And we are off - Aboriginal leaders say $1 billion 'not sorry enough'

[coolcricket]

Because that would make you a racist whitefella that just isnt sorry enough.

Ah dear, oh well, it really doesn't bother me when someone calls me white. But its the opposite with Blacks. They get so offensive and call racism, in Australia and other politically correct countries anyway.

I lived in Fiji for 7 years, there are no problems there, call each other whites, blacks, nobody takes offence.

 

[So_Cynical]

Ah dear, oh well, it really doesn't bother me when someone calls me white. But its the opposite with Blacks. They get so offensive and call racism, in Australia and other politically correct countries anyway.

I lived in Fiji for 7 years, there are no problems there, call each other whites, blacks, nobody takes offence.

Africans are the same...white people are white and blacks are black.

Its a non issue there, and makes the whole black and white thing so much easyer...

 

[gimme some]

This arguement that the people removing these children from thier families really believed they were doing the right thing, just doesn't wash.
Do you think Adolf Hitler would have done what he did if he didn't truly believe it was the right thing to do.

 

[Freeballinginawetsuit]

Ah dear, oh well, it really doesn't bother me when someone calls me white. But its the opposite with Blacks. They get so offensive and call racism, in Australia and other politically correct countries anyway.
.

Thats just dribble, you could always pick a minority whinge like that out of any ethnic group.

An Aboriginal being called a Blackfella is probably one of the mildest hardships they have had to deal with in there lives.

I'd say a fair lump of youre politically correct chums would lose the fella and coin up cxxx!.

 

[Julia]

This arguement that the people removing these children from thier families really believed they were doing the right thing, just doesn't wash.
Do you think Adolf Hitler would have done what he did if he didn't truly believe it was the right thing to do.

Not an appropriate comparison.

Hitler exterminated Jews because he regarded them as essentially vermin.
He wasn't trying to improve their outcomes!

 

[2020hindsight]

2020: could you consider a response to this please? You clearly think compensation should be paid: How do you think this will make the whole process of reconciliation better, i.e. how should it happen, who would actually get what money, how would it be determined, and how would we as taxpayers feel confident that it's not going to be spent on the aforementioned grog, 4 wheel drives, tinnies etc etc?
How would this monetary compensation ameliorate their plight in any direction?
Would there be conditions attached to how the funds were to be spent?

What would be your answer to "stealing" some of the current generation of children rather than leave then vulnerable to further sexual violence within their own communities?

As Disarray and others have said, the 'stolen generation' were not removed out of any sense of malevolence but in the genuine belief that their chances of a better life would be increased by so doing. Imo we are doing the current generation of abused children a dreadful disservice by leaving them in the hands of abusers.

Whilst I respect your point of view, you do tend to be big on the emotive stuff and very light on the practicalities and outcomes.

Julia
The point of the sorry march was simply that - to START the healing process.

I would simply say that we are discussing the need to say "sorry".
I think it is something that must be done.
I think you will find that the Abs think it is something that must be done.
I think you will find several bureaucrats trying to work out the wording as we speak.


I think you are missing the point.

As for the second third etc steps. I have said numerous times that these people need a chance for gainful employment. Whether this means that factories are set up nearby to them where no tax is applicable ( as per the red indians in USA) etc etc - options tobe discussed elsewhere.

But if you are saying that to say sorry is a hollow and /or meaningless emotional issue - I would counter that the point of all this is going over your head.

Read some of the articles where abs insisit on the word sorry as an essential first step. Listen to the Redfern address. You might start to understand.

 

[hangseng]

you disappoint me hangseng

let's put it this way ..

suppose a court of law found they were entitled to compensation (stolen gen) - what would you say then ?

4. Healing? rubbish? whatever .
so much mean spirited stuff being posted here
- boil on.

Unfortunately it is the Aboriginal representatives that have disappointed. They consistently stated this had nothing to do with compensation. What are they doing now.

If the court of law applied this consistently and also paid out for the convicts (some their biggest crime stealing a loaf of bread to feed a family) and to the many children removed from families in Britain and Ireland post war and brought here then some form of parity may silence me.

I often wonder how the "stolen generation" people would have turned out were they not "stolen". If you honestly believe those poor children are better off living in the hunger and squaller they do with violent, sexually abusing drunken parents then I would be amased. If you have seen this then go into the Pilbara, Kalgoorlie and suburbs of Lockridge you will be disgusted with the way these people treat their own children.

