Part 5	Services for Those Affected

Empty Cradles

Nunga baby taken away
‘Where’s my mama’ hear him say
‘You takin’ me to Goonyaland?’
Carried and fed by white man’s hand
Growing up different
Never knowing
Aunts and uncles, cousins growing

Mama cries – Government pays
Children lost to city ways

But they’ll return
when they grow old
and tell their children
of lies been told
So it won’t happen again
you see
The cradles outback
that were left empty.

Mandy Hunter-Hebberman 1996

15		Evaluating Government Responses
… there needs to be a focused response to the needs of families and communities affected by past policies beyond those provided to individuals who access their own records (Victorian Government interim submission page 4).

Governments have been slow to respond to the effects of forcible removal on Indigenous people. The first responses were made by Indigenous individuals themselves who made efforts to locate and reunite their families. These efforts began for some from the very moment of separation. 

During the 1980s Indigenous organisations were formed to assist in tracing family members and to provide counselling and support. In 1980 Coral Edwards and Peter Read established Link-Up (NSW). Similar services now exist in other States and in the Northern Territory and have attracted government funding.

Indigenous family reunion workers brought to light the need for forcibly removed children and their families to have ready access to the records kept by government and non-government agencies involved in their removal or subsequent placement. Other records, for example genealogies collated by anthropologists and family history cards compiled by missionaries or government agents, are also needed to assist in identifying family and community ties. Most governments but few churches have recognised Indigenous people’s need for information from their records to allow tracing of family and proof of identity.

Reunion can be a part of healing for the individuals, families and communities affected by forcible removal. However the damage to well-being and emotional health has typically and quite predictably been severe. Yet the need for healing strategies focused specifically on those affected by forcible removal has only very recently been acknowledged by governments and funding is still scarce. Fortunately again some Indigenous people and services have recognised this need and begun to address it.

While governments began responding to some of the effects of forcible removal during the 1980s, it was the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody which articulated an obligation on all governments to address these effects comprehensively. The Royal Commission found that 43 of the 99 people whose deaths in custody were investigated had been separated from their families in childhood. All governments support the relevant recommendations of the Royal Commission and have committed themselves to implementation.

Evaluation
The Inquiry’s second term of reference requires an examination of existing services and procedures available to those affected by the forcible removals. We have taken this to mean those services and procedures specifically for those affected and specifically addressing the effects. A literal interpretation of term of reference (b) would require the Inquiry to examine all services applicable to Indigenous people, because all are ‘available’ to those affected.

The examination is further confined to services and procedures provided by governments or by churches who were involved in caring for forcibly removed children as responses to the history and its effects. Many services are provided by Indigenous communities. When these are funded by government it is appropriate that the funding mechanism and quantum be evaluated by the Inquiry. However, community-based services are otherwise for Indigenous people themselves to evaluate and reform if that is considered necessary.

Term of reference (b) requires the Inquiry to evaluate the effectiveness and the adequacy of the relevant services and procedures, of ‘responses’ to the effects of forcible removal. To make a useful and thorough evaluation which can assist in the development of improved responses, the Inquiry has considered each response within two distinct but overlapping frameworks.

With respect to government responses we consider first the framework established by governments themselves based on the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Second we propose a framework that satisfies Australia’s human rights obligations and takes account of the levels of need identified by this Inquiry.

In this Part we outline and evaluate the three principal government responses to the continuing effects of separation:
1.	provision of access to personal and family records,
2.	provision of funding to Indigenous services assisting family reunification, and
3.	provision of services to address the individual and family well-being effects of forcible removal.

We briefly describe the response of the churches in the final chapter of this Part.

Our first evaluation of each government response takes as its starting point the stated or implicit objectives of that particular response. We ask, ‘What does the response aim to achieve?’. Then, ‘Have these objectives been achieved?’. Achievements are compared with aspirations. We conclude that achievements do not match aspirations. Moreover, the aspirations themselves are often minimalist. The major reasons for this are a limited understanding of the Royal Commission recommendations, failure to understand and incorporate human rights goals and ignorance about the size of the problem and the extent and seriousness of the need for services. If government responses to the effects of forcible removal are to be adequate in the future, they must be established within a framework of Indigenous human rights and with a commitment to healing the effects of forcible removal for which governments bear responsibility.

The Inquiry’s evaluation criteria
Term of reference (d) requires us to take into account the principle of self-determination in formulating our recommendations with respect to laws, policies and practices relating to child placement and care. Adoption of this principle is fundamental to progress in Indigenous affairs generally. It must also underpin changes to laws, policies and practices relating to services and procedures for those affected by forcible removal.

Term of reference (b) requires us to consider the adequacy of existing services and procedures. For a service to be adequate it must at least operate in a fair and timely way without imposing additional harm on clients or potential clients. This requires that services take account of the variety of life circumstances and the extent and duration of the need for assistance in the Indigenous community. One measure of inadequacy is the unmet need for the service.

In addition to evaluation criteria dictated by the terms of reference, we have also taken into account Australia’s human rights obligations: notably, the obligations of governments to prevent racial discrimination and to respect and promote the right of members of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities to enjoy their cultures, religions and languages. 

Self-determination
Self-determination is a collective right of peoples to determine and control their own destiny. It is a right to exercise autonomy in their own affairs and a right to make their own decisions. As the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner has noted, ‘every issue concerning the historical and present status, entitlements, treatment and aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is implicated in the concept of self determination’ (Dodson 1993 page 41). 

For evaluation purposes it is necessary to distinguish between different levels of Indigenous participation in decision-making and service delivery. Self-determination requires more than consultation because consultation alone does not confer any decision-making authority or control over outcomes. Self-determination also requires more than participation in service delivery because in a participation model the nature of the service and the ways in which the service is provided have not been determined by Indigenous peoples. Inherent in the right of self-determination is Indigenous decision-making carried through into implementation.

The right of self determination is the right to make decisions. These decisions affect the enjoyment and exercise of the full range of freedoms and human rights of indigenous peoples (Dodson 1993 page 41).

The relevant distinction is between a program or policy freely adopted by Indigenous peoples and a program or policy adopted by government about or for Indigenous peoples (Dodson 1993 page 43). The former reflects an exercise of self-determination. The latter does not. To respect the right of self-determination, governments should confine their roles largely to providing financial and other resource support for the implementation of Indigenous programs and policies.

There is no right more fundamental for indigenous people than that of self determination. It is central to addressing the general disadvantage and oppressed condition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples …

It is central to a social justice package that policies, institutional structures and legislation should operate to empower indigenous peoples and provide for collective rights of indigenous peoples (ATSIC 1995 page 29).

Unless provided in accordance with the requirements of self-determination, services to Indigenous people may be effectively inaccessible to them or where accessible are unlikely to secure their objectives.

The exercise of self determination by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities most frequently centres on the provision of community services. The aim is not merely to participate in the delivery of those services, but to penetrate their design and inform them with indigenous cultural values. The result is not merely services which are better structured to reflect the needs and identity of particular communities: there can be a resultant improvement in the effectiveness and efficiency of these services (Dodson 1993 page 56).

Only Indigenous people themselves are able to comprehend the full extent of the effects of the removal policies. Services to redress these effects must be designed, provided and controlled by Indigenous people themselves.

Non-discrimination
The prohibition of racial discrimination has long been fundamental to human rights law. It finds expression in all the treaties within HREOC’s jurisdiction, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. These treaties do not just prohibit intentional or explicit discrimination. They also prohibit systemic discrimination against an ethnic group because, for example, a service is modelled on the needs, language or culture of others. Actions, policies and services which have the effect of discriminating against an ethnic group, intended or unintended, are also prohibited (section 9(1A) Racial Discrimination Act 1975).

Implicit in the design of any service are assumptions about the nature and needs of the anticipated clients. Typically a service will be designed with the majority or dominant ethnic group in mind. This is particularly true for generalist or ‘mainstream’ services as contrasted with specialist services. In Australia the dominant ethnic group (Anglo-Australians) has a very different demographic profile from Indigenous Australians. Most Anglo-Australians live in urban areas or visit cities regularly and with ease, earn a salary, speak English and have had a high school education. A very high proportion of Indigenous Australians, in contrast, lives in rural or remote areas, rarely travels to cities, is dependent on social security, speaks English as a second or third language and does not read it fluently, and has not had a high school education. It will always be the case that a service designed to address the needs of the majority of Anglo-Australians will fail to cater to the needs of a certain proportion of the members of that group. However, it will fail to cater to the needs of a substantially higher proportion of Indigenous Australians.

In practice such a service would be racially discriminatory because access to and effective use of it would be denied to a significantly higher proportion of Indigenous Australians. This is indirect discrimination. Some services which fit this description can nonetheless be justified because it would be unreasonable to require them to cater to the needs of Indigenous and non-Indigenous clients alike. Factors relevant to deciding reasonableness can include remoteness, cost, the extent of the need for the service and detriment caused by lack of effective access.

This justification is not available for core government services, however. Governments have a duty to ensure that basic services are provided on a basis of equality to all. Substantive equality will require that particular needs and disadvantages are taken into account. A clear example is the need to provide an interpreter when a non-English speaking person requires medical assistance.

Cultural and language differences, remoteness, unique histories and particular emotional needs mean that equality in the provision of services to Indigenous people will frequently require distinctive approaches. In some cases modification of a ‘mainstream’ service may suffice. In other cases, a specialist service will be required. Necessary specialist services should not be confused with discriminatory services. The objective of specialist services is to ensure equity of access and to overcome the discrimination which clients would otherwise experience if required to have their needs met by mainstream services.
Cultural renewal
Human rights law recognises the right of distinct ethnic groups to the enjoyment of their culture (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights article 27). This right involves two distinct categories of obligation for governments. First, governments must not interfere in groups’ enjoyment of their cultures, practise of their religions and use of their languages. Second, governments must act positively to ensure the conditions for the exercise of this right.1 For example, if school teachers today were punishing Indigenous children for using their own languages at school, governments would have an obligation to prohibit such punishments

The purpose of article 27 is ‘to ensure the survival and continued development of the cultural, religious and social identity of the minorities concerned’.2 In particular, governments must take all measures necessary to ensure the cultural survival and well-being of Indigenous peoples.

Under the heading of cultural renewal we consider whether the service in question contributes effectively to the repair of broken cultural and familial ties. In this connection we recognise the existence of many Indigenous cultures in Australia. Common to all is the history of forcible removal and other gross violations of human rights.

Coherent policy base
The history we have documented has had a profound impact on every aspect of the lives of Indigenous communities. It has jeopardised their very survival. It has impoverished their capacity to control and direct their future development.

An adequate response to this history and its effects will challenge the sensitivity, the goodwill and the creativity of all governments. It requires a whole-of-government policy response with immediate targets, long-term objectives and a continuing commitment. Each aspect of the government’s response — whether provision of family history information or enhancing well-being through medical and mental health services — must derive its rationale from that central policy commitment. The degree of co-ordination and co-operation between government departments and agencies and the level of resources committed must adequately reflect the implications of our finding of genocide and other gross violations of human rights.

Having a coherent policy base means that the people who fund the service and the people who deliver it are clear about why they are doing it and what goals they are trying to serve. So, for example, a reunification service must understand the history of forcible removals and be committed to facilitating reunion for all those affected who want to find their families. It must be culturally appropriate. It must not turn away people whose nuclear family members are deceased. Instead it must recognise the extended family and the whole community as people with whom a stolen child needs to be reunited. It must also recognise the child’s right to know about his or her land and culture.
Government policy must identify services needed to begin a process of healing and reparation as well as a degree of central co-ordination of the resourcing of services designed for this purpose.

Adequate resources
The key resource for any service is its staff. As our discussion of previous criteria has established, services to Indigenous people and communities must be controlled and delivered by Indigenous people themselves. Staff must be adequately and appropriately trained and equipped to perform their roles. Whether the role is counsellor, psychologist, archivist or researcher, the education and training must be accessible to Indigenous people. This may require the establishment of traineeships and scholarships. Training must be culturally appropriate. This will require significant Indigenous input throughout the degree or other qualification.

The expertise in the Indigenous community must be recognised and appropriately remunerated. Survivors of forcible removal have a wealth of knowledge about the history of removal, its effects and the experiences of children in placements. They can provide invaluable information about the children with whom they were placed. Older community members can build genealogies, have information about removals and their impacts on family members left behind and can assist in tracing the subsequent movements and experiences of family members. People who have effected their own reunions can assist others with information and encouragement. Mutual support, community and friendship are keys to healing. The knowledge, experience and skills of traditional healers also need to be acknowledged and drawn upon.

There must be sufficient funding and other resources to ensure that services can respond promptly to demands in ways which ensure realisation of the right of self-determination, which are culturally appropriate and which ensure equality of access for all. Services must be adequately resourced so that they can be flexible enough to take into account the many and diverse ways in which the removal policies have affected individuals, families and communities.

Endnotes
1	The Human Rights Committee’s 1994 General Comment on article 27 states that, ‘The enjoyment of those rights may require positive legal measures of protection…’ (UN Document CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.5, 26 April 1994).
2	Ibid.

16		Access to Personal and Family Records
People need their personal and family records for various reasons.

I wanted to find out my right age and where all my family came from and who I was related to.
Confidential submission 110, Queensland.

In some cases the records held by non-Aboriginal organisations may be the only source of information that Aboriginal people have about ourselves  (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 page 10).

That’s why I wanted the files brought down, so I could actually read it and find out why I was taken away and why these three here [siblings] were taken by [our] auntie … Why didn’t she take the lot of us instead of leaving two there? … I’d like to get the files there and see why did these ones here go to the auntie and the other ones were fostered.
Confidential evidence 161, Victoria.

Access to knowledge can assist: to reinstate pride in family experiences; enhance a stronger sense of identity; re-establish contacts with family members; reaffirm interaction with broad family networks; revive and maintain Aboriginal traditions …; understand the historical background of contemporary personal issues …; re-claim ownership of material pertaining to family life; develop resources … and enhance research skills  (Patrick Dodson quoted in the  National Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Volume 2 on page 78).

Existing services and procedures
The variety of existing services and procedures for accessing personal and family records – even within a single jurisdiction – creates a complex and somewhat confusing scene.

There is a patchwork of laws governing access to these records. At the federal level the Archives Act 1983, the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and the Privacy Act 1988 are relevant. There may be as many as three pieces of parallel legislation in each State. At the local [government] level access to records may be governed by State legislation or by independent regulations of the local government authority.

