">2018 survey</a>found only 20% of Australians deemed newspaper journalists as being “very” honest and ethical, with television reporters fairing even worse, at 17%.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-bill-would-make-australia-worst-in-the-free-world-for-criminalising-journalism-90840">New bill would make Australia worst in the free world for criminalising journalism</a>
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<hr>
<p>The ACMA was created in 2005 following the public outcry over the infamous “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_for_comment_affair">cash for comment</a>” scandals in 1999 and 2004. At the time, the then-Australian Broadcasting Authority was criticised for being “<a href="https://radioinfo.com.au/news/mediawatch-ignores-aba-and-judges-jones-guilty-cash-comment-anyway">too soft</a>” and <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/flint-resigns-as-broadcasting-boss-20040607-gdxzqg.html">ineffective</a> in response, the ABA was abolished and replaced by the ACMA.</p>
<p>It’s incorrect to label the ACMA’s role as playing “censor” when they do no such thing. In fact, there is <a href="https://mumbrella.com.au/sandilands-saga-demonstrates-again-that-acma-is-a-toothless-tiger-in-need-of-new-powers-81514">criticism</a> that ACMA, like its predecessor, is a “toothless tiger” that lacks any power to actually hold the media to account.</p>
<p>No media can operate without a basic framework that places public interest, a commitment to accuracy and responsibility to the public.</p>
<p><a href="https://acma.gov.au/theACMA/channel-seven-in-breach-for-sunrise-segment-on-indigenous-children">In a statement</a> released on September 4, ACMA chairwoman Nerida O’Loughlin highlighted this important distinction: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Broadcasters can, of course, discuss matters of public interest, including extremely sensitive topics such as child abuse in Indigenous communities. However, such matters should be discussed with care, with editorial framing to ensure compliance with the Code. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>With “clickbait” and inflammatory opinion increasingly finding a home in the media, it’s more important than ever that the media respect and abide by their responsibilities to fairness and the truth. And when they cannot or do not do this, regulatory bodies such as the ACMA are essential.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102722/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alana Schetzer is a member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. </span></em></p>ACMA’s finding on the Sunrise segment is simply holding those responsible to the minimum standards expected.Alana Schetzer, Sessional Tutor and Journalist, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/783282017-05-26T00:23:46Z2017-05-26T00:23:46ZDefying Empire: the legacy of 1967<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170912/original/file-20170525-31748-1wnl09v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brenda L. Croft
shut/mouth/scream (detail) 2016
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist and Stills Gallery</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Third National Indigenous Art Triennial: Defying Empire at the National Gallery of Australia would have been unimaginable 50 years ago. Despite the widespread goodwill towards Aboriginal people in 1967, there was little recognition that they had a living visual culture. Those few curators, such as the late <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/tuckson-john-anthony-11888">Tony Tuckson</a>, who admired the aesthetic qualities of the intricate forms made by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in remote areas of the north, rejected as kitsch works by artists such as <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/namatjira-albert-elea-11217">Albert Namatjira</a> who incorporated western traditions.</p>
<p>For the last three decades, Indigenous artists working in non-traditional media have made their mark, including at the two preceding National Indigenous Art Triennials and at national and international art exhibitions – including the Venice Biennale. It is not news to say that some of Australia’s most admired artists are Indigenous, so why is Defying Empire such a satisfying exhibition?</p>
<p>It all comes back to that year, 1967. Curator Tina Baum has woven a narrative and an argument around the legacy of that remarkable act of national unity when <a href="http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs150.aspx">90.77% of Australians</a> voted to include Aboriginal people in the census, and to enable laws to be made on their behalf. </p>
<p>Ray Ken of the Pitjantjatjara/Yankunyatjara peoples and Lola Greeno of the Pakana people were adults in 1967. Maree Clarke of the Mutti Mutti/ Yorta Yorta/Wurrung peoples was a small child. Karla Dickens, a Wuradjuri woman was born months after, while Sebastian Arrow of the Yawuru came a generation later in 1994 – but all the artists here can claim to be heirs of the Referendum.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171068/original/file-20170525-23249-zzkltk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171068/original/file-20170525-23249-zzkltk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171068/original/file-20170525-23249-zzkltk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171068/original/file-20170525-23249-zzkltk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171068/original/file-20170525-23249-zzkltk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171068/original/file-20170525-23249-zzkltk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171068/original/file-20170525-23249-zzkltk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171068/original/file-20170525-23249-zzkltk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Judy Watson, the names of places 2016 - part of a project to record all the sites of massacres of Aboriginal people in Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The word “1967” dominates Reko Rennie’s<a href="https://nga.gov.au/ngaplay/"> NGA Play</a> installation at the entrance foyer of the building. This forms part of a special interactive project created for the exhibition, challenging adults and children alike. His defiant banner, Always Here, waves at the top of the escalators. His traditional Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay patterns also evoke camouflage. