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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 2375 ..

MRS MILLS (continuing):

My committal records explained my last place of residence, Koonibba Mission Station, my father's name, my mother's name including her maiden name and, in brackets at the end of her name, "Quarter-caste Abo".

The exact circumstances surrounding my removal from my family are not clear to me, and may never be clear, as there appears to be no record of any charges against my mother or any signed document relinquishing us from her care. But there are the memories for my older brother and sister of life with our mother, the time in our lives when we were taken to Adelaide, accompanied by a welfare officer, and locked in a room together, and life in an institution. My eldest sister can also recall that a welfare officer looked at the palm and the back of her hand and said, "Yes, she will be all right".

My sisters and I were committed to Seaforth Children's Home and my brother to Glandore Boys Home. For one of my sisters, the separation was so traumatic that she almost died. I remained in Seaforth Home for almost one year. I was then fostered out to a couple who could not have children of their own and who already had two adopted boys and a girl who was fostered. They were non-indigenous. Recently, I asked a member of my foster family whether she recalls the first day I was taken home to live with my foster mother. She said, "Yvonne, you looked a very frightened little girl. The look on your face - you did not know what was happening". I was around three years old.

Mr Speaker, I hold in my hand 15 years of my life as a ward of the state, which has been recorded on four pages. In those 15 years as a state ward, I had the same foster parents. I had moved 11 times during that period because of my foster father's employment. I attended seven different schools in my first seven years of primary school and I was visited over 30 times by a state welfare officer. Mr Speaker, I want to read some of the entries made by welfare officers, which explain the racial discrimination I experienced as a very young Aboriginal child growing up in a non-indigenous environment:

Foster mother unhappy about conduct of school children towards child - call her "Nigger and Darkie". Girl will not go into the street without foster mother -

I was four years old -

Child upset when other children call her "Darkie" -

I was six years old -

Bright friendly girl - always well cared for. Is teased by other children about her colour -

I was seven years old -

Teacher seen re remarks passed about child's colour -

I was eight years old -

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