There is no legislation governing access to records generated in the non-Government sphere …
As there is no single piece of legislation across Australia governing access to government records there is no consistency in terms of practices or policies …

The differences in practices and policies between States, which are in part a reflection of different legislative frameworks, make the seeking of access more complicated  (Australian Archives submission 602 page 4).

The key problem areas for Indigenous searchers, however, can be readily identified. The descriptive material which follows, therefore, briefly sets out those problems and concerns and describes existing responses, some of which may serve as models for other record agencies. The source of the information in this section is government submissions and evidence to the Inquiry unless otherwise stated.

Destruction of records
Many relevant files have been lost or destroyed. Archives legislation in Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria permits or permitted at one time the destruction of some classes of records or culling a percentage of records in a particular class. Between 1973 and 1985, for example, 95% of case files created by the SA Department of Family and Community Services were culled. ‘The belief at the time was that when any child was successfully fostered or adopted, the files would not be of any further use’ (Sonia Smallacombe consultancy report submitted by ATSIC submission 684 page 21).

This lost to them information that may have been contained within these files is both priceless and irreplaceable to the survivors of Indigenous Family Separations and may well be lost to them forever, and therefore their links with their past and to their people and country may never be able to be traced (Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement submission 484 page 46).

In WA adoption and wardship files have been kept but the predecessor to the Department of Family and Community Services began destroying foster care files in 1957. Also in WA the Inquiry was told by a former employee of the Department of Community Services,

I know that in 1984-85 there was an instruction went out to all the welfare offices to burn all the files. There were instructions from Perth head office to all the DCS offices instructing them to destroy files. And a couple of the officers here [East Kimberley] started to burn them. And then they started reading some, and then they informed other people and they saved a few. The Derby office [West Kimberley] was burnt down and that’s where our [family’s] files were.
Confidential evidence 505.

NSW Archives has identified an unexplained gap in Aborigines Welfare Board files for 1938-1948. Also in NSW adoption records from 1922 to about 1950 were culled. A fire is reported to have destroyed files in Victoria prior to the Second World War. The Inquiry was told that Torres Strait Islands administrators regularly destroyed personal files relating to residents (confidential evidence 631) and that personal files in the Northern Territory were culled back to only 200 records in the 1970s due to concerns their contents would embarrass the government (Sonia Smallacombe consultancy report submitted by ATSIC submission 684 page 7).

Little effort has been made to identify all files which are of relevance to Indigenous people affected by forcible removal. Thus ‘[a]t this stage, no government is able to provide comprehensive information on which records still exist and may be relevant to people tracing their families’ (Families on File page 20).

Old records are fragile. The more people touch them the more they risk disintegration. Preservation is a particular concern but it is costly and resource-intensive. The best preservation method seems to be copying the pages onto microfilm. NSW Archives has begun a project to microfilm the Aborigines Protection Board records it holds.

Location of records
Records relevant to forcibly removed children and their families – records which could assist searchers to discover their true identity, to locate family members and to begin the process of reunion – were usually created by a range of records agencies: protection boards, police, welfare departments, adoption agencies, education departments, hospitals and missions among others. While older government records which have survived are usually physically located in an archive, they are still owned by the department which created them or its successor. Access to most records is by arrangement with the agency which created the record.

This fact, coupled with the fact that the searchers were babies and children in the period for which they seek records – and therefore typically unaware of all the authorities who dealt with them – means that the search task is daunting at best, impossible to contemplate at worst.

There is no ‘one-stop shop’ in which all the personal information held generally by government can be located and accessed.

There is no single, comprehensive, national database or index that provides information about what archives are held by which organisation and where. Consequently, researchers need to ask themselves which governments, organisations, or people, have had involvement in any particular event or activity. Then the researcher needs to approach the organisations (or their archives) to establish whether the records are extant, where they might be, whether they are accessible and so on. This may require a deal of searching, and deduction and can be quite daunting and frustrating  (Australian Archives submission 602 page 19).
In terms of information about the history of Western Australia, there has not been any coordinated approach or any arrangements that actually could bring together all the information … there has not been any coordinated approach to actually manage the records in … a way that will serve the interests of the community  (Cedric Wyatt, WA Aboriginal Affairs Department, evidence).

The range and complexity of the records of relevance to separated families make indexing a prerequisite to genuine accessibility. Often there is no index at all to assist a searcher to locate a relevant record in a series. Indexes created at the time were more likely to be meaningful to the officers then than to Indigenous searchers today. The size of a search task in unindexed records is illustrated by the example of one record series which contains some information relevant to Aboriginal people together with some of no interest at all. The correspondence files initiated by the Commonwealth department administering the Northern Territory dating from 1903 to 1938 are filed simply in date order and take up 340 metres of shelving  (Australian Archives submission 602 page 20). 

The family history cards (1916-48) held by the WA Aboriginal Affairs Department and the NT register of wards (known as the ‘Stud Book’ because it records partial genealogies) are easier to search because they are indexed by family name. Indexes are being developed in South Australia, Queensland, Victoria and NSW. The compilation of indexes must tread carefully between providing sufficient information about the records to ensure their utility on the one hand and, on the other, revealing personal information in breach of privacy principles or even permitting the collation of individual dossiers by linking formerly unrelated records.

In addition to appropriate indexes, the production of finding aids is essential if individuals are to locate their own records. Victorian and Queensland records are made more accessible with finding aids specifically for Indigenous records. The Victorian Archives combined with the Australian Archives to produce a guide titled My Heart is Breaking in 1993.

[It] consists of separate annotated listings of the relevant holdings of both Commonwealth and State archives with some notes on the authorities that created the records. It includes a name index to assist with family study … and suggests other sources for research and study … [It] includes reference to the archives of other [Victorian] State agencies that are known to have had contact with Aboriginal people in the period until the transfer of responsibility to the Commonwealth [in 1975]  (Karen Cleave, Victorian Department of Health and Community Services, evidence).

These guides were criticised, however, on the grounds that they ‘are written in a language that appeals to only a small tertiary educated elite group’ and are ‘often compiled with very little, if any, Indigenous input’  (Sonia Smallacombe consultancy report submitted by ATSIC submission 684 page 10).
Many files which may be of relevance do not distinguish between Indigenous and non-Indigenous subjects.

Where records were created in the course of or to document the lives of Indigenous Australians or in administering Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander affairs, identification and description is more likely to be relatively straightforward. But records are also created to document activities in which Aboriginality was unimportant to the creators of the record. As a result records about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people or of relevance to them exist embedded within other records  (Stuartfield House Consulting Group 1996 page 4).

Indexes to those records ‘may not give any indication of Aboriginality’ (Stuartfield House Consulting Group 1996 page 4) and indeed individual records may not record the person’s Aboriginality. This greatly adds to the size and complexity of the search task and there is always a risk that a relevant file will be overlooked.

What was very disturbing … was the way Aboriginality was identified was not by a mark on the file or by trying to slot kids into Aboriginal programs. It was sometimes just because racist terms appeared in the file [that I could tell the subject was Aboriginal]  (Linda Briskman evidence 134).

Many people will need assistance to obtain the information kept by the government about them. Many will need assistance just to be aware there might be a relevant and accessible file.

Firstly, people have to know about the service and their rights of access, and many do not yet have this information. People who live in remote communities may be a long way from a District Centre [of the department]; and language and cultural differences can inhibit communication and access. Aboriginal people who are mistrustful or apprehensive of Family and Community Services may not feel confident about requesting access and negotiating the specific information they want to receive  (SA Government interim submission page 23).

Beginning a search
Researching government records is complicated and time-consuming. Few people who have not worked in a bureaucracy can understand the record-keeping systems, codes and procedures.

… a very complex maze. It’s hellishly complex. There’s terrible numbering systems; the systems have changed over time. There was a whole maze of ways of looking at the [records] system  (Linda Briskman evidence 134).

Research based on archival sources is an analytical and labour intensive process. Archival research involves the study of unique, original documents. The storage areas of archives, unlike those of most libraries, may not be browsed by researchers wishing to identify records that might be relevant. This means that researchers are entirely reliant on indexes or finding aids to locate material of relevance to their research. Archives see their role as assisting researchers to understand and use the indexes and other tools. By and large Archives are not able to assist researchers in identifying or selecting relevant records or interpreting the records  (Australian Archives submission 602 page 19).

… archives are pretty daunting places for anybody … all archives have different systems … They’re complicated places to use  (Kathryn Frankland, Queensland Archives, evidence).

In reality this kind of search is not possible either for Link-up with hundreds of clients, or for people trying to do their own research. The sheer size of the job is not the only problem although it is a significant one. There are difficulties in identifying possible sources in the first place. Inventories and other finding aids are not always available and access provisions prevent trawling widely through possible sources  (Rosie Baird presentation included with Karu submission 540, page 7).

A number of record agencies have established specialist units to undertake the complex search process on behalf of Indigenous searchers. We found such units to be operating in Queensland, WA, SA and Victoria. The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies also offers a family research service. The following table sets out what services are available and whether Indigenous staff are employed.

Access as of right
‘Personal information’ is information about the searcher, the forcibly removed child or perhaps a descendant. This information may include the searcher’s date and place of birth, birth name, date and reason for removal, placement(s), health and education records. While ‘personal information’ usually includes the names of the child’s biological parents and their dates of birth, it does not include other records about the parents such as their health records, employment and housing records, information kept by missionaries and protectors about their relationships, other children, changes of residence and so on. Nor does it include information about the searcher’s siblings, grandparents, cousins or other family or community members.

There is a right of access to personal information throughout Australia with the exception of the Northern Territory. This right is established by ‘freedom of information’ laws (FoI) covering personal information compiled by government agencies. 

… if someone requests documents – whoever they may be – as long as that document directly relates to them there is no prohibition on their access to the information  (Dr David Rathman, SA Department of Aboriginal Affairs, evidence).

If the file was just about you we wouldn’t deny you access at all. We’d actually make a copy of the file for you  (Rose Mitchell, WA Aboriginal Affairs Department, evidence).
Freedom of information legislation sets minimum rights of access. It is a back-up if access to documents cannot be obtained less formally. FoI legislation does not prevent access being provided informally. ‘[It] is not the only mechanism by which the objectives of government openness and accountability, dissemination of information and protection of privacy can be achieved. Its importance lies in the fact that it provides an enforceable right of access to government-held information’ (Open government 1995 page 15).

The FOI Act prescribes when information must be disclosed. It does not prescribe when information is permitted to be disclosed. Agencies retain a discretion to disclose information at any time  (Open government 1995 page 38).

FoI legislation requires departments to respond to requests within set time limits and if departments refuse to release records the legislation provides rights of appeal.

 Restrictive application of FoI
The administration of FoI application procedures can be unhelpful to many Indigenous searchers seeking personal information. One limitation is that the applicant for a record must usually specify the file sought. Most record agencies will not search through all of their files to discover whether there is a record of the applicant. Nor will they recreate the applicant’s life and family history from the various records held. 

… when people put in an application for freedom of information they have to be specific about what document they want and be very clear. Freedom of Information covers documents not collections or records as a larger record. So it is very restrictive for anyone applying and in fact it is not at all an easy process under FoI  (Jennie Carter, WA Aboriginal Affairs Department, evidence).

The 1995 review of the Commonwealth’s FoI Act found considerable resistance among bureaucrats to the release of government records in accordance with the letter and the spirit of FoI (Open government pages 35-6, 81). Nevertheless the existence of FoI laws ‘does reinforce a culture of open government’  (Families on File 1996 page 28).

In the Northern Territory, where FOI laws are absent, Indigenous organisations have reported that departments more often than not refuse to release personal information and have declined to negotiate access principles  (Families on File 1996 page 28).

In most States Indigenous people removed from their families as children can see their major personal records without going through the Freedom of Information process. Records kept by Aborigines protection and welfare boards, departments of native welfare and their equivalents are now the responsibility of State and Territory welfare and/or Aboriginal and Islander affairs departments. Where the Commonwealth had legislative responsibility (in the NT and ACT) or where responsibility for Indigenous affairs was transferred to the Commonwealth (in Victoria from 1975) most of the relevant records are held by Australian Archives. 

Most Indigenous affairs and welfare departments now have specific (non-FoI) access procedures for Indigenous families in general or specifically for children taken into State care or guardianship. These procedures are less formal than FoI, discretionary and designed specifically for Indigenous searchers. While they are often slower than an FoI application, they are usually free of charge and research assistance may be available (see the table above).

By not requiring people to lodge FOI requests agencies are not bound by restrictive provisions in FOI legislation and have more flexibility to handle each case in a way best suited to the applicant, including using their discretion to release third party information  (Families on File 1996 page 27).

Exceptions to this special provision are Victoria and the NT. In Victoria the Freedom of Information legislation must be used. The only Victorian records that are available without going through FoI are files on adults which were created more than 75 years ago and files on children created more than 99 years ago, under archives legislation which has equivalents in most States and Territories. In the NT there is ‘no automatic entitlement of clients to information or records’ (NT Government interim submission page 31).

Adoption information 
Adoption information is treated separately. All States and Territories except SA have legislation to permit adopted children to find out who their natural parents are without using FoI procedures. Legislation varies somewhat in each State and Territory. In NSW the birth parent or the adopted child can lodge a contact veto but cannot prevent the release of identifying information. In other jurisdictions the parties can register a veto over the release of identifying information or can permit this release but prevent the other person from making contact. In Queensland even if parents’ identity cannot be disclosed the adopted child will be told their age, religion, occupation, ethnicity and a general description. In all jurisdictions adopted children are only entitled to the information about their birth once they reach 18.

 No right of access to non-government records
Records made by non-government organisations, for example churches running children’s homes and orphanages, are not covered by FoI. Some researchers’ records, for example the extensive ‘Tindale Collection’ of photographs and genealogies created by anthropologist Norman Tindale in the first half of this century, and some non-government agency record collections, for example some mission records in the NT and the A O Neville collection in WA, have been deposited in various State, Territory and Commonwealth archives. The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies also holds significant family and biographical information. The general rule is that the depositing organisation and not the archives itself decides who can have access to these materials and on what conditions.

Non-government organisations are under no statutory obligation to retain their records or to expend resources preserving and indexing them. ‘It really is up to the organisations concerned to have some sort of general social conscience in terms of ensuring survival of important records’ (Richard Gore, NSW Archives, evidence).

A current proposal to extend the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 to non-government organisations should ensure the protection of relevant church and mission records and grant a right of access for people whose personal information is held in church archives.