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171069/original/file-20170525-23249-1ei501p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171069/original/file-20170525-23249-1ei501p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171069/original/file-20170525-23249-1ei501p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171069/original/file-20170525-23249-1ei501p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171069/original/file-20170525-23249-1ei501p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171069/original/file-20170525-23249-1ei501p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171069/original/file-20170525-23249-1ei501p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171069/original/file-20170525-23249-1ei501p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reko Rennie’s Royal Flag 2013, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Purchased 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NGA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some Indigenous Australians survived over the years by camouflaging who they were, protected by paler skin. Others were stolen, their true identities hidden from themselves by the camouflage of institutional lies. This second history of camouflage is especially relevant to Reko Rennie’s OA RR, a gloriously dappled Rolls Royce parked at the National Gallery’s entrance.</p>
<p>Rennie’s grandmother was stolen and in her honour he has recorded his return to Kamilaroi land, filming from above the circular tracks in the red dirt made by the car to assert the ownership of the Kamilaroi people.</p>
<h2>Stolen children</h2>
<p>The running sore of the legacy of the stolen children runs through Defying Empire. Many of the artists are descendents of stolen children, but for Sandra Hill it is even more immediate. She is a Nyoongar woman who as a child was stolen, as were her mother and grandmother before her. In her Thin Veneer, layers of varnished wood stamp out the homogenised pattern into which she can never fit.</p>
<p>That question of identity lies at the core of Brenda L. Croft’s work. Croft was the curator of Culture Warriors, the first National Indigenous Triennial in 2007, but in recent years has turned her gaze away from the work of others and onto the legacy of her father Joe who was stolen from his Gurindji/Malgnin/Mudparra family when a small child. Her journey back to Gurindji country and the consequence of the Wave Hill walk-off is explored in great detail at <a href="https://www.artdesign.unsw.edu.au/unsw-galleries/still-my-mind-gurindji-location-experience-and-visuality">Still in my mind</a>, currently on view at UNSW Galleries.</p>
<p>The NGA work focuses on the tough landscape around Wave Hill, the remarkable portrait shut/mouth/scream, based on a fragment study of her grandmother’s face.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170938/original/file-20170525-23279-1fztmr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170938/original/file-20170525-23279-1fztmr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170938/original/file-20170525-23279-1fztmr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170938/original/file-20170525-23279-1fztmr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170938/original/file-20170525-23279-1fztmr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170938/original/file-20170525-23279-1fztmr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170938/original/file-20170525-23279-1fztmr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170938/original/file-20170525-23279-1fztmr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brenda L. Croft shut/mouth/scream (detail) 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist and Stills Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As well as children stolen, the history of race relations in Australia is of people murdered, sometimes indiscriminately as in Judy Watson’s exquisite record, the names of places - part of a project to record all the sites of massacres of Aboriginal people in Australia.</p>
<p>Then there are the particular events. Dale Harding’s <a href="https://nga.gov.au/defyingempire/artists.cfm?artistirn=37732">their little black slaves perished in isolation </a> evokes the 1930 killing of a girl forced into domestic labour and killed when her wooden prison shack caught fire. Harding’s reconstruction includes the pungent smell of the black burnt walls. Harding, a descendent of the Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal peoples, is only too aware of the extent of the massacres in Queensland in the 19th century. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170940/original/file-20170525-23224-84rqc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170940/original/file-20170525-23224-84rqc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170940/original/file-20170525-23224-84rqc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170940/original/file-20170525-23224-84rqc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170940/original/file-20170525-23224-84rqc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170940/original/file-20170525-23224-84rqc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170940/original/file-20170525-23224-84rqc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170940/original/file-20170525-23224-84rqc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dale Harding Black days in the Dawson River Country – Remembrance gowns (detail) 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Black days in the Dawson River Country places Victorian style dresses to commemorate the murder of a young girl, killed in broad daylight in the main street of the town now known as Toowoomba. Her murderer (wrongly) claimed she was wearing a dress owned by his murdered mother.