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Welcome everybody
to this evening's opening here at the National Museum of Australia
of the exhibition 'Inside: Life in Children’s Homes and Institutions'.
My name is Andrew Sayers and I am the Director of the National Museum of Australia.
And our Auslan interpreter this evening is Deborah Hayes.
I would like to advise to begin with that there is a hearing aid induction loop in the Hall
so, if you require hearing assistance,
you can use the T-switch on your hearing aid
and also to advise that tonight’s proceedings are being recorded
for Museum and Commonwealth government purposes.
I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners
of the land on which we meet
and welcome Shane Mortimer who will shortly welcome us to his country.
On behalf of the Museum, it gives me great pleasure
to welcome the Hon. Jenny Macklin,
Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs;
Mr Jack Thompson;
members of the National Forgotten Australians
and Former Child Migrants Consultative Forum;
and representatives of the Alliance of Forgotten Australians.
And I would particularly like to welcome Caroline Carroll and Eris Harrison,
representatives from Care Leavers Australia Network.
And I would particularly like to welcome Joanna Penglase,
co-founder of Care Leavers of Australia Network.
The International Association of Former Child Migrants and their Families,
I would like to welcome Harold Haig, the secretary.
I would also like to welcome Mr Jim Luthy, the President of Care Leavers of Australia Network,
and Mr Ian Thwaites, Assistant Director of the Child Migrants Trust,
and all members of those organisations.
Danny Gilbert, the chair of the National Museum of Australia,
and Anne-Marie Schwirtlich, Director-General of the National Library of Australia,
who are our partners with the National Museum
in this history project,
along with the Australian National Maritime Museum
represented here this evening by Michael Crayford.
And most importantly I would like to welcome
all of those present who have spent time
in children’s homes and institutions
and I know that many of you have travelled
a long way to be here this evening - welcome.
When we started this exhibition two years ago,
the only object that we had in the Museum’s collection
was a fundraising button.
Most of the objects you see in the exhibition
have been donated or lent by those who have spent time in the homes.
You have given us your precious objects,
your photographs and your stories.
You have made this exhibition.
And I thank you for your generosity and your trust.
We welcome you here this evening
and we also remember those who have spent time in homes and institutions
who are not with us tonight,
those who have taken their own lives
or whose lives were taken from them too soon
and those who as adults are still incarcerated -
you are not forgotten.
This exhibition is about giving a voice to those
whose voices were for so long silenced or ignored.
You won’t find the voices of staff or families
or others concerned,
only those who were children in the homes.
It’s their time to be heard and to be believed.
We have been very fortunate that so many
of those who were in homes have shared stories with us
and on the Inside exhibition blog, which has been up now
for more than 12 months in the lead-up to the exhibition.
We know that we can’t tell all of the stories
of the 500,000 children in the probably 800 homes and institutions
that existed in the twentieth century.
What we have here is part of bringing this story into history.
We would like to acknowledge the Minister
and her Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
who have funded this exhibition.
We would also like to thank the National Forgotten Australians
and Former Child Migrants Consultative Forum
whose guidance and support has been so crucial
to the development of this exhibition.
There are several organisations that also deserve our thanks
including the Alliance of Forgotten Australians,
the Care Leavers of Australia Network,
the International Association of Former Child Migrants and Their Families,
and the Child Migrants Trust.
We thank them all for their generous support.
Many people have worked on this exhibition
over the past two years.
I would particularly like to pay tribute
to the Museum’s curatorial team
of Jay Arthur, Adele Chynoweth,
[applause]
Karolina Kilian,
and to Julie Gough and Freeman Ryan Design
who have worked to effect a design
which is sensitive, appropriate and powerful.
Thank you. [applause]
We are committed to telling the truth
so we are aware that the exhibition
and this evening’s proceedings may arouse difficult feelings.
We do have counsellors here this evening.
If you have spent any of your childhood in out-of-home care
and feel you need the services of a counsellor this evening,
then please feel free at any stage to approach
one of our visitor services hosts,
who are team members of the Museum
wearing the black and grey shirts
on which ‘Where our stories live’ are embroidered,
and they will be able to direct you to a counsellor.