 No right of access to family information
Family information, as distinct from personal information, is treated as information about third parties. Third party information is protected to varying degrees by privacy principles with the practical effect that the searcher may be denied information about family members. ‘And yet that file may provide the information that is the missing link to that person’s history’  (Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement submission 484 page 47).

… Freedom of Information legislation places restrictions on the actual information that a person can access in their file, as it excludes identifying information about other people. This poses particular difficulties for Aboriginal people, as the excluded information is often exactly what they are searching for  (SA Government interim submission page 24).

Confidentiality provisions within the legislation and by departmental policy make it virtually impossible to access another persons file without their express written permission. This becomes difficult where that person may have died and cannot give that permission. And yet that file may provide the information that is the missing link to that persons history  (Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement submission 484 pages 46-47).

Respect for individual privacy means that information about third parties will not be divulged without their consent or, where deceased, consent from their next of kin. This may appear unjust.

In order to get records I have to prove Dad is dead and that I am his daughter. It is unjust that I have to get paperwork that I am related in order to get the records.
Confidential evidence 183, South Australia.

Yet the importance of protecting privacy was stressed to the Inquiry.
[It] has been raised with me by a number of elderly Aboriginal members of the community that they do not want their families to access records that may have been produced by the Protector of Aborigines or the Aborigines Protection Board that relate to their family histories without them giving express permission …  (Dr David Rathman, SA Department of Aboriginal Affairs, evidence).

When one considers the kind of information recorded about people by protection boards and other agencies, the reluctance of some parents to have their children see it is understandable. A mother may not wish her children to know that she was raped by an employer for example. A father may wish to keep private the fact that his application for an exemption certificate was rejected on the grounds that his standard of living or ‘intelligence’ was judged inadequate.

In view of these concerns two issues arise. The first is whether a distinction can be made between, on the one hand, third party identifying information which permits a searcher to identify his or her own family and community links and, on the other, information which is solely personal to the third party. The second issue is whether the record agency should seek the third party’s consent or whether that should be left to the searcher to pursue.

Some States interpret the right of privacy more strictly than others and agencies vary within States. In Queensland information about the immediate family of the searcher will be divulged but ‘sensitive’ information about third parties will be deleted (Queensland Government interim submission page 68). In WA, on the other hand, the welfare department will not even advise a searcher of his or her parents’ identity. 

Under Western Australian law, if people wish to pursue personal information that has been withheld, they may obtain the consent from the third party if they know the identity of the third party. Departments are obliged under the [FoI] Act not to reveal the identity of the third party. However it is usual practice [for the department] to contact the third party to seek their views  (personal communication from Director-General, WA Family and Children’s Services).

In the NT many relevant records are held by Australian Archives. Many of these records contain personal information about a number of people. For example, a single record may contain personal information about several generations of one family or it may contain information about a group of unrelated children who happened to have been dealt with together at some time. ‘The challenge for the Archives has been how to address the needs of indigenous people separated from their families yet safeguard the privacy of individuals’ (Australian Archives submission 602 page 5). A ‘memorandum of understanding’ developed by Australian Archives in consultation with Indigenous user agencies resolves many of the third party privacy concerns by requiring the searcher to sign an undertaking not to reveal sensitive information about other people to anyone else. This solution permits the searcher or an agent such as an Indigenous tracing agency to peruse all records of relevance to himself or herself in their context, even when that context includes information personal to others. A similar approach was adopted following a similar process of consultation in the ‘common access guidelines’ developed in NSW.

Some agencies will seek out a third party’s consent to the release of information to an applicant. The Department of Community Services and Health in Victoria, the Aboriginal Affairs Department and the Family and Children’s Services Department in WA and the Queensland Community and Personal Histories Service will do this. Others leave that up to the searcher, for example NSW Archives and the Queensland Department of Aboriginal and Islander Affairs. The latter approach can place some searchers in a catch-22 situation. Without knowing the identity of a parent, the parent cannot be contacted for consent. Yet without consent, the searcher cannot find out the parent’s identity. This absurd situation arises where the record agency takes a very strict approach and does not assist by contacting family members to obtain their consent.

In the case of adoption information most States permit either party to register a veto on the release of identifying information. In NSW however neither party can require identifying information to be withheld.

Unrelated third parties
Respect for third party privacy currently seems to require that all information relating to non-immediate family will be withheld, for example the identity of foster parents or the welfare department’s assessments of the quality of care being provided. The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre submitted that this information belongs as much to the child as to the carers and should be released.

We have raised with the Department the need to make available information which may be adverse to the interests of foster parents (where for example there is information indicating physical, emotional or sexual abuse). To date the Department has indicated that it will not provide such information without the consent of the third party affected. It is our belief that any information, opinion or fact should be released  (second submission 325 page 2).

This information may be critical to the success of a civil damages claim brought by a former ward who was harmed or abused in foster care.

Cost and delay
Generally people do not have to pay anything to read their personal information. In most cases files will be copied for free. Sometimes a fee does apply, for example in Queensland identifying information about a natural parent could cost an adoptee a $50 application fee and in NSW the fee is $120. In those cases the fee can be waived or reduced in the case of hardship. Australian Archives is among the agencies which have resisted requests for free copies.

The Archives has received representations that all copying done for the purposes of research by or on behalf of people affected by past child removal policies and practices in the Northern Territory be provided free of charge. The Archives’ response was that an open-ended arrangement might have enormous resource implications for the Archives but that the Archives was willing to consider a restricted waiver of charges if an acceptable arrangement could be developed (submission 602 page 16).

Many Indigenous people seeking information about themselves and their family will be able to proceed independently of FoI. In these cases the FoI statutory time limits on departmental responses to applications do not apply. 

There are three stages at which researchers may experience delays in accessing records. The first is in the process of undertaking archival research which may be labour intensive … The second possible delay is when a researcher seeks access to Commonwealth records in the open period [ie older than 30 years] for which the Archives has not yet made an access decision [for example records more than 30 years old will not be released to the public if that would involve an unreasonable disclosure of the personal affairs of the record-subject]. In such instances there may be a delay, particularly if exemptions have to be applied or if consultation is required … The third possible delay is of the shortest duration – as archives do not allow browsing or self-service in the repository there is a delay between the material being requested [after the completion of the previous two stages] and provided (this is usually no more than thirty minutes)  (Australian Archives submission 602 page 5).

Archival research is likely to cause the longest delays in all States and Territories. The difficulty of the task is exacerbated by a lack of indexing as discussed above. The Inquiry heard evidence of considerable delays (SA Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement evidence 484). In WA the Aboriginal Affairs Department can take six months to meet a request although most are met within two months. Requests to the WA Department of Family and Community Services may still be active after four years or more (ATSIC submission 684 page 20).

In NSW efforts were made to reduce the delay significantly for the duration of the Inquiry. The ‘common access guidelines’ envisage a ten day turnaround between the receipt of the application by the agency and the provision of the information sought. In Queensland the Community and Personal Histories Service attempts to prioritise urgent requests such as where the applicant seeks confirmation of his or her date of birth, where the information is needed for a native title claim or where an older person is looking for missing family members.

Distressing information, denigratory language
For forcibly removed people and their families the information recorded about them by government agencies is almost certain to raise painful memories and their files will almost certainly contain information that will cause pain if not trauma and despair.
There’s letters written there in my handwriting and I go berserk, I can’t handle it. I can’t go near them because I see my handwritten letters there as a little kid. You know, ‘May I see my brothers and sisters? I haven’t seen them for a long time. They’re dear to my heart’. ‘Do you know where my mum is? Can I please see my dad?’ There’s letters written back by them that my behaviour didn’t warrant visits. There’s letters there saying that if I didn’t improve my behaviour that I would not be able to be with my brothers and sisters and that I would never see my parents again.
Confidential evidence 284, South Australia.

… people experience different emotions, ranging from the excitement of locating a missing family member to outrage and distress in relation to what has been recorded on a personal file. For many clients, the records remind them of incidents in their lives that they would prefer to forget and they are often dismayed to find that intimate details of their private lives were recorded on government files  (Qld Government interim submission page 69).

The files often contain very minimal or inaccurate information, entries may be written in a tone and style that is very disturbing and offensive to the person concerned, and content may be difficult to understand and interpret  (SA Government interim submission page 23).

We’ve got Mum’s records from the department. Mum was in the home when she was about 8 or 9. She didn’t get released until she was 17. I was expecting something like a thick book. She only got about, I’d say, maybe 20 pages …
Confidential evidence 143, Victoria.

There are a lot of stories in the files that have been written about me from when I was in different stations working … And the bad things they said about me in the past from the settlement wasn’t true. There are a lot of untrue things about me on the files. I have cried about the lies on those files. Things that are lies about me, things I was never told about, are on those files.
Confidential submission 110, Queensland.

Two issues clearly arise. The first is that of deleting false information. The second is that of support and counselling for people before, during and after the file is read.

People may be entitled to write a statement correcting false information and have the statement put on their file. However no information, even false information, can or should be deleted. There is much value in retaining even false information, as well as derogatory and racist language, so that the true quality of administration can always be understood.
With respect to support and counselling the Inquiry was struck by the contrast between the care and funding commitment devoted to adoption reunion counselling and the inadequacy of support for Indigenous family reunions where adoption was not involved. All governments now provide a counselling service in conjunction with access to adoption information. 

… the process of obtaining information, searching and making contact with family can precipitate many intense emotions. Counselling, support and assistance is available from AIS [Adoption Information Service] to assist in dealing with these feelings and the issues of loss and grief (Victorian Government interim submission page 25).

Only Victoria and Tasmania have extended the same service to ex-wards of the State including Indigenous people. Yet the trauma involved in tracing and reuniting with families can be far more significant for children who were forcibly removed. Often they remember the removal process, remembering parents to whom they were unable to say goodbye or remembering a last glimpse of a frantically distraught parent. They may have been told their parents didn’t want them or were dead. Often they were institutionalised. Institutional and foster care almost always involved denigration of Aboriginality and often brutality and abuse.

For some clients, especially those who were taken from their families as children, the whole process of finding family and establishing cultural links is extremely traumatic for them and their family  (Queensland Government interim submission page 70).

The role of Indigenous-controlled family tracing and reunion services is therefore critical.

The effect of seeing information which has been kept confidential, because it is private information, or because it was the practice in some States to document every governmental action and ungenerous remark of an administrator, can be devastating. Sympathetic counselling, especially by other Aboriginal people who have themselves been adopted or institutionalized, such as the Link Up staff, ought to be available to Aboriginal people who gain access to records of their family. We should be mindful of the emotional hurt which can be caused.  (Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody National Report Volume 2 page 78).

The availability of family reunion and tracing services – commonly referred to as ‘link-up’ – is the subject of the following chapter.

Evaluation – government objectives
Our evaluation takes as its first framework the objectives of government record agencies in permitting Indigenous people to access their personal and family records. Are the agencies fulfilling their own objectives with respect to those records?

Government agencies keep records for a variety of reasons. They have obligations under archival legislation to preserve records for posterity. Government departments also have an interest in recording the history of their administration. The objective of relevance to the Inquiry is the objective of responding to the history of forcible removal by facilitating access to the records.

Recommendation 53 of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody is the common objective of government record agencies. All Commonwealth, State and Territory governments have agreed to implement that recommendation. Australian Archives advised the Inquiry that ‘Recommendation 53 … has largely shaped the Archives’ policy on providing access to Commonwealth records by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people separated from their families’ (submission 602 page 5). In submissions to the Inquiry both the Queensland Government (interim submission page 63) and the ACT Government (interim submission page 21) referred to their efforts to implement Recommendation 53. The South Australian Government advised the Inquiry,

We are committed to facilitating the access of Aboriginal people to their personal records, and their reconnections with their family, community, culture, and land  (interim submission page 22).

The first part of Recommendation 53 calls on all governments to,

… provide access to all government archival records pertaining to the family and community histories of Aboriginal people so as to assist the process of enabling Aboriginal people to re-establish community and family links with those people from whom they were separated as a result of past policies of government.

The Privacy Commissioner found that the agencies have not adequately evaluated their own fulfilment of this Recommendation. There is a ‘lack of meaningful measurement of outcomes’  (Families on File 1996 page 15). 

Essential features of complying access provisions
There are five essential features of a system of access to records which fully and appropriately implements Recommendation 53.

First, information about the availability of access to records should be widely communicated throughout Indigenous communities. In fact most Aboriginal people do not know about the existence of records, their rights of access, how to go about the search or the availability of assistance. Information videos such as that recently prepared by the WA Aboriginal Affairs Department are essential to disseminating this information.
Second, access to one’s personal records, including information about one’s family background, should be available as of right. There is no general right of access in the Northern Territory, although access may be granted. Elsewhere there is a right of access to personal information. Moreover, in a number of agencies flexibility of interpretation and an understanding of Indigenous people’s needs enables searchers to receive information – strictly third party information – to assist in building a picture of their family history. Other agencies, however, continue to interpret third party privacy restrictively and fail to assist searchers to meet their requirements for third party consent. The searcher can be denied the very information needed to identify family members and re-establish community and family links.

The responsibility of governments to provide this information to Indigenous people goes far beyond the standard justifications for FoI legislation, namely openness and accountability of governments and the individual’s right to privacy. Indigenous people require personal, family and community information for even more fundamental reasons, namely to assist them to recover from a past marked by gross violations of their human and community rights by governments. By committing themselves to implement Recommendation 53 all governments have recognised this claim. The second part of Recommendation 53 states,

The Commission recognises that questions of the rights of privacy and questions of confidentiality may arise and recommends that the principles and processes for access to such records should be negotiated between government and appropriate Aboriginal organisations, but such negotiations should proceed on the basis that as a general principle access to such documents should be permitted.

Third, the access procedures should be simple, straightforward and very cheap, if not free of charge. In fact however access provisions and services are fragmented (Families on File 1996 page 1). Often the searcher will need to approach more than one agency and go through different kinds of application procedures because ‘there are [still] inconsistencies in approaches both across jurisdictions and within them’ (Families on File 1996 page 26). 