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170941/original/file-20170525-23232-1t8new.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170941/original/file-20170525-23232-1t8new.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170941/original/file-20170525-23232-1t8new.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170941/original/file-20170525-23232-1t8new.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170941/original/file-20170525-23232-1t8new.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170941/original/file-20170525-23232-1t8new.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170941/original/file-20170525-23232-1t8new.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170941/original/file-20170525-23232-1t8new.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yhonnie Scarce Thunder Raining Poison 2015, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Purchased 2016. This acquisition has been supported by Susan Armitage in recognition of the 50th Anniversary of the 1967 Referendum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Janelle Low</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not all the deaths were deliberate. The glass artist Yhonnie Scarce, of the Kokatha/Nukunu peoples in South Australia, was born in Woomera. She has created Thunder Raining Poison, where glass yams evoke the poison rain that fell on her grandfather’s country at Maralinga bringing sickness and death. Her magnificent control of the medium is seen in the Glass Bomb (Blue Danube) series where dark glass yams are contained in larger glass bombs – blown glass inside blown glass.</p>
<p>The colonial legacies of mass killings are also at the core of work by Julie Gough, from the Trawlwoolway people of Tasmania. Her Hunting Ground videos revisit the site of some of the terrible massacres of the early 19th century, and incorporate reproductions of the smug letters recording the deaths of hundreds of people, offering their bodies for dissection. </p>
<p>A fellow Tasmanian, Lola Greeno of the Pakena people, works in the ancient tradition of making shell necklaces, which she has exhibited for many years. She has produced a virtuoso series of works, with large mussel shells interspersing more delicate shapes. I have become so used to seeing (and admiring) her work over the years that it was a surprise to see her strike a different note.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170942/original/file-20170525-23232-4i8qqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170942/original/file-20170525-23232-4i8qqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170942/original/file-20170525-23232-4i8qqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170942/original/file-20170525-23232-4i8qqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170942/original/file-20170525-23232-4i8qqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170942/original/file-20170525-23232-4i8qqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170942/original/file-20170525-23232-4i8qqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170942/original/file-20170525-23232-4i8qqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lola Greeno’s Green Maireener shell necklace 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist and Handmark Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The room in which Greeno’s work is displayed is near the entrance to the dedicated exhibition space, and is almost a separate homage to the first generation of Indigenous artists to have lived most of their creative life recognised as such.</p>
<p>Greeno from Tasmania, Yvonne Koolmatrie of the Ngarrindjeri people from South Australia, Pedro Wonseaamirri of the Tiwi people from Melville Island and Ken Thaiday senior of the Mariam Mer people of the Torres Strait, have well established records of exhibiting their work in national and international exhibitions. </p>
<p>Koolmatrie’s giant woven eel traps and baskets floated in the Australian pavillion in the Venice Biennale in 1997, her style is well established. But as well as the more familiar works, confidently executed, the exhibition includes a woven spiny echidna, complete with genuine echidna quills.</p>
<p>Ken Thaiday senior’s work has evolved from his original headdresses used in Torres Strait Island dance, to giant variations on these. His presence, along with that of Brian Robinson is a reminder that the reason the National Gallery has named this exhibition the Indigenous Triennial and not Aboriginal is that the people of the Torres Strait Islands may relate to Aboriginal culture, but remain distinct.</p>
<p>It brings into focus the central curatorial concern: how to show the complexities and the unities of an Indigenous culture that crosses both geography and generations, that deals with loss and redemption, that recognises the continuing intermingling of blood in what might be eight generations of colonisation, and yet never loses identity.</p>
<p>There’s a sense of the this in Raymond Zada’s video installation, At Face Value, that morphs a series of faces from black to blonde, from male to female, in a continual questioning of the notion of identity.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170943/original/file-20170525-23224-wkxc7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170943/original/file-20170525-23224-wkxc7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170943/original/file-20170525-23224-wkxc7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170943/original/file-20170525-23224-wkxc7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170943/original/file-20170525-23224-wkxc7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170943/original/file-20170525-23224-wkxc7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170943/original/file-20170525-23224-wkxc7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170943/original/file-20170525-23224-wkxc7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tony Albert The Hand You’re Dealt 2016, Courtesy of the artist and Sullivan + Strumpf.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sam Noonan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tony Albert of Queensland’s Girramay/Yidinji/Kuku-Yalanji peoples has a different take on the notion of identity. He honours the many Indigenous soldiers who fought in Australia’s wars as equals to their white comrades only to face discrimination on their return. This is a part of a continuing project on his part as he is also responsible for the <a href="http://www.cityartsydney.com.au/artwork/yininmadyemi-thou-didst-let-fall/">Aboriginal war memorial</a> in Sydney’s Hyde Park.</p>