I say do it again as some of them clearly do not give a damn for these poor kids.

Note I am tarring all with the same brush, as I said I have good long term Noogyar friends. They to are pissed off with the way these children are treated by their own.

But let's just pay out many more millions to a select group who have done nothing with the many millions they have already squandered publicly. Give these children support by all means but don't give anymore to people who just go and buy more booze and destroy their own families and culture.

 

[Julia]

Julia
The point of the sorry march was simply that - to START the healing process.

I would simply say that we are discussing the need to say "sorry".
I think it is something that must be done.
I think you will find that the Abs think it is something that must be done.
I think you will find several bureaucrats trying to work out the wording as we speak.


I think you are missing the point.

As for the second third etc steps. I have said numerous times that these people need a chance for gainful employment. Whether this means that factories are set up nearby to them where no tax is applicable ( as per the red indians in USA) etc etc - options tobe discussed elsewhere.

But if you are saying that to say sorry is a hollow and /or meaningless emotional issue - I would counter that the point of all this is going over your head.

Read some of the articles where abs insisit on the word sorry as an essential first step. Listen to the Redfern address. You might start to understand.

My post didn't refer to saying sorry. I haven't objected to that.
Nothing you have said here addresses my questions about compensation payments or sexual violence.

 

[Happy]

From ABC 21 Dec. 07
GOVT BACKS INDIGENOUS WELFARE QUARANTINE

The Federal Government has thrown its support behind a plan to quarantine the welfare payments of families in some Queensland Indigenous communities.
Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin met Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and Cape York Indigenous leader Noel Pearson this morning, to discuss establishing a Family Responsibilities Commission in the state.
Four-year trials of welfare reform will be conducted in Aurukun, Hopevale, Coen and Mossman Gorge.
Ms Bligh says families must meet obligations for school attendance, child welfare, good tenancy and reduced violence.

Not a word about looking for employment.

Suppose savings made on not smashed homes and reduced number of police deployment to violent incidents will be enough saving for taxpayers.


This alone shows how sorry we are already.

 

[2020hindsight]

My post didn't refer to saying sorry. I haven't objected to that.
Nothing you have said here addresses my questions about compensation payments or sexual violence.

julia thought for the day ...
suppose some kids were perfectly happy UNTIL they were stolen -
and only THEN did the abuse start?

 

[justjohn]

julia thought for the day ...
suppose some kids were perfectly happy UNTIL they were stolen -
and only THEN did the abuse start?

C'mon 20/20 we've had a good day today why did you have to dig this one up again. For christ sake I'm sorry:

 

[Julia]

julia thought for the day ...
suppose some kids were perfectly happy UNTIL they were stolen -
and only THEN did the abuse start?

OK I give up.
Clearly you are unable to respond to my questions.

 

[nioka]

C'mon 20/20 we've had a good day today why did you have to dig this one up again. For christ sake I'm sorry:

Me too. Sorry, sorry, sorry. End of the matter.


P.S. All claims for compensation to:

Santa
C/- ??????
Greenland (or Alaska or somewhere like that)

 

[2020hindsight]

Julia and others ....
Since you (and disarray and others) always assume (obviously without the slightest hint of research) that things improved for these kids - here are some stats I found in a very cursory search ...

Children's experiences following their removal contributed to the effects of the removal upon them at the time and in later life. In this chapter we briefly survey the evidence to the Inquiry concerning those experiences which have had the most significant impacts on well-being and development.

Placement stability
As the following table shows, a high proportion of children (based on the experiences of Inquiry witnesses) experienced multiple placements following their removal.


Placement types, Inquiry witnesses
Placement Number Percent

Single institution........ 88......... 25.1%

Multiple institutions or institution followed by work placement ......... 95 ...... 27.1%

Single foster/adoptive placement ...... 50 .......... 14.3%

Multiple foster/adoptive placements ......... 6 ......... 1.7%

Institution(s) then foster/adoption or placement followed by institutionalisation .......... 95 ................ 27.3%

Other ............. 16 .............. 4.6%

Total for whom information available ................ 350 .............. 100%

One-quarter of the Inquiry witnesses spent the entire period from removal to release in a single children's home while only 14% spent that entire period with a single non-Indigenous family, whether fostered, adopted or both. Many children moved among institutions (27%) or from an institution(s) into a foster placement(s) or vice versa (27%).