Where specialist research units exist they are able to access only the records created by the departments of which they are a part or, in the case of archives, records already archived. Yet Indigenous people were subject to such control by government that relevant records are usually held in a number of departments. Indigenous children were often subject to multiple placements which could involve administration by more than one government department and could also involve control by a non-government agency. To reconstruct a child’s history a ‘file trail’ often needs to be followed. This is time-consuming and complex. Existing research units are unable to provide the full assistance service needed and ‘no government has a streamlined process for delivering access to the records of all its agencies’ (Families on File 1996 page 4 emphasis added).
Where the application has to be made under FoI an application fee may be charged. The costs of making copies of documents may also be charged to the searcher. Levying an application fee is not only inappropriate, it is unjust. The individual’s need for the information has been created by government policies identified as genocidal and as gross violations of human rights. It is unjust to make restitution, including family reunion, and rehabilitation conditional on the victim’s ability to pay.

Fourth, to ensure that all relevant records are identifiable and dealt with in any particular search all the records must be thoroughly indexed. In fact not even all government-created records have yet been indexed (Families on File 1996 page 21). Finding aids are essential for Indigenous searchers themselves to access their records. Only relatively few specialist finding aids or guides have yet been produced.

Fifth, the distressing personal backgrounds of Indigenous searchers, the difficulty of the process of searching for family information and the likelihood that the files will contain material that is upsetting all indicate the individual’s need for pre-search counselling, support during the perusal of files and counselling subsequently. Indigenous family tracing and reunion services are available in most jurisdictions to assist Indigenous searchers in this way. Government record agencies may not be the most appropriate providers of the necessary support and counselling. However they must be conscious of the needs of applicants and have referral information on hand. Ideally initial applicant contact should be with another Indigenous person. In fact not even the specialist search services listed in the table above uniformly have either appropriate counselling services on-site or a standard referral protocol. No records agency provides resources for counselling equivalent to that provided for adoption information applicants in spite of the typically far greater harm caused by the removal policies and the grief experienced by Indigenous people now searching for family members.

Evaluation – Inquiry criteria
The second framework for evaluation of procedures for access to personal and family records is the human rights framework already established and detailed.

 Self-determination 
The right of Indigenous self-determination requires that Indigenous peoples should be able freely to access information critical to their history and survival as peoples. No record keeping agency has transferred control of its Indigenous family and community records, or copies of its records, for holding in Indigenous community-controlled archives or repositories. No such repositories have been established or funded. Australian Archives, invited to comment on the possibilities of transferring ownership and control of its record holding, responded negatively.

Current Commonwealth legislation does not accommodate this view of ownership … The records are crucial to indigenous people for research, but they are also of use for a variety of other reasons. For example, evidential reasons that are important to the Commonwealth; legal reasons; and research reasons that may or may not be associated with indigenous people  (Australian Archives submission 602 page 17).

The co-operative arrangements between government agencies and Indigenous family reunion services represent tentative steps towards partnerships reflecting the right of self-determination. In Queensland Link-Up staff can access the Heritage Database at the Personal and Community Histories Service. In NSW a link-up worker is located in the State Archives at Link-Up’s expense. Staff of Indigenous reunion services who are located in such positions have an opportunity to shape the response of the government agency to Indigenous searchers.

Non-discrimination
The arrangements for accessing records can disadvantage a substantial proportion of Indigenous people. Equity of access requires the creation of a welcoming environment.

Even when Aboriginal people visit institutions holding their cultural and historical resources the problems don’t dissolve. Aboriginal people feel ill-at-ease and self-conscious when entering white institutions which emanate an entirely alien cultural presence. So much depends upon the person at the counter.

And … there is a language barrier for many of us with regards to what is written about us. The institutional language of government, law, economics, anthropology and so on, the jargon, is simply incomprehensible to many of us to whom English is a second or even third language  (Fourmile 1989 pages 3 and 4).

Those living in rural and remote communities are significantly disadvantaged.

Government records, which are all that Aboriginal people have formal access to, are held in Perth. There is currently a two year wait to receive files, and it is frustrating to have to deal with a bureaucracy so far away, especially when there are no databases or access to information about what kind of files and information is held  (Kimberley Land Council submission 345 page 25).

Some record agencies overcome the problem of distance from the capital city by forwarding full or edited copies of files directly to searchers. Potential inequity of access due to poverty is reduced by some agencies in most States and Territories by keeping costs and charges down, although in some cases these arrangements may not continue beyond the life of this Inquiry.

Cultural renewal
Indigenous communities in Australia do not yet control and manage their own complete documentary history. Renewal of family and community ties and hence regeneration of community life and culture may depend to some extent on reclamation of historical documentation.
… hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have no representative collections of those components of their heritage, and in many cases are unaware that these often rich resources even exist. Consequently our Elders are dying without passing on vital cultural knowledge and history to our younger generations – knowledge which could be rekindled or stimulated if they had ready access to cultural items, old photographs, genealogies, language tapes, anthropological field notes, mission records, and so on …

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island communities are not getting the benefits of the various collections of their cultural heritage to which they are entitled. The overall situation constitutes a massive breach of our human rights as detailed in a number of international instruments to which Australia is a signatory (Fourmile 1992 page 3).

In most States and Territories Indigenous communities are not being involved in the decisions government and non-government agencies make about the management of access to and research into their records. Concerns about confidentiality dominate the process of releasing records. Most Indigenous communities are not consulted on how third party information should be treated. Some Indigenous communities may be less sensitive about the release of third party information than about longstanding gaps and blanks in the picture of the community’s history. On the other hand, non-Indigenous searchers have tapped the documentary history without consultation with the relevant community.

Coherent policy base
No government has a policy statement which acknowledges the full range of needs of people affected by forcible removal. All governments are in the position admitted to by the Northern Territory.

The effects … have not been examined to any significant degree by government. A number of books and articles have been published [by others]. As far as this Government is aware, none of these so far have carried out a rigorous analysis of the effects in a manner that would be of assistance in developing programs that could address the problems that appear to continue to exist  (interim submission page 18).

Agencies which have responded at all have done so on their own initiative or more often at the instigation of an Indigenous organisation.

The current social welfare policies within Tasmania merely seek to patch up identified problems. There is no long term social policy in place. Government response is therefore ad hoc  (Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre first submission 325 page 8).
Even access to personal and family records is typically addressed on an ad hoc basis with the various record agencies operating differently and in isolation from each other.  In New South Wales it was recognised ‘that one of the real problems … was fragmentation, lack of co-ordination and lack of a whole-of-government approach’ (Richard Gore, NSW Archives, evidence). The working party established in NSW to develop common access guidelines has contributed to significantly enhanced co-ordination. ATSIC commended the ‘holistic’ NSW approach to the Inquiry  (second submission 684 page 1).

WA has also established an inter-agency co-ordinating committee to address the problem to some extent. Winji Bulup draws its membership from the Aboriginal Affairs Department, the Department of Family and Children’s Services, the Aboriginal Legal Service, the Aboriginal family and children’s issues services Manguri and Yorganop, and Centacare, a Catholic family welfare agency. All of the organisations represented are engaged in accessing Indigenous family and community records and the committee discusses ‘ease of access, types of records that we hold or … if we’re unable to locate a particular record, then we’re able to utilise the membership of that committee to try and help us search’ (Dawn Wallam, WA Family and Children’s Services, evidence).

 Adequate resources
The deployment of family reunion workers by a number of government agencies goes some way to meeting the requirement for adequate staff resources. Most specialist Indigenous family research services do employ Indigenous staff. However most agencies have been unable to employ Aboriginal archivists because few are professionally qualified and no relevant traineeships are available.

The poor state of many record series, the lack of indexes and finding guides and the size of the search backlog in many agencies starkly illustrate the failure to provide adequate resources to government record agencies to enhance access. WA’s Aboriginal Affairs Department complained of understaffing and noted the ‘huge cost problems’ of ‘electronic data capture’ of its personal history card holdings (both as a preservation measure and in the interests of more efficient searching).

Queensland’s Department of Families, Youth and Community Care is the only agency to have approached the issue comprehensively and with a significant resource commitment.

… in the last five years we have probably spent well over a million dollars on some of the systems that support the Community and Personal Histories Service: information systems, the arrangement and description of the records, the actual safe storage and preservation … all the records management issues are something that does take a lot of money to do  (Carmel Finn, Community and Personal Histories Service, evidence).
Recommendations
The Inquiry’s recommendations are designed to achieve three broad objectives. First, all records which may be of assistance to Indigenous people seeking to re-establish family and community links or establish Indigenous identity must be preserved. All culling of relevant or potentially relevant records must be embargoed. Second, access to records must be made easier and less hurtful. This involves improving access procedures, ensuring culturally appropriate access and involving the counselling and support assistance of Indigenous family tracing and reunion services. Third, in the longer term Indigenous communities should have an opportunity to manage their own historical documentation. For those communities which desire it, copies of relevant records collections should be provided to Indigenous repositories within established privacy principles.

The first and second objectives directly aim to implement Recommendation 53 of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in custody effectively and the Inquiry’s interest in family and community reunion. The third objective recognises, as does Recommendation 53 implicitly, the need for Indigenous communities to reclaim and renew their histories and community identities as one step in the process of recovering from the history of genocide. All three objectives offer strategies for providing restitution, either to individuals and families directly affected or to communities indirectly affected by forcible removals.

Restitution shall be provided to re-establish the situation that existed prior to the violations of human rights and humanitarian law. Restitution requires, inter alia, restoration or liberty, family life, citizenship, return to one’s place of residence, enjoyment of property  (van Boven Principle 12).

Preservation of records
Subject to certain criteria, government agencies and archives are currently authorised to cull and destroy records they have created. It is essential that all records which could enable any Indigenous person to trace his or her family, establish his or her identity or locate his or her community or communities of origin be protected against destruction. The Stolen Generations National Workshop (1996) submitted that,

… all records relating to Aboriginal people and their communities, including those that were kept by governments, churches and private agencies, are the property of the people and communities to which they relate. Thus no agency (government or non-government) currently holding records relating to Aboriginal people has the right to destroy, alter or deny access by the owner to these records  (submission 754 page 23).

Because many record series do not identify subjects’ Aboriginality, the obligation to retain records which could reasonably be found to relate to Indigenous communities, families or individuals in effect requires all records of the relevant type to be retained, including those ultimately found to relate to non-Indigenous people. Non-Indigenous people removed from their families of origin in childhood have many of the same concerns about identity and background as Indigenous people. This does not mean that all records created by an agency need to be retained permanently. Two categories of records must be permanently retained: those relating to all children removed from their families for whatever reason and those known to relate to Indigenous people, communities and families.

Destruction of records prohibited
Recommendation 21: That no records relating to Indigenous individuals, families or communities or to any children, Indigenous or otherwise, removed from their families for any reason, whether held by government or non-government agencies, be destroyed.

There is an urgent need to identify, preserve and index records now held by governments (initiating agencies or archives) and non-government agencies (such as churches and former missions). This task includes the identification of destroyed or lost records and records series. The Inquiry commends the preservation and indexing work of the Queensland Community and Personal History Service as a sound model.

The task of preserving and indexing records is a priority since assisting family reunions is the most significant and urgent need of separated families. The Stolen Generations National Workshop (1996) proposed to the Inquiry that the ‘resource implications’ of this task ‘should be seen as a part of the overall reparation package to which governments have a legal and moral obligation’  (submission 754 page 22).

Appropriate implementation of the tasks of identification, preservation and indexing will involve a partnership with relevant Indigenous user services and individuals (ATSIC second submission 684 page 2). Prioritising needs within the records held and identifying which records and collections are most likely to contain information of relevance will be among the roles allocated to the Commonwealth, State and Territory Records Taskforces proposed below.

Record preservation
Recommendation 22a: That all government record agencies be funded as a matter of urgency by the relevant government to preserve and index records relating to Indigenous individuals, families and/or communities and records relating to all children, Indigenous or otherwise, removed from their families for any reason. 
Recommendations 22b: That indexes and other finding aids be developed and managed in a way that protects the privacy of individuals and, in particular, prevents the compilation of dossiers.

Enhancing access
Common access guidelines are needed in each State and Territory. Retrieving relevant personal and family information is currently unnecessarily complicated by the diverse access provisions in the various record agencies. Additional difficulty is attributable to the refusal of access by non-government agencies or, where access is provided, to the different conditions of access. The development of appropriate guidelines will require detailed discussions with Indigenous users. A taskforce should be created by each government, constituted by all interested parties, including record agencies and Indigenous family reunion services. The 1994 Going Home Conference recommended,

…that a representative Aboriginal Advisory Committee be established to advise the Commonwealth archives agency on all matters of interest and concern to Aboriginal people, with a view to ensuring that Aboriginal people have ready access to any information of concern to them for use as the Aboriginal people themselves determine.
Joint records taskforces
Recommendation 23: That the Commonwealth and each State and Territory Government establish and fund a Records Taskforce constituted by representatives from government and church and other non-government record agencies and Indigenous user services to,
1.	develop common access guidelines to Indigenous personal, family and community records as appropriate to the jurisdiction and in accordance with established privacy principles,
2.	advise the government whether any church or other non-government record-holding agency should be assisted to preserve and index its records and administer access,
3.	advise government on memoranda of understanding for dealing with inter-State enquiries and for the inter-State transfer of files and other information,
4.	advise government and churches generally on policy relating to access to and uses of Indigenous personal, family and community information, and
5.	advise government on the need to introduce or amend legislation to put these policies and practices into place. 

Inter-State enquiries
Recommendation 24: That each government, as advised by its Records Taskforce, enter into memoranda of understanding with other governments for dealing with inter-State enquiries and for the inter-State transfer of records and other information.
These recommendations address the central concern of the proposal from the Going Home Conference to ensure the full involvement of Indigenous representatives in decision-making about access to records. The recommendations also take into account the clear evidence that access guidelines and standards may need to vary in detail in different regions. National guidelines would be inappropriate although national minimum standards are essential.

State and Territory based consultations [will] more effectively allow the different laws, history, sensitivities and social organisation of Indigenous people in particular regions to be taken into account  (Families on File 1996 page 57).

The first task of each taskforce must be to develop, as a matter of priority and within the parameters of minimum national standards (Recommendation 26), common access guidelines applying to all record agencies. Matters to be considered will include whether and to what extent personal records need to be censored before release to a searcher, how records should be indexed, how priorities are to be established for dealing with requests for access to records, the form of pre-access advice and procedures for referral to counselling and support services. Each taskforce would continue to monitor the implementation of its guidelines and improve and refine them as needed.

A commitment to minimum access standards is required immediately in all jurisdictions and by all record agencies, both government and non-government. The Inquiry has received many submissions concerning these standards. It is most important that they be adopted regardless of jurisdiction and regardless of agency type. Indigenous people seeking personal and family information must no longer experience discrimination on the basis that the information they seek is in a particular State or held by a particular type of agency.