<p>Albert’s work hangs near the quiet exposition of the most enduring act of defiance of empire – Jonathan Jones and Uncle Stan Grant Senior reinserting traditional Wiradjuri murru (design) into 19th century colonial prints. Uncle Stan Grant Senior has been a leader in the revival of Wiradjuri as a living language, which is also a part of the national revival of Aboriginal languages and the recovery of lost histories. </p>
<p>The defiance of Empire is not about being brash, but about endurance. While empires rise, they also fall. Those who appeared be conquered are now seen to be the long-term victors.</p>
<p><em>Defying Empire is at the National Gallery of Australia from 26 May – 10 September 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has in the past received funding from the ARC</span></em></p>The National Gallery of Australia’s Third National Indigenous Art Triennial presents a passionate well-considered argument for an enduring Aboriginal culture.Joanna Mendelssohn, Honorary Associate Professor, Art & Design: UNSW Australia. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/498932016-05-15T19:47:24Z2016-05-15T19:47:24ZCanada’s progress shows indigenous reconciliation is a long-term process<p><em>Australia is being held back by its unresolved relationship with its Indigenous population. Drawing on attempts at reconciliation overseas, this <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/indigenous-reconciliation">series of articles explores different ways of addressing this unfinished business</a>. Today, we move to the northern hemisphere for lessons from Canada.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The relationship between Canada’s Aboriginal peoples and non-indigenous population has never been an equal one, even though the 1982 national constitution recognises Aboriginal rights. In fact, the process of revealing what’s probably the darkest chapter of the country’s history has only just begun. </p>
<p>Like Australia, Canada had its “stolen generations”. More than 150,000 Aboriginal children attended residential schools largely run by churches, over a period of more than 100 years. </p>
<p>The schools’ goal was to “civilise” First Nations (previously called Indians), Inuit (people indigenous to the northern parts of the country) and Métis (<a href="http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/community-politics/metis.html">communities that emerged from European-Aboriginal intermarriage</a>) children – and to break their link to their cultures and identities. </p>
<p>Thousands of children died. Many more were physically and sexually abused. The last schools closed in the 1990s, but the harm they caused is still felt today. </p>
<h2>The legacy of cultural genocide</h2>
<p>Only recently have former students received compensation, following the settlement of thousands of lawsuits in 2006. In 2008, then prime minister Stephen Harper made a <a href="https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100015644/1100100015649">formal apology</a> for the practice on behalf of the country. </p>
<p>The government also established the <a href="http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=3">Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada</a> (TRC) in 2008, to educate all Canadians about the residential school system and its effects. </p>
<p>In the years since, the TRC has heard almost 7,000 witnesses across the country. In its final report (issued in 2015), it described residential schools as part of a policy of “cultural genocide”. </p>
<p>Among its 94 recommendations, the TRC called for: the development of “culturally appropriate curricula”; the promotion of the use of Aboriginal languages; and an increase in Aboriginal programming on Canada’s national public broadcaster. </p>
<p>The TRC’s hearings and reports are only the beginning. Socioeconomic data show huge differences between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians. </p>
<p>The numbers are baffling. Life expectancy is ten years shorter for Inuit people than other Canadians. The suicide rate is up to ten times higher. </p>
<p>In 2004, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IPeoples/SRIndigenousPeoples/Pages/CountryReports.aspx">noted that</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Poverty, infant mortality, unemployment, suicide rates, criminal detention, child prostitution, women victims of abuse are all much higher among Aboriginal peoples. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many children are still <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/25/indigenous-australians-and-canadians-destroyed-by-same-colonialism?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Australia+Morning+mail+new+030615&utm_term=158610&subid=2689150&CMP=ema_1731">removed from their families</a> by welfare agencies. And recent allegations of police abuse again highlighted the difficult everyday life of many Aboriginal men and women, as well as the longstanding systemic discrimination they face.</p>
<p>As recently as October 2015, several Aboriginal women living in a remote town in Quebec <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-politicians-activists-stunned-by-aboriginal-women-s-sex-assault-allegations-1.3284787">accused white police officers</a> of abuse and sexual assault. </p>
<h2>Ambiguous history of treaties and laws</h2>
<p>Nearly 100 treaties form the basis of the relationship between the government and most of today’s 1.5 million Canadians who identify as Aboriginal (roughly 4% of the population). </p>
