Rudd says sorry to forgotten Australians
AAP
November 16, 2009 11:18am
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KEVIN Rudd has apologised to forgotten Australians saying the nation is sorry for their physical suffering, emotional starvation and the cold absence of love and tenderness during their forced care.
“Sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where often you were abused,” he said.
Hundreds of people, many of them forgotten Australians, have gathered in parliament’s Great Hall to hear both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull offer an apology.
They welcomed the Prime Minister with rapturous applause and hooting.
The audience included former child migrants separated from their families in Britain.
They and others were placed with foster parents or in orphanages run by the states and churches up until the late 1970s.
Many suffered ill-treatment and some sexual abuse.
Mr Rudd told those gathered that Australia was “Sorry for the physical suffering, emotional starvation and the cold absence of love, of tenderness, of care.”
He said that part of Australia’s history was filled with shame.
“As a nation we must now reflect on those who did not receive proper care.
“We look back with shame that so many of you were left cold, hungry and alone and with nowhere to hide and nobody, absolutely nobody, to whom to turn.
Mr Rudd acknowledged the pain of children shipped to Australia as migrants.
“Robbed of your families, robbed of your homeland, regarded not as innocent children, but regarded instead as a source of child labour.
“To those of you who were told you were orphans, brought here without your parents’ knowledge or consent, we acknowledge the lies you were told, the lies told to your mothers, fathers and the pain these lies have caused for a lifetime.”
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Thousands of British children forced to make the long sea journey to Australia in the belief that their parents had died finally received an official apology today (Mon) for the abuse they suffered in their new country.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has shown the way to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown into apologising to the abused and neglected child migrants by uttering a word the former migrants had waited years to hear:
‘Sorry’.
Mr Rudd went further, to say that he was ‘deeply sorry’ for the pain caused to not only the British migrants but to hundreds of thousands of Australian children who were placed into state care where they were sexually abused, beaten and humiliated.
‘We look back with shame that so many of you were left cold, hungry and alone and with nowhere to hide and nobody, absolutely nobody, to whom to turn,’ said Mr Rudd.
Mr Rudd said the nation was sorry for the physical suffering, emotional starvation and the cold absence of love and tenderness during the forced care suffered by the children who arrived on ships or who were already in Australia.
He said he was ‘sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where often they were abused.’
Hundreds of those children, now in their 50s and beyond gathered in parliament’s Great hall in Canberra to hear the apology, not only from Labour Prime Minister Mr Rudd but from the Liberal (conservative) leader, Malcolm Turnbull.
As youngsters, they were placed with foster parents or put into orphanages in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, where they suffered ill-treatment and in some cases sexual abuse.
Part of Australia’s history, said Mr Rudd, was filled with shame and ‘as a nation we must now reflect on those who did not receive proper care.’
Speaking of the British child migrants, he said: ‘Robbed of your families, robbed of your homeland, regarded not as innocent children, but regarded instead as a source of child labour.
‘To those who you who were told you were orphans, brought here without your parents’ knowledge or consent, we acknowledge the lies you were told, the lies told to your mothers, fathers and the pain these lies have caused for a lifetime.’
Mr Rudd’s apology comes after an announcement by the British government that Mr Brown would apologise for the forced migration policy next year.
The policy saw many children, who were shipped to Australia to increase the white population and build up the work force, educated only for farm work.
The founder of the Child Migrants Trust, Margaret Humphreys, travelled from England to Australia to hear the apology today.
For more than 20 years, she said, the trust had campaigned for recognition of what had happened to children.
‘This is a moment – a significant moment – in the history of child migration. The recognition is vital if people are to recover,’ she said.
Up to 10,000 children were forced to go to Australia, among them Harold Haig, now a spokesman for the International Association of Former Child Migrants and Their Families.
He said the apology should be followed by compensation from governments.
‘Federal governments played a direct role in the migration scheme,’ he said.
‘We were told we were orphans and we found out in our 40s, 50s and 60s that was all a lie. We see the national apology as the first step, but our struggle for compensation will not end.’
Eight years ago a Senate inquiry held in Australia into child migrants heard from people like Cliff Walsh, who was deported from the UK in 1954 without the knowledge of his parents, and Margaret Gallagher who was wrongly told she was an orphan with no family in England.
They and others told the inquiry of physical and sexual abuse, deprived of food and education and healthcare and often forced to work as slave labour.
Child Migrants in the 1940s
Half a million Australian children and thousands more from Britain forced to make the long sea journey to Australia in the belief that their parents had died have finally received an official apology for the abuse they suffered in state ‘care’.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has shown the way to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown into apologising to the abused and neglected child migrants and ‘stolen’ Australian children by uttering a word they had waited more than half a century to hear: ’Sorry’.
Mr Rudd went further, to say that he was in fact ‘deeply sorry’ for the pain caused to not only the British migrants but to hundreds of thousands of Australian children who were placed into state care where they were sexually abused, beaten and humiliated.
‘We look back with shame that so many of you were left cold, hungry and alone and with nowhere to hide and nobody, absolutely nobody, to whom to turn,’ said Mr Rudd.
Mr Rudd said the nation was sorry for the physical suffering, emotional starvation and the cold absence of love and tenderness during the forced care suffered by the children who arrived on ships or who were already in Australia.
He said he was ‘sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where often they were abused.’
Hundreds of those children, now in their 50s and beyond gathered in parliament’s Great hall in Canberra to hear the apology, not only from Labour Prime Minister Mr Rudd but from the Liberal (conservative) leader, Malcolm Turnbull.
As youngsters, they were placed with foster parents or put into orphanages in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, where they suffered ill-treatment and in some cases sexual abuse.
Part of Australia’s history, said Mr Rudd, was filled with shame and ‘as a nation we must now reflect on those who did not receive proper care.’
Speaking of the British child migrants, he said: ‘Robbed of your families, robbed of your homeland, regarded not as innocent children, but regarded instead as a source of child labour.
‘To those who you who were told you were orphans, brought here without your parents’ knowledge or consent, we acknowledge the lies you were told, the lies told to your mothers, fathers and the pain these lies have caused for a lifetime.’
Mr Rudd’s apology comes after an announcement by the British government that Mr Brown would apologise for the forced migration policy next year.
The policy saw many children, who were shipped to Australia to increase the white population and build up the work force, educated only for farm work.
The founder of the Child Migrants Trust, Margaret Humphreys, travelled from England to Australia to hear the apology today.
For more than 20 years, she said, the trust had campaigned for recognition of what had happened to children.
‘This is a moment – a significant moment – in the history of child migration. The recognition is vital if people are to recover,’ she said.
Up to 10,000 children were forced to go to Australia, among them Harold Haig, now a spokesman for the International Association of Former Child Migrants and Their Families.
He said the apology should be followed by compensation from governments.
‘Federal governments played a direct role in the migration scheme,’ he said.
‘We were told we were orphans and we found out in our 40s, 50s and 60s that was all a lie. We see the national apology as the first step, but our struggle for compensation will not end.’
Eight years ago a Senate inquiry held in Australia into child migrants heard from people like Cliff Walsh, who was deported from the UK in 1954 without the knowledge of his parents, and Margaret Gallagher who was wrongly told she was an orphan with no family in England.
They and others told the inquiry of physical and sexual abuse, deprived of food and education and healthcare and often forced to work as slave labour.