Children's stories.... (this could go on for many many posts - I'll cover institutions in a second post)

So I went through foster homes, and I never stayed in one any longer than two months ... Then you'd be moved onto the next place and it went on and on and on. That's one of the main reasons I didn't finish primary school.
Confidential evidence 316, Tasmania.

The Inquiry was advised by the Australian Association of Infant Mental Health, " While separation and loss may become commonplace for the child who experiences several foster placements, the multiplicity of separations does not make them any easier (submission 699 page 4). "

Totality of separation
....... Many children were told they were unwanted, rejected or that their parents were dead.

I remember this woman saying to me, `Your mother's dead, you've got no mother now. That's why you're here with us'. Then about two years after that my mother and my mother's sister all came to The Bungalow but they weren't allowed to visit us because they were black. They had to sneak around onto the hills. Each mother was picking out which they think was their children. And this other girl said, `Your mother up there'. And because they told me that she was dead, I said, `No, that's not my mother. I haven't got a black mother'.
Confidential evidence 544, Northern Territory: woman removed to The Bungalow, Alice Springs, at 5 years in the 1930s; later spent time at Croker Island Mission.

I was trying to come to grips with and believe the stories they were telling me about me being an orphan, about me having no family. In other words telling me just get up on your own two feet, no matter what your size ... and just face this big world ... and in other words you don't belong to anybody and nobody belongs to you so sink or swim. And they probably didn't believe I would swim.
Confidential evidence 421, Western Australia..

Children were given the very strong impression their parents were worthless.

When I first met my mother - when I was 14 - she wasn't what they said she was. They made her sound like she was stupid, you know, they made her sound so bad. And when I saw her she was so beautiful. Mum said, `My baby's been crying' and she walked into the room and she stood there and I walked into my - I walked into my mother and we hugged and this hot, hot rush just from the tip of my toes up to my head filled every part of my body - so hot. That was my first feeling of love and it only could come from my mum. I was so happy and that was the last time I got to see her. When my mum passed away I went to her funeral, which is stupid because I'm allowed to go see her at her funeral but I couldn't have that when she requested me. They wouldn't let me have her.
Confidential evidence 139, Victoria: removed 1967; witness's mother died two years after their first and only meeting.

 

[2020hindsight]

Julia
If you're ever in WA go to the museum

........ An Aboriginal witness to the Inquiry in Perth who taught in the school at Moore River during the 1950s gave evidence that inmates were flogged with a cat-o'-nine-tails (now held in the WA Museum) (confidential evidence 681).

Here are some notes about the saintly white-run institutions
...
next post will cover some for the sexual abuse.

I got told my Aboriginality when I got whipped and they'd say, `You Abo, you ******'. That was the only time I got told my Aboriginality.
Confidential evidence 139, Victoria: removed 1967.

Institutional conditions
The living conditions in children's institutions were often very harsh.

And for them to say she [mother] neglected us! I was neglected when I was in this government joint down here. I didn't end up 15 days in a hospital bed [with bronchitis] when I was with me mum and dad.
Confidential evidence 163, Victoria: woman removed at 9 years in the 1950s.

The physical infrastructure of missions, government institutions and children's homes was often very poor and resources were insufficient to improve them or to keep the children adequately clothed, fed and sheltered. WA's Chief Protector, A O Neville, later described the conditions at the Moore River Settlement in the 1920s (Neville had no control over the Settlement from 1920 until 1926, his jurisdiction being limited to the State's north during that period).

Moore River Settlement had rapidly declined under a brutal indifference. Here `economy' had taken the form of ignoring maintenance and any improvement of buildings, reducing to a minimum the diet of `inmates' and doing away with the use of cutlery - the children in the compounds being forced to eat with their hands. The salaries of attendant and teachers had been reduced and anything that was not essential to the rudimentary education available was removed. Even toys, such as plasticine, were removed from the classroom. Unhappiness and the desperate anxiety to locate and rejoin family members led to a sharp increase in absconders and runaways. Punishment was harsh and arbitrary and the `inmates' feared the Police trackers who patrolled the settlement and hunted down escapees (quoted by Jacobs 1990 on page 123).
Doris Pilkington described the conditions as `more like a concentration camp than a residential school for Aboriginal children' (Pilkington 1996 page 72).