<p>These treaties were concluded from 1701 onward, when France and more than 30 First Nations signed what was called the <a href="http://www.museevirtuel.ca/edu/ViewLoitCollection.do;jsessionid=B54C36BAC443AD65E9F87193CD186942?method=preview&lang=EN&id=24707">Great Peace of Montreal</a> to stop violence between the French and Aboriginal peoples and to share the land.</p>
<p>In 1763, the British Crown proclaimed it would seek permission from First Nations before allowing settlements in their territories. Dozens more treaties saw First Nations give up their lands in exchange for payments and other benefits, such as the right to hunt and fish. </p>
<p>But treaty negotiations were often marked by coercion and many of their provisions were never implemented. Various federal laws also contributed to disempowering Aboriginal peoples. The <a href="http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/government-policy/the-indian-act.html">1876 Indian Act</a>, for instance, imposed a new system of internal governance and inheritance, subject to federal government control. </p>
<p>The ban on traditional ceremonies, such as the potlatch, had a particularly disturbing impact on the Aboriginal way of life. Potlatches included the exchange of gifts and were performed to strengthen social cohesion. But the government didn’t approve of this way of distributing wealth and settling debts. </p>
<p>Some of the most intrusive sections of the Indian Act were repealed in 1951, but it still regulates various aspects of life and prevents effective self-government by Canada’s Aboriginal peoples. </p>
<p>On the positive side, recent land claims agreements have secured some benefits. One of them led to the establishment in 1999 of Canada’s newest administrative entity, the territory called <a href="http://www.gov.nu.ca/">Nunavut</a>, or “our land” in the Inuit language. This enhanced Inuit political autonomy and control of their land in Canada’s Arctic region.</p>
<p>But, in most cases, treaty negotiations and litigation are both lengthy and costly, and provide little opportunity for genuine dialogue. Still, there are reasons to be optimistic. </p>
<h2>Reconciliation takes time</h2>
<p>The TRC has shown that present forms of discrimination are deeply rooted in past injustices. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during his election campaign that the residential school system constituted “cultural genocide”. And, once elected, he <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/justice-minister-jody-wilson-raybould-1.3303609">appointed a female First Nations leader</a> justice minister and attorney-general. </p>
<p>Trudeau’s government <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/canada-adopting-implementing-un-rights-declaration-1.3575272">has also officially adopted</a> the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and <a href="http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=1023999">set up a national inquiry</a> into the more than <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/missingandmurdered/">1,000 missing or murdered Aboriginal women</a> over the past three decades.</p>
<p>The previous Conservative government had rejected calls for such an inquiry, <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/harper-rebuffs-renewed-calls-for-murdered-missing-women-inquiry-1.2742845">saying it was a criminal problem</a> unrelated to systemic discrimination. </p>
<p>The lesson Australia can learn from Canada’s experience is that reconciliation takes time. Constitutional recognition and formal rights, compensation payments, <a href="http://nctr.ca">archives</a> and apologies for genocidal practices are all important gestures. </p>
<p>But if we’re serious about establishing mutually respectful relationships, efforts to improve the situation of Aboriginal peoples must be continuous and pluralistic. Aboriginal ways of life, including legal traditions and forms of authority, must be recognised as valid and equal to those of the rest of society. </p>
<p>Maybe reconciliation also means that we must all be open to change. As the <a href="http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/Honouring_the_Truth_Reconciling_for_the_Future_July_23_2015.pdf">final report</a> of the TRC says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Reconciliation is not an Aboriginal problem; it is a Canadian one. Virtually all aspects of Canadian society may need to be reconsidered. </p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p><em>This is the third article in our series on <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/indigenous-reconciliation">efforts towards indigenous reconciliation in settler countries around the world</a>. Look out for snapshots of other countries’ progress in the coming days.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49893/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elisabeth Roy Trudel receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Doctoral Fellowship). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philipp Kastner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The relationship between Canada’s Aboriginal peoples and non-indigenous population has never been an equal one, even though the 1982 national constitution recognises Aboriginal rights.Philipp Kastner, Assistant Professor in International Law, The University of Western AustraliaElisabeth Roy Trudel, PhD Candidate in Humanities, Concordia University; Honorary Fellow, UWA Faculty of Law, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/462592015-09-04T01:04:07Z2015-09-04T01:04:07ZCapturing the lived history of the Aborigines Protection Board while we still can<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93099/original/image-20150827-15400-tyi0za.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A meeting to plan the 1938 Day of Mourning in Sydney is addressed by Jack Patten, a leader of the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA), which had three aims: full citizenship rights; Aboriginal representation in parliament and the abolition of the NSW Aborigines Protection Board. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.sydneybarani.com.au/sites/aboriginal-organisations-in-sydney/">Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW – MLQ059/9</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The NSW Aborigines Protection Board was <a href="http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/state-archives/guides-and-finding-aids/archives-in-brief/archives-in-brief-42">established in 1883</a>, a time when <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/social-Darwinism">Social Darwinism</a> theory prevailed and the colony of NSW looked towards a future as part of a federated white Australia. </p>