That a consistent approach be adopted across jurisdictions in relation to access by Indigenous people to information in Government records. A national code of practice for archival agencies should be developed that takes account of the rights and interests of indigenous clients  (Central Land Council submission 495 page 14, recommendation 7 and ATSIC submission 684 page 4, recommendation 7).

A key issue for access guidelines will be third party privacy.

Privacy is a major issue when dealing with archival research. The information held in Archive files relates to family members, someone’s mother and father. The information may not even be known to the person it is written about and with so many peoples histories located in one institutional file, a person electing to do their own research, has someone else’s history open to them  (Rosie Baird presentation included in Karu submission 540 page 3).

At the Commonwealth level Information Privacy Principle 11 prohibits the disclosure of one person’s personal information to any other person without the first person’s consent, except in a narrow set of circumstances which are irrelevant here (Privacy Act 1988). The Commonwealth’s FoI Act reflects this Principle by exempting personal information belonging to a third party from the general disclosure rule. The 1995 review of the FoI Act proposed that third party information should only continue to be exempt if disclosure, on balance, would not be in the public interest (Open government 1995 page 127). Although this proposal has yet to be implemented it clearly shows that public policy development is moving away from a blanket protection for third party information. In some circumstances the public interest may require disclosure and the relationship between the searcher and the record subject ought to be relevant to that decision (Open government 1995 pages 129-30). This alternative policy of flexibility in recognition of special circumstances is especially appropriate to the needs of Indigenous people seeking family and community information.

The need to protect one person’s privacy has to weighed against the need to provide another with access to personal information. The refusal to release third party identifying information could deny an Indigenous searcher the opportunity for reunion with his or her family and/or community and access to entitlements for which proof of community connection or Aboriginality generally is required. 

Australian Archives advised the Inquiry that in the course of developing the Memorandum of Understanding for Northern Territory records it became apparent that ‘the indigenous community and the Archives have differing views on what is sensitive and what is not’ (submission 602 page 15). Similarly the consultancy report prepared for ATSIC by Sonia Smallacombe stated,

Within many Aboriginal communities, most people had relatives who suffered from leprosy and they were often accepted as part of the community. The attitudes of the wider Anglo community to isolate and reject people who had leprosy was not always evident in the Aboriginal communities. Therefore, Aboriginal communities may not regard this information to be sensitive enough to warrant restriction  (with submission 684 page 12).

While the precise details need to be defined in consultation with Indigenous communities in each region, the Inquiry has come to the conclusion that at a minimum every searcher must be entitled to personal and family identifying information, including parents’ and siblings’ names and dates and places of birth, even where disclosure of that information might be thought to infringe third party privacy.

Minimum access standards
Recommendation 25: That all common access guidelines incorporate the following standards.
1.	The right of every person, upon proof of identity only, to view all information relating to himself or herself and to receive a full copy of the same.
2.	No application fee, copying fee or other charge of any kind to be imposed.
3.	A maximum application processing period to be agreed by the Records Taskforce and any failure to comply to be amenable to review and appeal.
4.	A person denied the right of access or having any other grievance concerning his or her information to be entitled to seek a review and, if still dissatisfied, to appeal the decision or other matter free of charge.
5.	The right of every person to receive advice, both orally and in writing, at the time of application about Indigenous support and assistance services available in his or her State or Territory of residence.
6.	The form of advice provided to applicants to be drafted in consultation with local Indigenous family tracing and reunion services and to contain information about the nature and form of the information to be disclosed and the possibility of distress.
7.	The right of every person to receive all personal identifying information about himself or herself including information which is necessary to establish the identity of family members (for example, parent’s identifying details such as name, community of origin, date of birth).
8.	The right of every person who is the subject of a record, subject to the exception above, to determine to whom and to what extent that information is divulged to a third person.

FoI in the NT
Recommendation 26: That the Northern Territory Government introduce Freedom of Information legislation on the Commonwealth model.

Access to personal and family information is also hampered by the complexity of record holdings. In recognition of the urgency of facilitating family reunions all efforts should be made to assist people affected by forcible removal. The Inquiry considers that the best approach is to establish an Indigenous Family Information Service in each State and Territory as well as at the Commonwealth level. While these Services would not hold all relevant records, they should have detailed information about the location of records and access procedures so that they can provide a full assistance service to Indigenous searchers. These Services will require priority access to a network of specialist officers in each record-holding agency, sufficient information about the holdings of each agency and sufficient resources and skills to provide competent and reliable referral. Each government has a responsibility to establish an Indigenous Family Information Service as a ‘first stop shop’ for people seeking access to records. 

Widespread advertising of the existence and services of the Indigenous Family Information Service would be a key to facilitating access.

While they must be staffed by Indigenous people, the Services would not necessarily be the best source of support and counselling, tracing and reunion support, or general family and community research. It is preferable that these roles be undertaken by Indigenous-controlled services (see Royal Commission Recommendation 192).

Indigenous Family Information Service
Recommendation 27: That the Commonwealth and each State and Territory Government, in consultation with relevant Indigenous services and its Records Taskforce, establish an Indigenous Family Information Service to operate as a ‘first stop shop’ for people seeking information about and referral to records held by the government and by churches. That these Services be staffed by Indigenous people. That to support these Services each government and church record agency nominate a designated contact officer.

The Indigenous Family Information Services must be staffed by Indigenous people. Ideally the entire contact network should be constituted by Indigenous officers. The Going Home Conference recommended,

… that the Minister direct his Department to create positions for Aboriginal contact officers in the central and regional office of the Commonwealth Archives. The Aboriginal contact officers would be responsible for facilitating for Aboriginal people who wish to have access to information held in the Commonwealth archives.

To this end relevant traineeships and scholarships should be established. Graduates would find employment in Family Information Services, government record agencies, family tracing and reunion services and, where established, Indigenous language, culture and history centres.

Training
Recommendation 28: That the Commonwealth and each State and Territory Government institute traineeships and scholarships for the training of Indigenous archivists, genealogists, historical researchers and counsellors.
Indigenous repositories

… there exists a large body of administrative and personal records relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples … these records form part of the cultural heritage of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this State and are of vital concern to those … wishing to find out more about their own, their families and their communities past  (Queensland Community and Personal Histories Draft Access Policy 1996).

Indigenous organisations and individuals told the Inquiry that records about them created and held by governments and non-government agencies should belong to them. Some witnesses asserted an individual’s rights to reclaim his or her records.

Why have they got records on us? I’m not a criminal. I never have been a criminal and I object to the government holding records on me. I didn’t do anything wrong and I want those records to be – if they don’t want to hand them over to me, then destroy them in front of me. I don’t see why I should have that humiliation.
Confidential evidence 284, South Australia.

I think they should be getting everyone’s records together and handing it back to them, so that at least we know our own identity. A lot of it’s still lost and I don’t know if I’ll ever find it.
Confidential evidence 283, South Australia.

Indigenous organisations asserted the community’s right to recover the documentation of its history, including personal information about community members.

All records relating to Aboriginal people and their communities should be housed by appropriate Aboriginal organisations as determined by the communities (Link Up’s, Keeping Places, or Cultural Centres may be examples of such organisations). Such organisations must be given adequate resources in order to arrange proper ‘user friendly’ access, and indexing to these records and to allow for their physical maintenance. In addition such organisations must be resourced in order to provide necessary client counselling and support, research assistance services and ‘new and potential user’ information services (Stolen Generations National Workshop 1996 submission 754 page 23).

Link-Up recommends the establishment of an Aboriginal Archive where all of the departmental records pertaining to Aboriginal people will be consolidated under an Aboriginal-controlled administration with uniform and culturally appropriate access procedures.
To implement this recommendation, an Aboriginal Archive committee comprising appropriate departments and Aboriginal organisations should be formed to formulate a plan for establishing the Aboriginal Archive  (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 page 11).

That a national centre or institution be established as a memorial to truth, in recognition of the gross violations of human rights suffered by the ‘Stolen Generations’ and for the purpose of sharing history, keeping records, undertaking research and establishing international links with other victims of forced removal  (Central Land Council submission 495 page 14, recommendation 8).

Murri academic Henrietta Fourmile makes a cogent argument for the return of records founded upon the cultural and individual consequences of the history documented in those records. The history is one of disinheritance, disempowerment and ultimately attempted destruction. True restitution and cultural and social reconstruction require the restitution of control over the historical documents. While that control should be shared with those who share the history (in this case with record agencies), Indigenous control must be real and not token. At present Indigenous peoples are almost entirely dependent on non-Indigenous institutions to interpret and disseminate their history. Indigenous peoples need resources and facilities and culturally appropriate avenues to disseminate their history, in particular to their own communities. Indigenous communities must have the information on which to base their retelling of their history.

This lack of our collections of books, documents, and records constitutes a severe impediment in our quest to make and pass on our own history …
Much of Aboriginal people’s own sense of powerlessness stems from ignorance because of this lack of access to information about matters which control our lives. An informed Aboriginal population will have a much greater feeling of power over its own destiny … 

The nett effect of the lack of our own cultural and historical resources and the difficulties of access to those that exist elsewhere is to foster our dependence on non-Aboriginal specialists in law, history, anthropology, education and in Aboriginal affairs generally. They effectively become our brokers in transactions between Aboriginal communities and the various institutions and the public at large which have an interest in our affairs, and thereby usurp our role as history-tellers … in the context of Aboriginal sovereignty it is completely untenable that one ‘nation’ (ie European Australia) should have a monopoly and control of such a substantial body of information concerning another, the Aboriginal ‘nation’ … 

At the core of the problem concerning the documentation and recording of our culture and history is the fact that much of it is a shared enterprise undertaken between members of two quite different cultural backgrounds. The documentation itself is a record of the interactions which make up our history. Simple justice would acknowledge the rights of both parties not only to share the physical records of that history but also to share responsibility for their custody and management so that the rights of one party are not prejudiced in order to benefit the other  (Fourmile 1989 pages 2-5).

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody similarly recognised the need for ‘a process of reclamation by Aboriginal people of their own immediate history’ (National Report Volume 2 page 77). Fourmile argues for ‘a cultural policy formulated between Aborigines and governments which gives Aboriginal people ownership and control over important historical and cultural resources which might be housed in Aboriginal cultural facilities comparable to those available to non-Aboriginal Australians’  (1989 page 5).

If the revitalisation and resurgence of Aboriginal culture is to fully take place, and so that we can contribute our culture to the world heritage on our own terms, then we must once again be able to own, control and enjoy our cultural and historical resources housed within our own community facilities  (1989 page 5).

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) submitted to the Inquiry that,

The archival records form the basis of a cultural heritage. There is anger that cultural property is vested under Government legislation. Repatriation of records is seen as an important consideration and an issue to be negotiated with indigenous communities and organisations  (submission 684 page 23).

Australian law does not currently accept the view of record ownership implicit in these arguments. The owner of the record is the person or department which created it (Breen v Williams 1996; various archives acts). While FoI laws recognise the right of the subject of the record to see it and have a copy, they simultaneously prevent any other person or organisation seeing it or having a copy without the individual’s consent. However, there are numerous records relating to Indigenous families and communities which do not contain sensitive personal information or which are now less sensitive due to the passage of time since their creation. Records Taskforces are well placed to distinguish between these categories of records.

Original records should generally remain in the custody of the agency which created them or of an archive. Exceptions include letters and other records created by Indigenous people and placed on government or mission files. Non-government agencies or private individuals may donate original records to an Indigenous repository. The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies project, Return of Materials to Aboriginal Communities, may offer some insights into how the provision of documentary materials to an Indigenous repository might be managed in practice  (evidence 703).
We have proposed elsewhere the expansion of the role of Aboriginal language centres or the creation of new institutions. The functions of ‘language, culture and history centres’ could include oral history archive as proposed in Recommendation 11, records archive, community education facility, language centre (recording and teaching), memorial, museum, cultural and historical resource and research centre. There was significant support among submissions to the Inquiry for the housing of personal and family records in these centres.

Indigenous repositories
Recommendation 29a: That, on the request of an Indigenous community, the relevant Records Taskforce sponsor negotiations between government, church and/or other non-government agencies and the relevant Indigenous language, culture and history centre for the transfer of historical and cultural information relating to that community and its members.
Recommendation 29b: That the Council of Australian Governments ensure that Indigenous language, culture and history centres have the capacity to serve as repositories of personal information that the individuals concerned have chosen to place in their care and which is protected in accordance with established privacy principles.

Access to Personal and Family Records
Access to Personal and Family Records
Access to Personal and Family Records

17		Funding for Reunion Assistance
In each State and Territory with the exception of the ACT specific funding is made available for specialised assistance to Indigenous people seeking family information and reunion support.

… many survivors today still live with the sad reality that they have still not reunited with their family and land and cannot move forward in their lives until they have all the information that they need concerning their past. This makes Link-Up an important agency as they can assist in providing the answers many survivors are seeking in order to rebuild their lives  (SA Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement submission 484 page 40).

The first Indigenous family tracing and reunion service was established in New South Wales in 1980 by Coral Edwards and Peter Read. Coral Edwards was removed from her Koori family and raised in Cootamundra Girls’ Home. Peter Read was researching the impacts of government policies on the Wiradjuri people of NSW. They recognised the need for a tracing and support organisation for people who had been taken and for the families who had lost their children.

Reunion is important but very difficult because of the way in which the removal policies were administered. Prior to the establishment of Link-Up most people were not aware of the family records that might provide clues to their identity. Accessing those records was difficult. Between 1980 and 1994 Link-Up (NSW) Aboriginal Corporation reunited more than 1,000 individuals.

The following table shows the family tracing and reunion services that now exist.

Family tracing and reunion services were established at the instigation of Aboriginal individuals and organisations who recognised the need and lobbied for funding. In some cases services have been provided without specific funding for various periods. For example, Karu provided a tracing service without specific funding from 1985 until 1989. They also rely heavily on volunteers.

Late in 1996 the Stolen Generations Kimberley Steering Committee launched a bid to establish a family reunion and tracing service in that region of Western Australia.
Evaluation – government objectives
Funding family tracing and reunion services is a government response to the effects of forcible removals. The objective of current funding is the implementation of Recommendation 52 of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The Royal Commission recognised that,

The legacy of child separation is still a significant issue in the lives of many Aboriginal people. It is an issue that still needs investigation and there is still a ‘lost generation’ that needs support and reunion with their families. Hence there is a need for more expanded services such as those provided by Link-Up which would deal with the emotional and psychological legacy of what are now recognized as misguided child placement policies  (National Report Volume 2 page 77).

