As noted in Jenny Macklin's media release.
Anyone wishing to fill out a survey questionaire for a federal apology, see details listed.
To obtain the form:
Ring:1800 050 011
Email: child.protection@fahcsia.gov.av
Post: Child Polocy Branch JH2
P.O. Box 7576
Canberra Business Centre
ACT 2610
To be sent back by 1st October 2009.
If you need any help with questionaire,
please email alasqld@alasqld.com
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3 comments:
Jenny Macklin MP has entered into dialogue with mothers and children separated by past adoption practices that were 'INAPPROPRIATE or UNETHICAL' (media release of the 30th August, 2009), while we are people separated by forced adoption practices that were UNLAWFUL (as well as inappropriate and unethical).
The Final Report reads (p. 104),
7.62 The Committee therefore believes that the practice of denying a mother access to her child prior to the signing of consent was unlawful. Those professionals who contributed to the process where access was denied were clearly acting unlawfully.
7.63 Whatever the rationale for the practice, the Committee believes that in all cases women should have been consulted about this issue prior to the birth and that a woman should not have been denied access to her child if she requested it. Therefore, failure to grant access constituted an unlawful and unethical action.
Justice CHISHOLM, who presided over the Committee, referred to such ‘adoptions’ as:
(It was) kidnapping in a non-technical sense…that seems to me to be pretty right. It was certainly an unauthorised taking of the child (Interim Committee Report: p. 152).
The apology could not refer to the nationwide extent of the crimes, as the perpetrators have not as yet been held to account, nationwide for their unlawful practices. A confession MUST precede an apology, as excuses are still being made on national TV, such as, ‘We thought we were doing something good.’ I would reply to that such a response is analogous to placing a small clean nappy over a mountainous pile of human excrement. In Lily’s Arthur words, ‘The whole thing stinks to high heaven.’
Government websites are still covering up the truth, so how can we trust their ministers? In regarding the causes of the forced adoptions of the era in question, the Victorian Government, for one, continues to attribute the decline in adoptions from the mid-70s to "... a number of interrelated factors: including ‘the introduction of government benefits for single parents…"
In fact, financial assistance was actually available to single mothers well before the 1970s, as outlined in a 1956 government publication titled Children in Need by Donald McLean: "To avoid any misunderstanding or any suggestion that the mother was misled or misinformed, District Officers are instructed to explain fully to the mother, before taking the consent, the facilities which are available to help her keep her child. These include...financial assistance to unmarried mothers under section 27 of the Child Welfare Act ..." However, as documented in the transcripts of the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry this fact was largely concealed from mothers.
A national inquiry, compromised by a premature apology, would grant opportunity to focus media attention on what those in Victoria and other parts of Australia are suffering due to legislation which is currently damaging and harmful.
In 2008 we witnessed an apology to the Stolen Generations, while we can anticipate one to the Forgotten Australians (children who were brought up in institutions) and the Lost Innocents in November. As apologies are being handed out left, right and center these days, Australians should anticipate their appearance on the backs of cereal packets very soon. I refer to the grain of salt with which the Australian public will take an apology that does not correspond to the nature and extent of the crimes in question.
not everyone agrees with you. This site represents people who WANT an apology first. If you don't like it, don't read it!
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