<p>The existence of Aboriginal communities, many of whom were calling for <a href="http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=037296929481947;res=IELIND">“land in our own country”</a>, was a challenge to authorities. The Protection Board, initially charged with overseeing the gazettal of Aboriginal reserves, quickly took over control from the missionaries and installed its own managers. </p>
<p>2015 marks 100 years since amendments to the NSW Aborigines Protection Act gave the board <a href="http://www.nma.gov.au/online_features/defining_moments/featured/aborigines_protection_act">far-reaching powers</a> with consequences that are felt to this day. The 1915 amendments gave the board complete power to remove Aboriginal children from their families. They also enabled the acceleration of the revocation of Aboriginal reserves and the casting off of Aboriginal families from largely independent and successful farms around the state. </p>
<p>For many Aboriginal people of those times, this was a board not of protection, but persecution. The board utterly controlled the lives and affairs of Aboriginal people in NSW <a href="http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/state-archives/guides-and-finding-aids/archives-relating-to-aboriginal-people/appendix-1-an-administrative-history">from 1883 until 1969</a>. </p>
<p>The impact of the policies of segregation, assimilation, child removal and wage withholding continued for decades and the negative results are still visible today. As the Encyclopedia of Aboriginal Australia <a href="http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/reference-entries/28062685/aborigines-protection-society">entry</a> on the board concludes, its legacy has been deep bitterness among Aboriginal people about their treatment by those entrusted with their welfare.</p>
<p>The result is a generalised sense of grievance and resentment about the past among NSW Aboriginal communities. But there is no clear sense of what actually happened and why. And how do local experiences of dispossession, child removal and employment and educational restrictions fit into larger patterns across the state? </p>
<h2>Researchers seek whole history</h2>
<p>A new <a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/newsroom/featured-news/landmark-research-into-aborigines-protection-board">ARC research project</a> aims to deliver the first comprehensive investigation of the Aborigines Protection Board’s activities and effects on the lives and families of Aboriginal people in NSW. </p>
<p>It is crucial this research is conducted while people who lived under the control of the board in its final decades are alive. Many are approaching the end of their lives. Bear in mind that the <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=6442458443">life expectancy</a> for Aboriginal men and women in NSW born between 1996 and 2000 is still 60 and 65 respectively.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93101/original/image-20150827-15411-3anz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93101/original/image-20150827-15411-3anz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93101/original/image-20150827-15411-3anz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93101/original/image-20150827-15411-3anz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93101/original/image-20150827-15411-3anz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93101/original/image-20150827-15411-3anz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1187&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93101/original/image-20150827-15411-3anz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1187&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93101/original/image-20150827-15411-3anz4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1187&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author’s grandfather, Fred Maynard, with his sister Emma in 1927, a time when his Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association suffered severe police harassment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.newcastle.edu.au/newsroom/research-and-innovation/institutes-and-centres/purai/arc-discovery-project-funding-success">Author/University of Newcastle</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Originally overseen by a “Protector”, the board was headed until 1938 by the chief executive of the NSW Police Force. Through the 1920s and 1930s, the board became increasingly draconian. This provoked significant <a href="http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/resources/pdfs/51.pdf">Aboriginal resistance</a>, with calls for its reform or abolition strengthening until an inquiry was held in 1937. </p>
<p>That inquiry ultimately resulted in the passage of the Welfare Board legislation in 1940. Under a new Superintendent of Aboriginal Welfare, the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board continued to exercise unparalleled control over Aboriginal lives until it was abolished in 1969.</p>
<p>Under the Welfare Board, Aboriginal people were still subjected to forced assimilation. These programs perpetuated earlier systems of control and oppression, albeit with a new name and with enhanced legitimacy among the wider non-Aboriginal society. </p>