Royal Commission Recommendation 52 proposes,

That funding should be made available to organizations such as Link-Up which have the support of Aboriginal people for the purpose of re-establishing links to family and community which had been severed or attenuated by past government policies. Where this service is being provided to Aboriginal people by organizations or bodies which, not being primarily established to pursue this purpose, provide the service in conjunction with other functions which they perform, the role of such organizations in assisting Aboriginal people to re-establish their links to family and community should be recognized and funded, where appropriate.

In response to Recommendation 52 the Commonwealth committed $1.9 million to Indigenous family tracing and reunion services and related functions to be spent over five years beginning 1991-92. This funding is administered by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) which budgeted $927,817 for family reunion services in 1996-97. This funding has been quarantined from Commonwealth funding cuts in the current financial year.

Evaluation of the implementation of Recommendation 52 should focus on two major issues: whether the funding model permits the Indigenous services to respond appropriately to the diverse demands of each individual case and whether the funding is sufficient to enable the services to meet the demand in a way which is timely and does not exacerbate the hurt already suffered by separated families or the emotional and other difficulties surrounding the reunion process.

A flexible individualised response to the needs of each client is critical to the success of these services. The diversity of clients’ experiences and current needs is considerable. Many clients experience chronic multiple and entrenched problems. Clients may be of any age. Each client’s experience of reunion will be unique and the range of reactions from new-found family and community is wide. The complexity is compounded by the desire of clients to recover their identity and culture against a background of denial and denigration of Aboriginality.

… it might be that the person who’s trying to go back to their community really struggles with how to deal with that return and really needs quite a lot of help in adjusting to the old identity that they believe they were brought up with and this new sense of identity which they feel is much more their real identity, and that’s a very complex issue to come to terms with in any individual person as well as within a family  (Lynne Datnow, Victorian Koori Kids Mental Health Network, evidence 135).

Funding through ATSIC permits family tracing and reunion services to respond flexibly to the needs of each client. Services are available for people removed as children, families searching for children removed and foster and adoptive families as well. ATSIC-funded family reunion services have developed a range of skills, a network of contacts and appropriate responses to diverse client needs relating to reunion. Link-Up (NSW), Link-Up (Qld) and Karu (NT) offer the following services.
•	Research required for accessing family and personal records.
•	Obtaining copies of records.
•	Advice and support before records are read.
•	Locating family members.
•	Arranging and assisting at family reunions.
•	Providing an ongoing Indigenous community for all clients, regardless of their acceptance or otherwise into their community/ies of origin. 
•	Support and counselling before a decision to proceed with a reunion is made and counselling for all parties during and after that occurs, including grief and loss counselling and relationship-building.

… If they need counselling to be able to communicate with their families, give that to them … I still can’t talk to my mother and that’s because of what happened to me. If I’d had counselling earlier on in that area I’d be right … Counselling today would help a bit but not as much as it would back then. Today it is extremely hard just to communicate.
Confidential evidence 316, Tasmania.

The resource implications were recognised by government representatives.

While reunification of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children with their families is an important step, it often has disturbing consequences for both the person who was removed and for the family. The Aboriginal Health Division supports the need for the development of additional resources and support services to address the often difficult consequences of family reunification  (Marion Kickett, WA Health Department, evidence).

Reconnection is far more than simply access to a file. It is a process, often over a long period of time, of reconnection with identity, homelands, stories, cultural heritage, and many people. Limited resources exist to help people in this process.

Counselling, support, and assisting a person locate family are all resource intensive. Both the initial reconnection, and maintaining connections with scattered family and homelands intrinsically involves travel, and given the poverty of many Aboriginal people, the sheer expense of reconnection may be prohibitive  (SA Government interim submission pages 22 and 24).

Not all reunion services are able to perform the full range of core activities. For example the link-up workers in Victoria rely on the expertise of the non-government and non-Koori adoption information agency, VANISH, to access both adoption and non-adoption records for their clients. Alternatively clients must be referred to the government record agencies (Victorian Government interim submission page 26). Some proportion of clients would be loathe to approach these non-Indigenous services and may decide instead not to proceed with family tracing. Nevertheless the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) is confident that this proportion can be kept to a minimum because of the ‘good working relationship’ that has been developed between the link-up workers and the government agencies, at least in Victoria  (1995 page 13).

Family reunion services are limited in the extent to which they can offer professional counselling relating to complex yet common issues of sexual abuse, incest, domestic violence and substance abuse. Clients requiring such counselling must generally be referred to a professional. However there are few professional counselling services which are adequately equipped to deal appropriately with Indigenous clients presenting with such problems.

The services are also restricted in their ability to assist locals requiring information from another State. There was a considerable number of removals of children inter-State and some witnesses told the Inquiry of their need to leave their home State when they were released from wardship in order to escape painful memories. Inter-State enquiries are frequent. Fewer than half (45%) of the people seeking the assistance of Karu in Darwin in 1995 were NT people requiring searches in the Territory. Another 25% were Territory people requiring searches to be made elsewhere and the remainder (29%) were people living elsewhere requiring searches to be made in the Territory (NT Government interim submission page 36). Similarly almost half (45%) the people seeking assistance from the link-up workers at the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency were brought to Victoria as children from elsewhere while another 10% are Victorians removed to other States as children  (evidence 335).

Networking among family reunion services makes inter-State enquiries easier but many clients must still go directly to services in their State of origin (Karu submission 540 page 33, Victorian ACCA evidence 335). The complexity of a reunion process can be increased when relevant records are held in one State, family members live in another and the client perhaps in yet another or even overseas. Strong and responsive networks which can facilitate service-provision in these situations require funding. 

Without adequate resources and reciprocity among services individuals will be discriminated against by virtue of having been removed inter-State or overseas in childhood. All services in Australia need to have the capacity to respond effectively to inter-State and international requests. It goes without saying of course that they need an equivalent capacity to respond to intra-State enquiries. The distribution of family reunion services across Australia, as outlined in the table above, raises concerns about the equity of access to reunion assistance. There is a considerable imbalance in the capacity of services for example. ATSIC funding is not provided uniformly to all services: the WA and SA services receive no federal funding at all in spite of the Commonwealth commitment in response to the Royal Commission. 

Most services depend almost entirely on ATSIC funding with States playing no role or only a peripheral one. Since all State and Territory governments supported Recommendation 52 and families were separated pursuant to State legislation, this is clearly unacceptable. In the case of the NT, the Government’s position is that the removals occurred under Commonwealth legislation prior to Territory self-government and therefore the Territory is not responsible.

We acknowledge the material assistance provided to Link-Up (Qld) by the Community and Personal Histories Service (work space, access to the Heritage database and training in archival research) and by the Queensland welfare and Indigenous affairs department  (office accommodation).

The absence of an independent Indigenous family tracing and reunion service in South Australia is particularly concerning. Indeed there was no link-up worker at all for much of 1995 and 1996, a critical period during which the Inquiry was receiving evidence and recommendations from Indigenous victims of the removal policies. Even when the position is occupied the function is limited to helping people access government records and archival information (Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement submission 484 page 40). There is a desperate need for a culturally-appropriate counselling service in SA both to support the family reunion process and generally to assist people affected by removals.

The SA Aboriginal Child Care Agency advised the Inquiry that in this period it received numerous requests to undertake reunion work. However, not being funded for this work, the Agency had to refuse these requests (submission 347 page 19). In SA the Inquiry took confidential evidence from more than 120 Indigenous people directly affected by forcible removal, a number which can only hint at the need in the Indigenous community in that State for the assistance, support and counselling provided by a family reunion agency.
The SA Government assured the Inquiry of its commitment to assisting Indigenous family reunions and acknowledged the complexity of the process. However it complained about the ‘limited resources [existing] to help people in this process’ (interim submission page 22). There is no evidence that the State plans to fund the necessary services in the foreseeable future.

It is quite clear to the Inquiry, as it was to Royal Commissioner Elliott Johnston, that the need for reunion assistance can only be met effectively by an independent Indigenous agency because ‘people would not go to welfare for help in finding their parents and family because of their past record’ (Learning from the Past 1994 page 66). The agency would preferably be managed and staffed by people who have experienced the removal policies themselves.

The location of the SA link-up worker within the Department of Family and Community Services was criticised by the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement.

This has been a bone of contention among the Aboriginal community as there is a widespread opinion that the Link-Up programme should come under the control of the Aboriginal community and not a part of the government machinery. We support this proposition as FACS was the government department that played the largest role in the removal of Aboriginal children from their families and we feel this is adding insult to injury for the survivors of this tragic attempt at genocide  (submission 484 page 40).

The SA Aboriginal Child Care Agency also recommended to the Inquiry that,

Link up services should be accessible to Aboriginal people and offered in non-threatening environments. Link-up services must be offered from non-government Aboriginal organisations such as Aboriginal Child Care Agencies  (submission 347 page 9).

Even the close working relationship between Yorganop in WA and the Department of Family and Children’s Services has raised suspicions among some Indigenous people in that State.

It is potentially fatal to Yorganop’s survival and effectiveness that it be perceived as dependent on government. This problem is reinforced by the fact that Yorganop relies solely on Family and Children’s Services funding, which is inadequate. The legacy of assimilation policies and practices, as administered by the Department of Native Welfare … makes it crucial for Yorganop to be seen to be independent from Family and Children’s Services  (Aboriginal Legal Service of WA submission 127 page 289).

Family reunion services advised the Inquiry that their funding does not permit them to meet the demand for their services in a timely way (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 page 165, Link-Up (Qld) submission 397 page 22). Very significant backlogs were reported by some services. The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre received 250 enquiries in 1995 but made only 19 reunions, although not all enquiries necessarily required resolution by reunion. Karu in Darwin closed only 52 files during 1995 while 215 remained active at the year’s close. Link-Up (Qld) has assessed its current additional staffing needs as four caseworkers, two grief and loss counsellors, a staff supervisor and archivists, together with additional funding for travel to conduct reunions (submission 397 page 22).

The plight of people in rural and remote communities is of particular concern. With offices only in capital cities, with the exception of the Central Australian Aboriginal and Islander Child Care Agency in Alice Springs, the family reunion services find it difficult to provide a full service throughout their respective States. In NSW there are suggestions for regional meetings to develop support groups to assist and refer rural people between visits by link-up workers (Learning from the Past 1994 page 66). In WA remote Pilbara and Kimberley communities are simply without a family tracing and reunion service at all (Kimberley Land Council submission 345 page 25; the KLC is currently sponsoring a bid for funding for a regional link-up service).

With most services focused on providing immediate client services there is little time, resources or energy for attention to the broader picture. All services should be in a position to engage fully and effectively in:
•	regular national networking and issues-based conferences,
•	involvement in revision (or design) of common record access guidelines,
•	advocacy generally for their clients as a group with record agencies,
•	provision of training and work placements for Indigenous researchers, archivists, genealogists and counsellors,
•	involvement in the design and delivery of training for the above,
•	outreach and publicity relating to their services,
•	community education about the history and effects of removal, with a special emphasis on professionals and others working with Indigenous people,
•	research into the history and its effects,
•	support of test cases and other efforts to obtain compensation,
•	advocacy for their clients with their Indigenous communities of origin, cultural arbiters and native title holders, and
•	staff support including debriefing and counselling.

Link-Up (NSW) has developed an effective balance between its competing immediate and longer-term objectives in the interests of all people affected by forcible removal. An isolated officer, as in South Australia, or even an individual worker or small unit within an otherwise appropriate Indigenous agency, such as an Aboriginal Child Care Agency, is unlikely to be able to cover all of these objectives within the single job description.

ATSIC has provided special grants to support some of these activities. In 1992-93 ATSIC funding supported two national link-up workers’ conferences and enabled the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University in Perth to develop a module for training Aboriginal families to undertake their own family research. In October 1994 ATSIC supported the Going Home Conference in Darwin. One result of that conference was significantly increased demand for reunion assistance nationally. In 1995-96 ATSIC funded two NT Aboriginal legal services for reunion related activities. The North Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service received $700,000 to research past government practices and to undertake litigation and another $11,252 to host a national workshop. 

Clearly a balance needs to be struck between regular funding for continuing activities, which require staff to be redeployed or employed to organise and implement them, and special one-off projects, which are likely to be responsive to particular unusual situations. Fully effective family reunion services will need to undertake:
•	outreach and Indigenous community education,
•	general community education,
•	historical research,
•	assistance with claims for compensation and other redress,
•	national networking,
•	staff training and the ability to offer work and training placements, and
•	consultation regarding record access protocols.

Clearly then, full implementation of the Royal Commission’s Recommendation 52 requires a significant increase in funding, a fair distribution of Commonwealth funding across all jurisdictions to eliminate discrimination based on State or Territory of residence and an acceptance of a funding obligation by all States.

Evaluation – Inquiry criteria
Self-determination
All governments, by supporting Royal Commission Recommendation 52, have recognised the importance of self-determination in the provision of reunion assistance. Funding of family tracing and reunion services through ATSIC has the potential to promote self-determination. Therefore the Inquiry is concerned that ATSIC support for reunion assistance is not provided in WA, SA or the ACT where there is a demonstrated yet unmet need. Indeed with no independent family reunion service in SA at all, there must be a question mark over that State Government’s commitment to self-determination.

Non-discrimination
In recent years most Australian governments have recognised the need for intensive support and counselling for all parties to an adoption when an adopted child and birth parent(s) decide to meet. Considerable care and resources have been devoted to supporting ‘adoption reunions’. Some Indigenous families are able to benefit from these services where they are able to satisfy the criterion of having been adopted or having relinquished a child, although the adoption services employ no Indigenous staff. However, many cannot satisfy that criterion. Adoption information and counselling services in Tasmania and Victoria are available to some other Indigenous families affected by removals. However comparison of the resources devoted to assist adoption reunions and those devoted to Indigenous family reunions indicates that, although the depth of emotional turmoil is typically far greater for Indigenous families, State and Territory governments have not committed anything approaching the resources per reunion to Indigenous family reunions as to adoption reunions. In other words very serious discrimination occurs with State government resources favouring predominantly non-Indigenous adoptees over Indigenous children removed under now-discredited State laws.