I would now like to welcome to the Museum Mr Shane Mortimer,
Ngambri elder, who will welcome us to country.
[applause]
Thank you, Andrew.
The Hon. Jenny Macklin, Mr Jack Thompson, Mr Danny Gilbert, Mr Andrew Sayers,
and all of the National Museum of Australia team and volunteers
who work so hard to mount such exceptional exhibitions
as this Inside exhibition you are about to see.
My name in Walgalu is Mingo, which means 'grass tree'.
My people are the Ngambri people,
the people for whom Canberra is named.
Many Aboriginal people claim this land to be their own.
I can only speak for my own people.
It is with abiding respect that I acknowledge
all of the Aboriginal people of this land,
their elders, past and present, and I bid you all welcome to country.
Special guests and ladies and gentlemen,
please raise your hand if you are Indigenous - fantastic.
Now everybody raise your hand because you are all
indigenous to somewhere.
And what is indigenous you are generally very proud of -
you are proud of your origins.
Exhibitions such as Inside: Life in Children’s
Homes and Institutions are a clear demonstration
that Australians are ready to identify the mistakes of the past,
correct them and progress to embrace
and be proud of all things Indigenous, not just the people.
It is with great pleasure that I stand before you today
very proud on behalf of over 400 members of my Aboriginal family
and in particular my mother in her 80th year,
the oldest of all of the Ngambri people.
Ngambri in our Walgalu language means ‘cleavage’,
the space between women’s *** -
a good place to work and live, Andrew.
Inside reminds me of the former Australian government’s
Aboriginal Protection Board policy
that saw my grandmother and her six siblings
taken from their mother at the Brungle mission,
somewhere between Gundagai and Tumut,
and set off to the cold hard charity of St Joseph’s
and St John’s Catholic orphanages in Goulburn.
Goulburn residents recall stories of the orphanage
children going to school without lunch,
without shoes, without warm clothes.
In fact, one man told me that he used to pack an extra sandwich every day
for one of the boys at St John’s because they had no food.
It was really very harsh.
Leaving Brungle was the last time my grandmother saw her mother.
Florence Ellen Lowe died within weeks of her children
being taken away absolutely broken hearted.
Their eldest brother ran away and was never seen again.
They were denied their family, their language,
their culture, their environment.
The girls were then dispatched from Goulburn to a Catholic girls’ home,
for want of a better word, in La Perouse near Sydney.
The treatment was so harsh that the siblings
formed a pact never ever to reveal their Aboriginal background
and they took that secret to their graves.
As a result, they were assimilated, married Europeans,
went separate ways, had their own children
and never really spoke to one another again.
My mother and her cousins grew up blissfully ignorant
of their Aboriginal background and culture - the policy worked.
Now put yourself in my shoes being told that we are an extinct race, get over it.
The ACT former chief minister stated that native title is extinct in the ACT.
The 400-plus blood relatives of the Ngambri people that I represent
are scattered throughout the continent.
Our culture denied, our country overrun, our ecosystem decimated.
Ngambri land today is no longer capable of producing
food or water enough to sustain its population.
But out of that adversity comes opportunity and we have discovered that,
since the 1992 High Court of Australia Mabo decision
overturned the notion of terra nullius,
common law native title rights to the land belonging to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Not even the Commonwealth has clear title
to the land that the seat of government is on.
Sir Gerard Brennan, former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia,
handed down the Mabo decision.
He laughed when I told him that the ACT claimed
that native title was extinct.
The Walgalu language is spoken on a daily basis in the Snowy Mountains
and can be recorded and taught for future generations.
The men and women knowledge holders of our people still reside
among us in our Walgalu language area.
The remnant vegetation of the area still exists
and can be a great resource to feed millions around the world.
So I say to you: be proud of all things Indigenous to you
and of the people on whose land you reside.
Look ahead ten generations, 222 years is all it took
European infusion to get to this point.
Congratulations to the National Museum of Australia team.
It’s a phenomenal exhibition
and Jenny, a great initiative, thank you very much. Fantastic initiative. [applause]
(Native language spoken) Welcome to Ngambri country.