<p>State control was most extreme from the board’s first legislation in 1909 to its reincarnation as the Welfare Board in 1939. During these 30 years Aboriginal people were confined and restrained on the reserves and subject to extremely discriminatory restrictions on their basic civil rights. </p>
<p>This can be considered a period of erasure and silencing, which is perpetuated in historiographic inattention. Yet this was a critical time for Aboriginal communities and individuals, as they moved from self-sufficiency through what Heather Goodall has termed <a href="http://www.nfsa.gov.au/digitallearning/mabo/info/austAbProgressiveAssoc.htm">“the second dispossession”</a> into subordination and dependency. </p>
<h2>Bringing personal and archival knowledge together</h2>
<p>In the <a href="https://rms.arc.gov.au/RMS/Report/Download/Report/d6b15b2b-3a50-4021-8e6f-6c7ef1cba553/0">four-year ARC project</a>, an <a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/newsroom/featured-news/landmark-research-into-aborigines-protection-board">experienced team</a> of Indigenous and non-Indigenous historians will aim to produce a landmark social history of the Aboriginal experience of the Protection/Welfare Board. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93104/original/image-20150827-15424-1lq6668.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93104/original/image-20150827-15424-1lq6668.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93104/original/image-20150827-15424-1lq6668.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93104/original/image-20150827-15424-1lq6668.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93104/original/image-20150827-15424-1lq6668.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93104/original/image-20150827-15424-1lq6668.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93104/original/image-20150827-15424-1lq6668.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93104/original/image-20150827-15424-1lq6668.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The AAPA was the first organised activist group to campaign against the Protection Board.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/resources/pdfs/51.pdf">Author supplied</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This project responds to a pressing need for a full understanding of this history by Aboriginal people in particular, but also by the wider Australian community. This is not simply an institutional history. Rather, it is a sustained examination of the lived experience of people under the control of a state regime. </p>
<p>An important aspect of the project is imparting knowledge to Aboriginal communities on:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the importance of gaining access to restricted materials so that we have a clear and insightful record for future generations to fully understand and evaluate the Indigenous experience in NSW.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The aim is to bring to light the full history of the Aboriginal experience of board control in a way that empowers Aboriginal communities today. The researchers intend to draw upon personal, family and community recollections and records, and to bring these into conversation with the institutional records. In this way the research will acknowledge Aboriginal people’s central questions and concerns and respect them as the major stakeholders in this history. </p>
<p>There is a strong imperative to privilege Indigenous voices and impart the significance to this day of Aboriginal memory and storytelling in recovering lost and erased histories. We will combine Indigenous oral memory and archival sourced research methods.</p>
<p>The project is directed towards assisting Indigenous living opportunities in a changing environment for the better. The aim is to produce outcomes that can enhance Indigenous health, wellbeing and pride. </p>
<p>Such aims will benefit all Australians by promoting a more harmonious and understanding society. As a nation, a more respected place in world affairs can only be attained with a more balanced, collaborative and inclusive Australian history that delivers pride and justice to all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46259/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Maynard receives funding from University of Newcastle.</span></em></p>Researchers aim to record the experiences of the last people to live under the control of the Aborigines Protection/Welfare Board in NSW as part of a complete history of its far-reaching impacts.John Maynard, Director/Chair of Aboriginal History - The Wollotuka Institute, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/339012014-11-13T19:32:02Z2014-11-13T19:32:02ZAustralian states can do better for the Stolen Generations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64171/original/2stvg8rk-1415665713.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Australians turned out in numbers to hear the 2008 apology to the Stolen Generations, but a bill before the state parliament fails to live up to the promise of that day.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stolen_generation_apology,_Elder_Park.jpg">Wikimedia Commons/edna-photos </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A bill before South Australian parliament would make it the second Australian state to compensate Stolen Generation survivors and their children. Tangible recognition of their suffering is overdue, but the Stolen Generations (Compensation) Bill could be improved. The bill risks adding insult to injury.</p>
<p>The bill proposes to cap damages for survivors at A$50,000 and for their children at $5000. Any monetary amount will be arbitrary and similar amounts were awarded under <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/tas/consol_act/sgoaca2006378/">2006 Tasmanian legislation</a>.</p>
<p>The Tasmanian figures simply reflected the $5 million that the state was prepared to spend, divided by the number of successful applications. The Tasmanian law also did not reflect the impact of the landmark <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/stolen-generation-payout/2007/08/01/1185647978562.html">Trevorrow case</a> decided in 2007, which awarded $450,000 in general damages and $75,000 in punitive damages to the late Bruce Trevorrow.</p>