Cultural renewal
Separated children were not removed only from their families. They were also removed from their communities and land, cultures and heritage. For many people reunion is not accomplished until they have been reunited with their entire Indigenous heritage. The first step is usually to find one’s family records. The second is to meet and rebuild one’s family if possible. As the Inquiry was told, family reunion work should not stop there. The introduction of the client to his or her community, cultural heritage and country may also need to be mediated and supported.

Once each person is reunited with their family, it’s the beginning of a slow process of getting to know their family and learning about their community. Support and counselling of the many underlying issues, is normally required as an ongoing process for many years …  (Link-Up (Qld) submission 397 page 4).

Going home is fundamental to healing the effects of separation. Going home means finding out who you are as an Aboriginal: where you come from, who your people are, where your belonging place is, what your identity is. Going home is fundamental to the healing processes of those who were taken away as well as those who were left behind  (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 page xi).

It is essential for Aboriginal people to ‘have a country’ … There is [the need for] re-education of countrymen and the Land Councils who have been forced to forget the Stolen Generations …  (Rosie Baird presentation included in Karu submission 540, pages 29-30).

Link-Up (NSW), Link-Up (Qld) and Karu (NT) are committed to assisting all aspects of reunion. The Inquiry however is not satisfied that the funding they receive adequately takes the need for cultural renewal and reunion into account. 

Most worryingly many of the remaining family reunion services are so constrained that they are unable to accomplish all core reunion tasks much less attend to clients’ broader and longer-term needs. Failure to appreciate the significance of ‘cultural reunions’ by supporting them financially seems to spring from assimilationist thinking. At the very least it is a failure to acknowledge and redress the damage of assimilation policies thereby permitting its perpetuation in future generations.

Coherent policy base
The inequality in the distribution of ATSIC funding for reunion assistance belies any acceptance at the Commonwealth level of the right of all affected families to family reunion assistance. This in turn suggests that services are funded on an ad hoc basis. There is no sense of an underlying policy objective driving Commonwealth spending in this area. The current arrangement removes governments from accountability for outcomes. That would be acceptable if funding were adequate to enable family reunion services to respond fully and quickly to demand. This is not the case however.

The virtual absence of State and Territory funding has been mentioned. Instead Indigenous services tend to rely on the States for co-operation, for example responsiveness by State record agencies to requests for records. The Inquiry has been impressed with the level of co-operation between Indigenous services and record agencies. The government record agencies in the NT represent a notable exception with Indigenous services having to ‘advocate’ repeatedly for their co-operation. As described in the discussion of access to records, Indigenous user services are routinely involved in negotiations for improved record access guidelines and link-up workers are either formally or informally ‘accredited’ researchers for the purposes of accessing records. At this level, then, there is a commitment to facilitating family reunions by inter-agency co-operation. 

The funding constraints limiting services generally, the lack of qualified Indigenous researchers, genealogists and counsellors and the impossibility for some of State-wide coverage all indicate a failure of commitment at the State and Territory government level to full, effective and equitable service delivery in this area. States and Territories have not yet developed a coherent package of responses to heal the effects of the forcible removal policies.
 Adequate resources
Funding for reunion assistance, as discussed above, is inadequate and unfairly distributed. Outreach is limited. Services are constrained in securing training for their staff. Potential clients in rural and remote areas are disadvantaged in obtaining access to assistance and those in some regions have no access to assistance at all.

Recommendations
To date family tracing and reunion services have been critical to the success of most Indigenous family and community reunions. Even when all the Inquiry’s recommendations are implemented, the role of these services is not likely to diminish. All governments have accepted the principle that ‘in the implementation of any policy or program which will particularly affect Aboriginal people the delivery of the program should, as a matter of preference, be made by such Aboriginal organizations as are appropriate to deliver services pursuant to the policy or program on a contractual basis’  (RCIADIC recommendation 192). 

Services required to support and facilitate family and community reunions and/or personal background research will be unique for each client. Services could include assisting with or making on the client’s behalf initial contact with record agencies or the Indigenous Family Information Service, pre-access counselling to cover the possibilities that records have been lost or destroyed, are incomplete, offensive and/or distressing, pre-access counselling to cover the possibilities that family members are deceased or do not want contact, family history research and tracing, support for reunions which may include counselling for all parties, being present during initial and even subsequent contacts, translation services, referral to professional counselling services when reunions provoke grief and trauma, and assistance with recording personal and family testimony.

Establishment of family tracing and reunion services
Recommendation 30a: That the Council of Australian Governments ensure that Indigenous community-based family tracing and reunion services are funded in all regional centres with a significant Indigenous population and that existing Indigenous community-based services, for example health services, in smaller centres are funded to offer family tracing and reunion assistance and referral.
Recommendation 30b: That the regional services be adequately funded to perform the following functions.
1.	Family history research.
2.	Family tracing.
3.	Support and counselling for clients viewing their personal records.
4.	Support and counselling for clients, family members and community members in the reunion process including travel with clients.
5.	Establishment and management of a referral network of professional counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists and others as needed by clients.
6.	Advocacy on behalf of individual clients as required and on behalf of clients as a class, for example with record agencies.
7.	Outreach and publicity.
8.	Research into the history and effects of forcible removal.
9.	Indigenous and non-Indigenous community education about the history and effects of forcible removal.
10.	Engaging the service of Indigenous experts for provision of genealogical information, traditional healing and escorting and sponsoring those returning to their country of origin.
11.	Participation in training of Indigenous people as researchers, archivists, genealogists and counsellors.
12.	Participation in national networks and conferences.
13.	Effective participation on Record Taskforces.
14.	Support of test cases and other efforts to obtain compensation.

International removal
For Indigenous people removed overseas and their descendants, reunion is often inhibited by distance and the impossibility of returning permanently to Australia. In recognition of the fact that forcible removal was wrongful and of the need of many to re-establish their Indigenous identity, kinships and cultural links, the Commonwealth should assist those living overseas to return to this country permanently should they so choose.

Two situations have been particularly drawn to the attention of the Inquiry. Jack’s situation has been detailed in Chapter 12. His grandmother was forcibly removed to Fiji and Jack is liable to be deported from Australia. Although the Australian Citizenship Act 1948 sections 10 and 11 recognise the Australian citizenship of a direct first generation descendant of an Australian citizen, Jack does not qualify because he is a second generation descendant. It is not clear what relevance would attach to the fact that, as an Indigenous Australian, Jack’s grandmother was not a citizen at the date of her forcible removal in the early 1900s.

The second situation is that of Indigenous people imprisoned overseas. The case of James Hudson Savage illustrates this. James was born to a Koori mother in Victoria and adopted shortly after by a non-Indigenous couple. The family emigrated to the United States when James was six. The adoption was not entirely successful and by his early teens James was homeless and committing offences. In 1988 he was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Following his arrest for that offence he was located by his birth mother and other family members. He wishes to return to Australia but could only do so if arrangements could be made for the international transfer of him as a United States prisoner to a prison in Australia. A bill to authorise such transfers is currently being considered by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs.

Return of those removed overseas
Recommendation 31a:  That the Commonwealth create a special visa class under the Migration Act 1951 (Cth) to enable Indigenous people forcibly removed from their families and from Australia and their descendants to return to Australia and take up permanent residence.
Recommendation 31b:	That the Commonwealth amend the Citizenship Act 1948 (Cth) to provide for the acquisition of citizenship by any person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent.
Recommendation 31c:  That the Commonwealth take measures to ensure the prompt implementation of the International Transfer of Prisoners Bill 1996.

William
I can remember this utility with a coffin…
I can remember this utility with a coffin on top with flowers. As a little boy I saw it get driven away knowing there was something inside that coffin that belonged to me. I think I was about six years old at the time. This was the time of our separation, after our mother passed away. My family tried to get the Welfare to keep us here … trying to keep us together. Aunty D in Darwin – they wouldn’t allow her to keep us. My uncle wanted to keep me and he tried every way possible, apparently, to keep me. He was going to try and adopt me but they wouldn’t allow it. They sent us away. 
As a little kid I can’t remember what was going on really, because I was a child and I thought I was going on a trip with the other brothers. I just had excitement for going on a trip. That’s all I can think of at the time.
When St Francis [orphanage] closed up, they sent us out to different places. My second eldest brother and I went to a Mrs R. And my only recollections of that lady was when we first went there. We were greeted at the door. The welfare officer took us into this house and I can remember going into this room, and I’d never seen a room like it. It was big, and here me and my brother were going to share it. We put our bags down on the floor. We thought, ‘This is wonderful’. As soon as the welfare officer left, Mrs R took us outside that room and put us in a two bed caravan out the back.
I was sleeping in the caravan. I was only a little boy then. In the middle of the night somebody come to the caravan and raped me. That person raped me and raped me. I could feel the pain going through me. I cried and cried and they stuffed my head in the pillow. And I had nobody to talk to. It wasn’t the only night it happened. 
Oh God, it seemed like night after night. It seemed like nobody cared. I don’t know how long it went on for, but night after night I’d see the bogey man. I never saw the person. I don’t know who that person was.
Then we were all taken away again to a new home, to another place. We were shunted from place to place, still trying to catch up with schooling, trying to find friends. I had no-one. I just couldn’t find anybody. And when I did have a friend I was shunted off somewhere else, to some other place. Wanting my mother, crying for my mother every night, day after day, knowing that she’d never come home or come and get me. Nobody told me my mother died. Nobody …
They shifted us again and that was into town again. And then they put us in with this bloke … They’ve got records of what he did to me. That man abused me. He made us do dirty things that we never wanted to do. Where was the counselling? Where was the help I needed? They knew about it. The guy went to court. He went to court but they did nothing for me, nothing. They sent us off to the Child Psychology Unit. I remember the child psychologist saying, ‘He’s an Aboriginal kid, he’ll never improve. 
He’s got behavioural  problems’. I mean, why did I have behavioural problems? Why didn’t they do anything?
Why did I have behavioural problems? 
I hit the streets of Adelaide. I drank myself stupid. I drank to take the pain, the misery out of my life. I couldn’t stop. I smoked dope, got drugs. I tried everything. I did everything. I just couldn’t cope with life. I lived under cardboard boxes. I used to eat out of rubbish bins. I’m so ashamed of what I’ve done.
I suffer today. I still suffer. I can’t go to sleep at night. It’s been on for years. I just feel that pain. Oh God, I wake up in the middle of the night, same time. My kids have asked me why I get up in the middle of the night and I can’t explain it, I can’t tell them – shamed. I can’t sleep too well with it. I can’t go to bed. I leave it ‘til 12 o’clock sometimes before I go to bed. I lay there awake, knowing I’m gonna wake up at that time of the morning, night after night. I often wish I was dead. I often wish I was gone. But I can’t because of my children. You can’t explain this to your kids. Why did this happen? I had nobody. 
I’ve had my secret all my life. I tried to tell but I couldn’t. I can’t even talk to my own brothers. I can’t even talk to my sister. I fear people. I fear ‘em all the time. I don’t go out. I stay home. It’s rarely I’ve got friends.
I wish I was blacker. I wish I had language. I wish I had my culture. I wish my family would accept me as I am. We can’t get together as a family. It’s never worked. We fight, we carry on. I’ve always wanted a family.
Confidential evidence 553, Northern Territory: man removed from Alice Springs to Adelaide in the 1950s.

18		Mental Health Services
There is no Aboriginal family that is untouched by this policy. Many Aboriginal organizations today attempt to help Aboriginal adults who were ‘removed’ children to patch up their lives. Yet even today no official recognition is given to what happened. One problem of this blinkered approach by officialdom is that much needed support services are not provided to many people who literally ‘live on the edge’ (Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care submission to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, quoted in National Report Volume 2 on page 11).

Mental health needs
Indigenous mental health is finally on the national agenda. As participants in the National Mental Health Strategy, States and Territories acknowledge the importance of the issue. Some of the effects of removal including loss and grief, reduced parenting skills, child and youth behavioural problems and youth suicide are increasingly recognised.

The circumstances in which a large proportion of Indigenous people live also contribute to experiences of loss and grief and to mental health and related problems. They include poverty and high rates of unemployment, marginalisation and racism. This complex of factors is noted in the Queensland Mental Health Policy Statement for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People (June 1996) and in the final submission to the Inquiry by the South Australian Government.

Mental health status for all people is the result of a dynamic and interactive process involving social, environmental and life circumstances, as well as biological factors. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in general, there are significantly higher levels of stress and anxiety in their lives resulting from the consequences of trauma and grief, which are inextricably linked to mental health and disorder.

The history of colonisation of Australia has had a profound effect on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They have, as a group, experienced considerable trauma in the form of dispossession of land, removal of children, family separation and displacement, and loss of culture. In the present day, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to live in conditions of social and economic disadvantage compared with the population as a whole, and exhibit high levels of unemployment, lack of appropriate housing and other basic services.

A very significant issue in this context which was highlighted in community consultations is the need to understand and address grief and loss relating to the social and historical context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander life  (Queensland Mental Health Policy Statement pages 9-10).
Issues relating to socio-cultural determinants, historical and political events, racism, cultural genocide and communal self-worth all impact on the scope of Aboriginal ‘mental health’. The area of Aboriginal mental health is poorly understood; few experts would claim to fully understand the normal Aboriginal psyche or to confidently diagnose deviations … Many of the so called mental health issues in the Aboriginal Community result from striving to fulfil the expectations of two different cultures – about finding a sense of place  (South Australian Government final submission page 54).

The complexity of the causes of mental health problems for Indigenous people and their entrenched nature need to be recognised in the development of responses and treatments.

The National Mental Health Strategy is a joint Commonwealth-State funding program which includes a component for Indigenous people as a special needs group. This joint initiative is a five year program (1992-93 to 1997-98) with a broad objective of spurring mental health reforms  (Commonwealth Government submission page 11). 

Indigenous health generally was the focus of the 1990 National Aboriginal Health Strategy. This Strategy was developed by the National Aboriginal Health Strategy Working Party which reported in 1989. On mental health the Working Party concluded that,

Mental distress is a common and crippling problem for many Aboriginal people and appropriate services are a pressing need. Advances in the understanding and treatment for mental health problems have been impressive since World War II; this progress has yet to benefit Aboriginal people. Culturally appropriate services for Aboriginal people are virtually non-existent. Mental health services are designed and controlled by the dominant society for the dominant society. The health system does not recognise or adapt programs to Aboriginal beliefs and law, causing a huge gap between service provider and user. As a result, mental distress in the Aboriginal community goes unnoticed, undiagnosed and untreated  (pages 171-172).