Thank you, Shane. I would now like to introduce one of our greatest actors,
one of the great friends and supporters of the National Museum of Australia from way back
and someone who has deep personal connections
with the stories told in this exhibition.
Would you please make welcome Mr Jack Thompson.
[applause]
Thank you very much. Thank you for honouring me by asking me to be here
for the opening of this exhibition.
Thank you, Jenny, for supporting this extraordinarily important exhibition.
There are two reasons why I am here.
I was invited far too many years ago to be a part
of the establishment of a national museum
and for many years we fought to have such a museum created.
In the end, it is here.
The importance of the National Museum
is that it is only here in this country that we tell the tale of who we are.
There is a line of my father’s poetry:
‘I have what I have had, say I.
'We are all the sum of all those things that go to make us up,
'and this nation is the sum of all those things.’
More recently, we have agreed to face some of the things in our past
which we have decided previously
we would bury and deny, forced to by all sorts of circumstances,
including a monumental guilt.
We denied not only our personal aboriginality,
we denied what it was that brought us here.
A lot of people would wish to escape that
by decrying this as, for example, the black armband view of history.
But if we are to deny all suffering, if we are to ignore all the pain,
all the error, all the cruelty,
then we will deny half of history, including the Anzacs.
We are prepared to embrace the awful carnage at Gallipoli
and we have recently been game enough,
gutsy enough to embrace a torrid, cruel history
that brings us to this time and place.
It is not as if it is not full of moments of great comradeship,
of great love, of great affection and of great heroism.
But if we do not recognise the fundamental inhumanity
and cruelty exhibited in this exhibition,
the awfulness carried out in the name of God and goodness,
then we will ignore the fact that it didn’t happen in the last century,
it happened in this century and in many parts of our society continues to happen.
Let us look this thing in the face; let us deal with it.
Thank you for this exhibition.
Thank you for asking me to be a part of it.
[applause]
Thank you, Jack.
I would now invite the Hon. Jenny Macklin,
the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs,
to open the exhibition.
[applause]
Thank you very much, Andrew.
If I could first of all say to Shane
thank you so much for your very heartfelt welcome to country.
We all join today, all of us here today, in acknowledging you as an elder,
in acknowledging all the other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are here today,
and we also acknowledge the ancestors and elders past.
Thank you for your very -
I can only say the way in which you talked to us today demonstrated your true understanding
of what we are about tonight.
I want to say to Jack: thank you so much
for the way in which you bring us all together
in the way that you have just spoken to us.
Thank you for your love of the Museum - give him another clap.
[applause]
We know you love the Museum
but we also know that this comes because of a very personal understanding
of what so many people here today have been through,
and for you to be here it is very special for everybody.
To Danny Gilbert, thank you for your leadership of the Museum.
We know that this is a national treasure and we know that it is in extraordinarily safe hands.
Thank you for the leadership you show.
I do want to acknowledge all of the survivors who are here tonight -
all of you who have come from so many parts of Australia.
This is for you and for all the people who couldn’t be here with us tonight.
[applause]
A few of us - Caroline Carroll, Harold Haig, Ian Thwaites, Jim Luthy,
Joanna Penglase and I - went through the exhibition this morning, and it was very difficult.
I decided not to go and have another look this afternoon
because I wasn’t sure I would be able to speak to you if I did.
I am sure when you go you will see the enormous dedication
that those from the Museum have shown in putting together this very significant exhibition.
To all of those wonderful advocates who I have just named,
thank you so much for your leadership, you are very special.
[applause]
There are a few others who haven’t been able to join us tonight for different reasons.
I do want to acknowledge Leonie Sheedy, Margaret Humphreys
[applause]
and someone who I know is very special to you all -
the former senator Andrew Murray who couldn’t be with us tonight.
These and others are very special people
who have done so much over such a long time
to shed light on each and every one of your experiences in institutions.
And of course now tonight we can add to these wonderful advocates the National Museum.
We now have people in this Museum: Mike Pickering, Jay Arthur,
Adele Chynoweth and others who have put this exhibition together.