Young men and women constantly ran away (this was in breach of the Aborigines Act). Not only were they separated from their families and relatives, but they were regimented and locked up like caged animals, locked in their dormitory after supper for the night. They were given severe punishments, including solitary confinements for minor misdeeds (Choo 1989 page 46).

........ An Aboriginal witness to the Inquiry in Perth who taught in the school at Moore River during the 1950s gave evidence that inmates were flogged with a cat-o'-nine-tails (now held in the WA Museum) (confidential evidence 681).


Conditions in other children's institutions are also remembered as harsh. Melbourne law firm Phillips Fox summarised the experience reported by their clients.

... the consistent theme for post-removal memories is the lack of love, the strict, often cruel, treatment by adults, the constantly disparaging remarks about Aboriginality - and the fact that the child should be showing more gratitude for having been taken from all that - and of course, the terrible loneliness and longing to return to family and community. Some commented that `I thought I was in a nightmare'. `I couldn't work out what I'd done wrong to deserve this'. `It was like being in prison'. `It was very strict - you weren't allowed to do anything' (submission 20 page 6).
There was no food, nothing. We was all huddled up in a room ... like a little puppy-dog ... on the floor ... Sometimes at night time we'd cry with hunger, no food ... We had to scrounge in the town dump, eating old bread, smashing tomato sauce bottles, licking them. Half of the time the food we got was from the rubbish dump.
Confidential evidence 549, Northern Territory: man removed to Kahlin Compound at 3 years in the 1930s; subsequently placed at The Bungalow.

It's a wonder we all survived with the food we got. For breakfast we got a bit of porridge with saccharine in it and a cup of tea. The porridge was always dry as a bone. Lunch was a plate of soup made out of bones, sheeps' heads and things like that, no vegetables. For dinner we had a slice of bread with jam and a cup of tea. After our dinner we were locked up in a dormitory for the night.
WA woman who lived at Moore River Settlement from 1918 until 1939, quoted by Haebich 1982 on page 59.

Institutional regimes were typically very strictly regulated.

Dormitory life was like living in hell. It was not a life. The only thing that sort of come out of it was how to work, how to be clean, you know and hygiene. That sort of thing. But we got a lot bashings.
Confidential evidence 109, Queensland: woman removed at 5 years in 1948.
Children's well-being was sometimes severely neglected.

These are people telling you to be Christian and they treat you less than a bloody animal. One boy his leg was that gangrene we could smell him all down the dormitories before they finally got him treated properly.
Confidential evidence, New South Wales: man removed to Kinchela Boys' Home in the 1960s.

I remember the beatings and hidings [they] gave us and what I saw. I remember if you played up, especially on a Sunday, you got the cane. You play chasing, you had to drop your pants, lie across the bed and get 3-5 whacks. If you pissed the bed - another 3-5. I remember seeing, when I was about 7 or 9 - I think it was IM get pulled by the hair and her arm twisted behind her back and hit in the face ...
Confidential evidence 251, South Australia: man removed to Colebrook at 2 years in the 1950s.

I've seen girls naked, strapped to chairs and whipped. We've all been through the locking up period, locked in dark rooms. I had a problem of fainting when I was growing up and I got belted every time I fainted and this is belted, not just on the hands or nothing. I've seen my sister dragged by the hair into those block rooms and belted because she's trying to protect me ... How could this be for my own good? Please tell me.
Confidential evidence 8, New South Wales: woman removed to Cootamundra Girls' Home in the 1940s.

In some cases administrators were admonished for their treatment of inmates or residents. Former WA Chief Protector, A O Neville, described in his 1947 book some of the treatments meted out by his staff at the Moore River Settlement.

One Superintendent I had, because he suspected him of some moral lapse, tarred and feathered a native, and he did the job thoroughly, calling the staff to see the rare bird he had captured ... Another Manager I did appoint, an ex-Missionary, and a good man too, I had to dismiss for chaining girls to table legs ... Indeed, it was found necessary to provide by regulation for the abolition of `degrading' and injurious punishments and the practice of holding inmates up to ridicule, such as dressing them in old sacks or shaving girls' heads (Neville 1947 pages 112-113).

Verbal complaints and formal petitions were dismissed by one superintendent who told the commissioner, `the natives generally feel that they must always have some complaints when you visit them' (quoted by Haebich 1982 on page 59).


