Page 5488 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 November 2011
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forgotten Australians are adults—many of them at the moment are in their 30s, some are very elderly—but they are the survivors of institutionalised care here in Australia. Of course, this was in the orphanages, the homes and so forth that many children found themselves in. That could have been because they were orphaned, their parents were in prison or they were taken from their parents due to neglect.
In fact, talking to some of the people who were gathered there this morning, it also ranges to children of Germans here in Australia during the Second World War who were interned. The parents were put in one place, the children were put in orphanages. It goes through to children who were born with disability and who were put into institutions and left there.
For many of these children, their experiences were horrific. They were very traumatising. There was abuse of all sorts. There was not enough to eat, there was not proper health care, they were not given the educational opportunities they should have been given. So we do have something like 500,000 people in Australia who went through this system, and for many of them the impact and the effects of that have been lifelong. And, of course, we also must remember Indigenous Australians, those of the stolen generations.
It was, I think, a very important event to go to, to acknowledge what had happened to these people. It coincided with an exhibition that has been opened at the National Museum of Australia. So many of the people who were at the gathering this morning had been flown in from different parts of Australia because they had participated in that exhibition, they had given particular possessions. One was a school uniform from when they had been in the institution. But they also shared their stories and, as I said, these stories are heartrending in many cases.
I do encourage everybody to go to the National Museum of Australia to see the exhibition because I think it is important. We need to raise the awareness of the plight of these people to ensure that they are going to be given the supports and services that they require, that they need, that they are calling for.
There are many groups that have set up across Australia to provide support, but it is important, as representatives of our communities, that we do ensure that the services are accessible for those people who need them. Because of the lack of education, there was a lack of employment and so poor life outcomes. There was poor health and a lot of mental illness. A lot of people had post-traumatic stress disorder. There were also other types of mental illness that many are still suffering from. That is why it is important.
Many of these children were told that if they went out and told their stories they would not be believed, and that stopped them coming forward. And unfortunately, of course, that meant that the abuse and the neglect continued. It is important that we acknowledge the stories of these people, that their experiences were real, and we need to learn in order to ensure that this sort of thing cannot happen again.
Of course, here in this 21st century, hopefully we have moved a long way from the sorts of institutions that we had back then, but we cannot ever neglect to have a look
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