[applause]
They too have joined the ranks of wonderful advocates for the forgotten Australians and the former child migrants.
Inside: Life in Children’s Homes and Institutions, it does tell the stories
that have been left untold and for many remain untold.
They are told, as you will see in a moment,
with the most beautiful accuracy but also very, very chilling poignancy.
Their telling itself is so important.
Through this exhibition these stories will over time continue
to form part of the patchwork of our national memory,
the way in which all of us understand our past,
both now and into the future.
It is true that what happened to these children, to all of you, must be acknowledged.
It must be confronted and, of course, by all of us must be better understood,
because what happened to these children, to you, must never happen again.
[applause]
Hiding these stories from ourselves has gone on for long enough.
Two years tomorrow, as so many of you remember,
the Australian government acknowledged the forgotten Australians and the former child migrants
and acknowledged your experiences - and we did say sorry.
I just want to say again:
we said sorry for the brutality - and it was brutality -
and for the injustices inflicted on you as children who were placed in our collective care;
we said sorry for the lack of warmth,
the lack of love and affection which you deserved
just like every other child in our country.
And I know this meant so much to you.
We said we believe you; we believe what you have been telling us
and we believe you now. [applause]
We acknowledge what happened was real;
and we are very sorry that what was real was forgotten -
but it is true, not forgotten by you but forgotten by too many.
But you are now remembered.
Of course the apology helped to open so many hearts
and I think very importantly the hearts and ears of the nation
to your stories, to your courage and to your determination.
That is really what led to the apology,
and that courage and determination is what has led to this exhibition.
It is your exhibition, yours, and is dedicated to all of you.
Inside will make certain that the stories
of the Forgotten Australians and former child migrants
will be heard and will not be forgotten.
Also I would like to acknowledge the oral history project which records the stories of survivors,
and this too will make sure that these stories are preserved in perpetuity.
I would like on behalf of everyone here tonight to thank the National Library
for their dedication and work to preserve your stories.
[applause]
One of our jobs, in addition to making sure that this exhibition took place,
is also to continue our support for CLAN, for the Alliance of Forgotten Australians,
and the International Association of Former Child Migrants and Their Families,
to continue to support the very important work that you do, counselling
and supporting your members and their families.
I do want to say a very big thank you for that work,
because nobody else could do it in the way that you do.
Please give them a big round of applause. [applause]
One of the things we committed to at the apology
was a national find and connect service
to help family tracing and support services right across Australia.
Tonight I am very pleased to be able to announce some further progress on the find and connect service.
The national Find and Connect web resource to help care leavers search for their records has gone live today.
[applause]
So you can get online and make use of that very important service.
Of course it will grow with time.
We know how important it is to continue to unearth the stories
that are critical for all of you to know your own history, to know who you are,
to know where you came from, who it was that brought you into this world.
Telling these stories helps all of us recognise your experience
and understand it that little bit better.
There is a story of a small teddy bear that features in this exhibition.
Jeanette Blick owned this teddy but, as soon as it was given to her, it was taken away.
Jeanette wasn’t allowed to cuddle her teddy at night.
It is so symbolic of the harshness and brutality
and also the absence of love and warmth in children’s lives.
Posted underneath Jeanette’s story on the website for this exhibition is this note:
‘Auntie Jeanette, you and Auntie Pat gives us all strength
'by not only surviving what you have been through but also being brave enough to face it
'and bring it into the light for all to see. Stay strong.’
Strength and courage do define you and allow your stories to be told.
We do hope that through this exhibition
more survivors find the strength to tell their stories
so that we as a nation find the strength to confront this very dark chapter of our past
and strengthen our resolve to never ever let this happen again. [applause]
Six years ago the Care Leavers Australia Network, so well known to us as CLAN,
called for this exhibition. They said, ‘Let our histories be visible.’
They wrote this in their submission to the Senate inquiry into the forgotten Australians,
and I love this quote:
‘Get the dinosaurs out of the Australian Museum and dedicate it to the orphanages and children.’
And that is what the National Museum has done.
I am pleased to launch this exhibition
and dedicate it to those children. Thank you. [applause]