In 1927 Mrs Curry, a former employee at Cootamundra Girls' Home in NSW, alleged that girls had been `flogged, slashed with a cane etc etc

In 1935 the NSW Aborigines Protection Board commissioned a report on the conduct of the manager of Kinchela Boys' Home following receipt of allegations of insobriety and ill-treatment of the boys. Upon consideration of the report late in that year, the Board determined to `strongly advise' the manager `to give up taking intoxicating liquor entirely' particularly when in the company of the boys and to inform him `that on no account must he tie a boy up to a fence or tree, or anything else of that nature, to inflict punishment on him, that such instruments as lengths of hosepipe or a stockwhip must not be used in chastising a boy, that no dietary punishments shall be inflicted on any inmate in the Home'. (NSW Aborigines Protection Board Minutes of Meetings, 4 December 1935).


Almost 1 in every five (19%) Inquiry witnesses who spent time in an institution reported having been physically assaulted there.

 

[2020hindsight]

Sexual abuse
Children in every placement were vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation. The following table indicates the placements in which Inquiry witnesses for whom the information could be extracted report having experienced sexual assaults. It should be noted that witnesses were not asked whether they had had this experience and that there are many reasons, personal and procedural, for deciding against volunteering the information.


Sexual assaults reported by Inquiry witnesses
Placement ....... Males (reported)... (not reported) ...... Females (reported) ... (not reported)


Institution ..... 10 (8.5%)..... (91.5%) ........... 19 (11.7%) ...... 144 (88.3%)

Foster family ..... 5 (10%) ...... 45 (90%) ..... 21 (29.6%) .... 50 (70.4%)

Adoptive family .... 1 (4.8%) .... 20 (95.2%) ..... 6 (27.3%) .... 16 (72.7%)

Work ... 0 ( - ) .... 19 (100%) .... 4 (10.5%) .... 34 (89.5%)

Total .... 16 (7.7%) .... 192 (92.3%) ... 50 (17.0%) ... 244 (83.0%)


Girls were more at risk than boys. For girls in particular the risk of sexual assault in a foster placement was far greater than in any other.


Almost one in ten boys and just over one in ten girls allege they were sexually abused in a children's institution.


...... These were the things that were done ... It was seen to be the white man's way of lookin' after you. It never happened with an Aboriginal.
Confidential evidence 340, Western Australia: man removed in the 1930s to Sister Kate's Orphanage.

I was being molested in the home by one of the staff there ... I didn't know what she was doing with me. I didn't know anything about sex or anything like that, we weren't told. I can remember a piece of wood shaped like a walking cane only on a smaller scale, like the candy striped lollipops they make today approximately 30cms long. She was telling me all about the time she was with my mother when she died and how my mother had told her how much she loved me. She also had a large bag of puffed wheat near the bed, because she knew how much I loved it. All this time she was inserting this cane into my vagina. I guess I was about 9 or 10. I know she did this to me many times over the years until she left the Home when I was about 14 years old. ..... One night I hid under the bed. I held onto the bed and she pulled me out and flogged me with the strap. She is my biggest memory of that home.
Confidential evidence 10, Queensland: NSW woman removed to Cootamundra Girls' Home in the 1940s.

etc etc


Julia
yep - sure was a healthy system that stolen generation stuff..

And You expect me to answer you on current abuse ...

and meanwhile you think you don't have to answer my question -
e) Why were kids had been taken from loving families
f) sometimes with the father in active service
g) only to be treated like that !!

Then of course there was the church ....

When I was at Castledare I was badly interfered with by one of those brothers. I still know the room [in the church]. I was taken, selectively taken, and I was interfered with by one of those brothers. And if you didn't respond in a way, then you were hit, you were hit. I never told anyone that.
Confidential evidence 679, Western Australia: man removed at birth in the 1940s.

One in ten boys and three in ten girls allege they were sexually abused in a foster placement or placements.

I ran away because my foster father used to tamper with me and I'd just had enough. I went to the police but they didn't believe me. So she [foster mother] just thought I was a wild child and she put me in one of those hostels and none of them believed me - I was the liar.

So I've never talked about it to anyone. I don't go about telling lies, especially big lies like that.
Confidential evidence 214, Victoria: woman removed at 7 years in the 1960s.

