Page 5112 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 27 October 2010
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In the 2008 debate, Mr Stanhope, referring to the morning of the national apology, said that Canberrans:
… were on their way to hear one word said. They heard it said not once but again and again, for there was more than one wrong to be made right, more than one hurt to be healed, more than one need to say sorry.
Today, we start the process of addressing another need to say sorry. That need arises not because the ACT government did the wrong thing or that as individuals we have done the wrong thing, but because as a society we recognise that a great wrong was perpetrated against members of our community and that it is appropriate that we all fully understand those wrongs and that the government and the parliament on behalf of Canberrans apologise for those wrongs.
There is a particularly strong need to make the community aware of what happened and apologise for it so that those children who were adopted out or raised in institutions know that their mothers did not abandon them as “unwanted babies”, as was widely claimed at the time; that this was certainly not “in the best interests of the mothers and babies” and these young mothers did not have a choice about what happened to their children, and that they have carried a lifetime’s anguish wondering what became of them.
Child psychiatrist Dr Geoffrey Rickarby, in the book Releasing the Past: Mother’s Stories of Their Stolen Babies, edited by Christine Cole, says:
Each time I hear an adoptee say, if my mother had really wanted me, she could have … something inside me boils, no matter how much I feel with the adoptee before me. As a psychiatrist I am left with one stand out conclusion: that a woman having a baby taken from her is one of the deepest traumas available, and the grief is untenable when she knows her child is out there—where?
The Western Australian Minister for Health, Dr Hames, in his speech on the Western Australian apology, said that, after speaking to a mother who had been affected by the practice, he had:
… a far greater understanding of their treatment during that time and to gain a greater appreciation of the need for and the benefits of an apology. One of the mothers whom I met explained to me that while the apology could not heal the hurt that she had suffered for so long, it would make all those involved in the process understand that she had not given up her child because she did not want it, but because the process that led to the adoption was so flawed that the option of choice was effectively removed.
The minister also read out a number of letters that he had received from around the country. One that I would like to share again here read:
My mother was one that was affected by the actions that will be the focus of your apology in Parliament next week. Unfortunately my mother passed away yesterday in Brisbane and will not get to hear the apology delivered, or see it in writing. I am pleased to say that I was able to let her know of your apology plans
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