<p>The Trevorrow judgment, <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/stolen-generations-compo-payout-upheld-by-appeal-court/story-e6frg6n6-1225844018163">upheld on appeal</a> in 2010, is from my Canadian perspective an inspiring one. Unlike court cases in Canada that led to a <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/ILB/2008/4.html#fn9">2006 settlement</a> (under which almost $4 billion has been paid to the 80,000 survivors of Indigenous schools in Canada), it recognised that damages were due for loss of language, culture and family attachments as well as for illegal abuse and apprehension of the children.</p>
<h2>A risk of harming rather than helping</h2>
<p>The South Australian bill would impose an unfortunate top-down and rushed model. It allows the minister to decide compensation and forces survivors to apply within six months of the bill being passed. </p>
<p>The Canadian experience indicates that the process of applying for compensation can take time, in part because of lost documentation. It can also be traumatic for the survivors. Canada has provisions for the use of adjudicators who are familiar with Aboriginal culture and experiences and for counselling to assist claimants.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64176/original/47p2836n-1415666788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64176/original/47p2836n-1415666788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64176/original/47p2836n-1415666788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64176/original/47p2836n-1415666788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64176/original/47p2836n-1415666788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64176/original/47p2836n-1415666788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64176/original/47p2836n-1415666788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Liberal MLC Terry Stephens introduced the South Australian bill.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SA Parliament</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The current bill could facilitate re-victimisation because it allows compensation to be denied if the minister determines that removal was in the child’s best interests. Forced assimilation was based on the racist idea that removal from Indigenous families and culture was often in the child’s best interests. This provision unfortunately replicates such colonial conceits.</p>
<p>The bill also provides that compensation could be denied if the placement was a result of a conviction. One problem is that Indigenous children could in the past <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/rightsed-bringing-them-home-8-laws-south-australia">be convicted</a> of the crime of being neglected. The bill should take more care not to harm those it intends to help.</p>
<p>Recognition of the collective harms of using schools as a form of forced assimilation and institutional racism is relegated to the non-binding preamble of the SA bill.</p>
<p>Unlike a <a href="http://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/LZ/B/ARCHIVE/STOLEN%20GENERATIONS%20REPARATIONS%20TRIBUNAL%20BILL%202010_HON%20TAMMY%20JENNINGS%20MLC.aspx">bill introduced</a> in the SA legislature in 2010, it has no provisions for providing survivors with a forum to discuss their experiences and for funding to help restore what was lost, including language, culture and all too often mental and physical health.</p>
<h2>What can we learn from Canada?</h2>
<p>The collective aspects of Canada’s 2006 settlement for the survivors of indigenous residential schools have been critical. They included funding (unfortunately now ended) for an <a href="http://www.ahf.ca/">Aboriginal Healing Foundation</a>. This funded both community initiatives and research into the best means to deal with the direct and intergenerational harms of the schools.</p>
<p>The Canadian settlement also provided funds for commemoration and education, as well as a <a href="http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=3">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a>. Since 2008, this commission, composed of two Indigenous and one non-Indigenous commissioners, has taken thousands of statements from those affected by the schools. It has community and larger national forums. It has engaged in public education. </p>
<p>The Canada commission has issued two interim reports and will release a final report next year. It will also establish a permanent research centre in the hope that all Canadians never forget the painful legacy of the schools as a grotesque and failed social experiment in forced assimilation. </p>
<p>The only report contemplated in the SA legislation is the minister’s annual report.</p>
<p>The best Australian approach will not be a carbon copy of the Canadian approach. It must reflect the aspirations of those Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who were harmed by the schools. It should also allow all Australians to learn about the schools. We risk re-imposing the harms of the schools if we do not allow Indigenous people to decide the best way to deal with the pain these schools caused.</p>
<p>Justice for the Stolen Generations is overdue, but it should not be rushed, imposed or cheap justice. The legislators of South Australia should listen carefully to the criticisms of the compensation bill, especially those coming from the Indigenous communities that it is meant to benefit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33901/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kent Roach was a special advisor to the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.</span></em></p>A bill before South Australian parliament would make it the second Australian state to compensate Stolen Generation survivors and their children. Tangible recognition of their suffering is overdue, but…Kent Roach, Professor & Prichard Wilson Chair in Law and Public Policy, University of Toronto, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.