I led a very lost, confused, sad, empty childhood, as my foster father molested me. He would masturbate in front of me, touch my private parts, and get me to touch his. I remember once having a bath with my clothes on `cause I was too scared to take them off. I was scared of the dark `cause my foster father would often come at night. I was scared to go to the outside toilet as he would often stop me on the way back from the toilet. So I would often wet the bed `cause I didn't want to get out of bed. I was scared to tell anyone `cause I once attempted to tell the local Priest at the Catholic church and he told me to say ten Hail Mary's for telling lies. So I thought this was how `normal' non-Aboriginal families were. I was taken to various doctors who diagnosed me as `uncontrollable' or `lacking in intelligence'.
Confidential submission 788, New South Wales: woman removed at 3 years in 1946; experienced two foster placements and a number of institutional placements.

One in ten girls allege they were sexually abused in a work placement organised by the Protection Board or institution. Other exploitation was known and condemned, but not prevented. By 1940 the NSW Board's record with respect to Aboriginal girls placed in service was well-known and even condemned in Parliament.

It has been known for years that these unfortunate people are exploited. Girls of 12, 14 and 15 years of age have been hired out to stations and have become pregnant. Young male aborigines who have been sent to stations receive no payment for their services ... Some are paid as little as sixpence a week pocket money and a small sum is retained on their behalf by the Board. In some instances they have difficulty later in recovering that amount from the Board (quoted in NSW Government submission page 41).

In WA even the Chief Protector himself recognised the sufferings of many of the children he had placed `in service'.

this just goes on and on ...
It reads like a bludy nightmare.



.....

One NSW employer pursued her servant's former employer with rape charges. `In 1940 she arranged for a state ward formerly in her charge to sue her [previous] employer for assault' (Read 1994 page 8). This servant, a Koori girl of only 16 at the time the allegations were made public, had been raped by her previous employer. This was confirmed by two subsequent medical examinations. Nevertheless, the Aborigines Protection Board officials to whom the matter was reported `accused the girl of being a "sexual maniac" who had lived with "dozens of men" ` (Hankins 1982 page 4.6.6). In 1941 this young woman was `committed to Parramatta Mental Hospital where she remained for 21 years until the authorities discharged her as having no reason to remain' (Read 1994 page 8). No charges were ever laid against her attacker.

etc etc
sickening !
but sure - you people happily defend it


......... in your ignorance.

 

[2020hindsight]

Those quotes / stories etc are from this website...


Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

(just a fraction of what's written there)
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/rsjproject/rsjlibrary/hreoc/stolen/stolen18.html

 

[Julia]

2020, I don't need to read the mountains of quotes, thanks. I have never disputed that horrific abuse occurred. It also occurred to white children in institutions.

You don't seem to be able to comprehend my position on this so I will be very patient and try to explain once again.

1. I am happy for the govt to say sorry. Say anything they like that will stop the living in the past and allow us to move on to a more constructive future.

2. I am also happy for compensation to be paid if that were to mean they decided in response to take responsibility for abusing their own children.
I am utterly fed up with the expectation that "the gummint'" needs to fix everything. Individuals , all of us, need to take responsiblity for our own behaviour, and indigenous communities collectively need to stop wallowing in the blame game and do something about the grossly dysfunctional abuse which abounds. I don't care, at this stage, what the cause is.

Many of us have been physically, sexually and emotionally abused as children, and/or as adults. That does not give us licence to perpetuate the violence and fail to seek change.

3. I am not happy for compensation to be paid if it is simply going to be spent on grog, four wheel drive vehicles, etc etc. This is why I asked you how you thought any compensation should be paid and what it should be expected to achieve.

In other words, what outcomes do you expect saying "sorry" and/or paying compensation will achieve?
Very simple question.
I think it's now the fourth time I have asked it.
Too hard?

 

[2020hindsight]

now if the evil whitefella came and snatched kids from loving homes with good conditions with bad intentions then yeah, we should apologise. but they didn't, they honestly thought they were doing the right thing. if you want to attack something like this you have to look at the intent.

eg. the holocaust. intent? exterminate the jews. hmmm thats bad.
eg2. the stolen generation. intent? try and civilise a people you think are a bunch of stone age savages with low life expectancy and zero prospects (not much has changed) so you can help them better themselves. hmmm thats not so bad.

See, to take kids away, and then ignore their plight, even put them in institutions and use cat-of-9-tails on em …. doesn’t quite sound like good intentions to me.

being all emotional and going on about stealing children doesn't really look at the big picture which is where things need to be viewed. anyway if some aboriginal communities were as bad then as they are now we should steal another bloody generation.

Those stats back there for the stolen kids are worse than current.
So what’s the big picture disarray – going out and beating the snot out of em ?

2020: could you consider a response to this please? You clearly think compensation should be paid: How do you think this will make the whole process of reconciliation better, i.e. how should it happen, who would actually get what money, how would it be determined, and how would we as taxpayers feel confident that it's not going to be spent on the aforementioned grog, 4 wheel drives, tinnies etc etc?
How would this monetary compensation ameliorate their plight in any direction?
Would there be conditions attached to how the funds were to be spent?

Julia –first step is to say sorry. If the courts so deem it, then compensation as well. There was a time when the majority of Australians wanted to say sorry. Then of course Johnny Howard managed to pour acid all over it, and it ended in a racial mess.

How will the money help – as if you or I have the right to tell them hw they spend their money . ! – buy a house! – send their kids to university ! whatever they like obviously.

What would be your answer to "stealing" some of the current generation of children rather than leave then vulnerable to further sexual violence within their own communities?

Julia, since 30% of stolen girls in foster homes were sexually abused – )and the same in adoptive homes incidentally) - and by comparison, you can count the number of child sex abuse cases found in the latest intervention on the fingers of a leper’s hand – then your question doesn’t make sense does it !! ??

then of course there was the “boy in the suitcase” incident recently, where I think I argued police and/or DoCS should have intervened, don’t think you backed me up on that occasion- as I recall. But I concede that’s another story

As Disarray and others have said, the 'stolen generation' were not removed out of any sense of malevolence but in the genuine belief that their chances of a better life would be increased by so doing. Imo we are doing the current generation of abused children a dreadful disservice by leaving them in the hands of abusers.

Whilst I respect your point of view, you do tend to be big on the emotive stuff and very light on the practicalities and outcomes.

Malevolence? – mmm, cat of 9 tails has gotta be getting close .

Julia - try reading some of those quotes - but better still , go to that website - because there are many many more such stories.

That is the evidence in all this.

Your conjecture about how they were treated - well to be honest , it's inaccurate.

Since the basic tenet in your argument falls over , so does the rest of your argument. so try to read some of those stories.

This is not about speculating about how they'll spend their money - it's about righting a wrong.

Some of those stories are recent. I was 20 + years old when they were still being stolen and whipped in institutions. Makes me sick.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/rsjproject/rsjlibrary/hreoc/stolen/

What outcome will saying sorry achieve? - like I said, it will start to address the injustice - start to mend the racial mess we are in - recognise that these people were SERIOUSLY badly treated - and go partway to compensating the individuals involved.

Sadly only a token gesture (whether or not it is "sorry", or "sorry plus compensation")

 

[chops_a_must]

3. I am not happy for compensation to be paid if it is simply going to be spent on grog, four wheel drive vehicles, etc etc. This is why I asked you how you thought any compensation should be paid and what it should be expected to achieve.

I think this issue is quite a beat up. Judges simply don't give compo out if there is any hint of alcoholism. In my personal experience, and of seeing a lot of other people's compensation claims (my clients), the most absurd things get trotted out, and are usually reasons for a reduction or non payment of compensation. In my case, one of the reasons they didn't want to pay up, was because I had been horse whipped by police at a war protest. F*ck knows what that has to do with someone going through a stop sign, and f*ck knows how they even found that out! All I was after was medical expenses.

To get any sort of compensation, judges will look at many things. If you have any drug or alcohol problems, you wont get anything. If you have a checkered employment history, it will reduce it significantly. If you can't prove you have attempted to get help for the problems complained about, or shown financial hardship for trying to access these things, you wont get anything. I doubt many of these people who want compensation will fit the criteria needed. But if they have, if they have a decent employment history, have sort help, don't have alcohol or drug problems, then I'd say most people here would be pretty compassionate towards that.

But I've said this previously. Compensation wont solve anything. Because no doubt, many will fail the criteria above, and wont get anything. And then of course you have the claims of a racist justice system etc etc. But yeah, even smokers will have compensation payments reduced. The level that some of these get down to is really crazy when you hear about them fairly regularly. And I think in previous cases, stolen generation compensation claims have been thrown out of court.