Indigenous use of services
Indigenous people are generally under-represented as clients of mental health services, especially primary and secondary services (NSW Government interim submission page 106, Adams 1996 page 1, Dr Jane McKendrick submission 310 page 32, Swan and Fagan 1991 page 24). However all governments now accept that proportionally at least as many Indigenous people suffer mental health problems but that mainstream services have not been accessible or appropriate. The Queensland Government has additionally recognised that ‘because of the conditions of life for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, other disorders appear to have higher rates. These include anxiety and adjustment disorders, substance induced psychotic disorders, cognitive impairment in older people, and conduct disorders in children’  (Mental Health Policy Statement 1996 page 10). 

The reasons for Indigenous under-representation as clients were analysed for the Inquiry in a number of submissions.

There is an enormous amount of ignorance, lack of understanding, lack of tolerance and unfounded beliefs associated with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s mental health issues among mainstream services. Mainstream services lacked knowledge and/or were insensitive to cultural issues of history, culture, spirituality, trauma, loss and grief. These features were virtually universal to all Aboriginal people who experienced mental distress. Other problems relevant to poor acceptability and accessibility of the mainstream services related also to racial prejudice and discrimination, lack of respect, and in many cases poor previous experience in mainstream services both rural and urban  (Sydney Aboriginal Mental Health Unit submission 650 page 2).

Such services [ie conventional, mainstream, mental health services] are culturally inappropriate for Aboriginal people and do not meet their needs. Aboriginal people do not feel comfortable using mainstream health services … It is vital to Aboriginal people that they know and are known by those they trust to work with them  (Dr Jane McKendrick, Victorian Aboriginal Mental Health Network, submission 310 pages 32-33). 

The national consultancy on Indigenous mental health commissioned by the Commonwealth under the National Mental Health Strategy found widespread agreement with this assessment.

Consumers and families have frequently described the failure to inform them, to explain, to provide optimal care and there is a pervasive view that diagnosis and treatment are ‘second class’ for Aboriginal people with mental illness  (Swan and Raphael Ways Forward 1995 page 32).

The authors concluded,

[There was] extensive evidence of the inadequacy of current mental health services for Aboriginal people. In many remote and rural communities these were virtually non-existent. Where there was contact with or use of mainstream mental health services they were frequently seen as unhelpful, non responsive, inaccessible or unavailable and totally failing to respond to the needs of Aboriginal people with mental illness. Misdiagnosis, the inappropriateness of Western models, failure to recognise language differences, ignorance of Aboriginal culture and history, and racism complicated the picture … the overall picture is one of gross inadequacy …  (Swan and Raphael Ways Forward 1995 page 38).

Misdiagnosis with its consequent inappropriate treatment or even failure to treat is a critical problem.

… in a lot of cases from my experience, Aboriginal people are often misdiagnosed as having a personality disorder when they are in fact depressed. And that will come about because psychiatrists might hear that they have been in gaol or that they have been abusing substances and so immediately the diagnosis is closed. The diagnosis of personality disorder – which is actually more a moral diagnosis and implies you cannot help the person – is given. 

There are other cases where a person has very obviously got a very serious psychotic disorder and they present to a hospital and if they smell of alcohol at all they might be refused admission. Or if they have committed a minor offence they might be refused admission. It seems that the obvious psychotic symptoms are missed and the person is said just to have a personality disorder. 

In other cases psychiatrists do not understand Aboriginal culture and so they might misdiagnose a severe depression as being psychosis because of certain symptoms that occur in normal grief reaction  (Dr Jane McKendrick, Victorian Aboriginal Mental Health Network, evidence 310).

… there have been a lot of Aboriginal women over the last 10 to 15 years who have been labelled with mental illnesses, with mental health disorders. I believe, through information from Department of Health, that those women really didn’t have psychotic episodes or anything like that; that it was part of them not knowing who they were and struggling within themselves, between being ripped in trying to find out who they are, the difficulties in putting yourself in the public eye and asking for help to find your family, to find your children. It has caused the women to have breakdowns, to have mental health disorders. But they have actually been labelled as schizophrenic, psychotic, when that really isn’t the truth of what’s happening for them  (Susan Pinckham, NSW Aboriginal Women’s Legal Resource Centre, evidence 739).

The Mental Illness Inquiry conducted by HREOC in the early 1990s also noted that mental health services are designed for non-Indigenous people and fail to adapt to Aboriginal needs and beliefs. Indigenous people are significantly more likely than other Australians to live in rural and remote areas, yet these are the areas worst-served by mental health services (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission 1993 chapter 23).

Research in the NT in 1995-96 revealed the nature of the ‘second class’ treatment experienced by Aboriginal people.

Aboriginal people are less likely to have contact with mental health services prior to their admission … on admission, Aboriginal people’s social and personal history are unlikely to be documented. Somatic treatment only is offered, and little consideration is given to cultural issues, and … 

Aboriginal mental health consumers and their families are rarely given information about their mental illness, nor is counselling or psychotherapy (ever) offered  (Adams 1996 page 1 citing research by Nagel and Mills).

In Queensland Indigenous people are more than twice as likely to use in-patient services for mental illness (6.4% of inpatients in psychiatric hospitals compared with 2.5% of the population in mid-1995, Mental Health Policy Statement 1996 page 10). This indicates both greater need and less access to preventive programs and community-based care. Also indicative of proportionately greater yet unmet need is the youth suicide rate among Indigenous Queenslanders: more than twice the State average for 15 to 20 year olds (Mental Health Policy Statement 1996 page 11). The Queensland Mental Health Policy Statement suggests that the ‘stigma associated with mental illness is very high in [Indigenous] communities’ potentially ‘prevent[ing] people from seeking early treatment, and often result[ing] in treatment being sought only once an acute or crisis situation has developed’ (page 11). Other factors are the cultural inappropriateness of most mental health services for Indigenous people and the almost total absence of community-based preventive programs in Queensland.

South Australian data also reveal high usage by Indigenous people of in-patient services (equivalent to or slightly higher than non-Indigenous rates of use) (SA Government final submission page 48).

To some extent adequate service provision has been hindered by a lack of data on the extent of mental health and emotional problems among Indigenous people. The Inquiry applauds the Commonwealth’s intention to remedy the lack of data (submission page 13). However government health departments should recognise that because of their greater exposure to causal factors Indigenous people are more likely than others to experience mental and emotional ill-health. In addition discriminatory treatment such as that revealed by the Northern Territory research cited above cannot be excused.

Having reviewed the Australian literature the authors of the National Consultancy report on Indigenous mental health, Ways Forward, concluded that ‘available data indicates significant mental health problems affect at least 30% of the [Indigenous] community and McKendrick’s study using systematic measures indicates there is likely to be an even higher level for some groups’ (Swan and Raphael 1995 page 36).

It is not possible to quantify the need accurately, as prevalence rates have not been researched. However, the proportion of people who experience severe and recurrent emotional distress or disorder is likely to be considerable  (Sydney Aboriginal Mental Health Unit submission 650 page 3).

In light of these findings the Inquiry considers that the needs are first for the provision of targeted services for Indigenous people and second for additional measures to enhance their access to mainstream services.

Existing services 
Commonwealth funding
The Commonwealth does not directly provide mental health services. The Commonwealth funds Indigenous medical and health services ($83.3 million in 1996-97) and substance misuse services ($16.8 million in 1996-97) (Commonwealth Government submission page 9). In October 1996 the Minister for Health, Michael Wooldridge, announced a federal commitment of almost $20 million over four years commencing 1996-97 specifically for Indigenous mental health initiatives. The strategy, or ‘Action Plan’, is based largely on the Ways Forward report.

The Action Plan aims to enhance the cultural appropriateness of mainstream services at the same time as bolstering the capacity of Indigenous primary health care services to meet mental health needs. Families and young people are targeted. For example there are initiatives to reduce youth suicide and strengthening families is a strategy for this.

The need for trauma and grief counselling is recognised. The Action Plan seeks to ensure ‘all staff in community controlled health services [will] be trained to handle trauma and loss events while some workers would receive additional training to cover counselling for families and individuals’.

Community-based Indigenous health services are directly funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services. They are described below where information is available to provide an overview of the services available in each State.

New South Wales
The NSW Aboriginal Health Strategy is ‘in development’ and there are plans to employ a number of Aboriginal Mental Health Workers (NSW Government submission page 106). In evidence the Inquiry was told that nine workers would be employed and in training by July 1996 (Maria Williams, Acting Director, Aboriginal Health Unit, evidence).

The Aboriginal Health Branch consulted Link-Up (NSW) in its development of specific policy and programs to respond to ‘the Inquiry needs’, which we take to mean Indigenous witnesses’ needs for follow-up counselling after giving evidence (NSW Government submission pages 106-7). In this process Link-Up observed a general commitment to Indigenous mental health and planning for ‘significant improvement’ (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 page 159). The proposed development of responses to the Inquiry witnesses’ needs did not eventuate.

One recent NSW initiative is the Central Sydney Aboriginal Mental Health Unit. This service was established in 1995 as a joint project of the Redfern Aboriginal Medical Service, the Aboriginal Health and Resources Co-operative and NSW Health’s Central Sydney Area Mental Health Directorate. The Area Clinical Director Professor Marie Bashir and Unit Co-ordinator Sister Robyn Shields have a staff of two (a clinical nurse specialist and a psychiatrist) with two hospital-based psychiatrists also designated. The Unit accepts referrals of Koori patients from a range of sources including prisons, the Aboriginal Medical Service and the Aboriginal Legal Service. Clinics are conducted at the Aboriginal Medical Service and at the State’s psychiatric hospital (Rozelle).

In South Sydney a preventive home visiting program for new parents was initiated late in 1996 by the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN) and the Lions Club. There is a significant Koori population in this area. The Director of the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs is represented on the project’s Professional Advisory Body and it has the support of the Murawina [Koori] Children’s Centre in Redfern. The aim of home visits will be to enhance parents’ confidence and self-esteem and to assist them to access local services.

Victoria
The Victorian Government supports the Statewide Aboriginal Mental Health Network established in 1987 by the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service (interim submission page 78). This network is a collaboration between the Aboriginal Health Service and the Government’s North-East Metropolitan Psychiatric Services with most staff currently employed by the latter. In addition to a Consultant Director there are two medical officers, two psychiatric service officers and two Aboriginal mental health and liaison workers (the latter based at the Aboriginal Health Service). From the beginning of 1995 the Aboriginal Health Service has been funded to employ a psychiatric nurse directly (Dr Ian Anderson evidence 261). The network primarily responds to Aboriginal people with serious mental illness (Victorian Government interim submission page 77). In-patient needs are met by five designated hospital beds in the north-east metropolitan region. Out-patient services are provided at the Aboriginal Health Service.

Another two Aboriginal mental health workers are employed by other mental health services, giving a total of four for the State (Victorian Government interim submission page 78).

The Koori Kids Mental Health Network is also based at the Aboriginal Health Service. This Network enables the Service to refer children and young people to a roster of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. 

We are able to meet with, assess and work with Koori families at their own Aboriginal Health Service and to facilitate more culturally responsive services in the otherwise intimidating and daunting hospitals and clinics. To many Koories of course these represent the white man’s State [and] the removal of their children – their parents, themselves, from family  (Dr Campbell Paul submission 768 page 7).
The Victorian Aboriginal Health Service suggested in evidence to the Inquiry that funding for Indigenous mental health services is higher per capita in Victoria than elsewhere in Australia. Nevertheless services are still limited to crisis counselling. Long-term therapy cannot be provided, preventive work with families and communities is not possible and funding does not take into account ‘complex presentations’ which typically involve physical ill-health, emotional and psychological problems and drug or alcohol abuse  (Dr Ian Anderson evidence 261).

The current health funding model is felt to ignore the special needs of Indigenous people, especially in trusting and feeling comfortable with a non-Indigenous health professional. While there may be a budget for the professional, there is rarely funding for an Aboriginal worker to work alongside that professional (Dr Ian Anderson evidence 261).

Queensland
Indigenous people were recognised as a priority group in the Queensland Mental Health Policy (1993) and Plan (1994). Queensland produced a Mental Health Policy Statement for Indigenous people in mid-1996. Of most significance is the proposed shift away from a sole focus on serious mental illness. From now on there should be a dual focus extending also to ‘broad social and cultural mental health problems such as widespread depression, anxiety and substance abuse’ (Mental Health Policy Statement 1996 page 3).

In Queensland there are three designated government Indigenous mental health professionals (commencing 1996-97). There is one full-time position located in each of the Cairns and Brisbane offices of Queensland Health and an Aboriginal mental health worker is based at the State’s psychiatric hospital (John Oxley). In 1995 Queensland reported difficulty in meeting Indigenous demand for mental health services because of the difficulty of ‘recruiting specialised staff to work in rural and remote areas’ (1994 Progress Report to the RCIADIC page 172). Plans to fund regional Indigenous mental health workers have been foiled for this reason and because trained Indigenous personnel are not available.

To address the latter problem the Cape York Peninsula and Torres Strait Islands district mental health service was funded in 1995-96 to train local Indigenous health workers. Yet even this service experienced difficulty attracting staff with six of the 15.5 positions still vacant at the end of that financial year (Queensland Government final submission, Attachment 16).

Currently, only a small number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community organisations are funded by Queensland Health to provide mental health services. These organisations have links with specialist mental health services and have been funded predominantly to assist people with mental illness, although some also address cultural and social mental health issues  (Mental Health Policy Statement 1996 page 13).
The Commonwealth funds Queensland Indigenous organisations under the National Mental Health Strategy to a total of $213,000 in 1996-97. This funding will cut out in 1998 when the Strategy comes to an end. The 1996 Queensland Mental Health Policy Statement reveals no plans for the State either to take over that funding commitment or to extend mental health funding to more Indigenous community-controlled organisations.

A gathering of Queensland Indigenous community members in November 1995 considered the issues of grief, oppression and mental health.

… participants considered existing mainstream mental health services actually exacerbate the problems of the indigenous community. These mental health services are culturally inappropriate, largely staffed by personnel who have little or no awareness of indigenous culture and sensitivities, and who, for the most part, appear uninterested in developing awareness within that area  (Qawanji Ngurrku Jawiyabba 1995 page 2).

South Australia
In response to the National Mental Health Policy South Australia began a process of amalgamating mental health and general health service delivery. Since 1992 the number of specialist non-Indigenous community mental health workers in Adelaide has been increased from 70 to 230. Another 20 are now based in country areas. However there are only three specialist Aboriginal mental health workers, at Port Lincoln, Port Augusta and Adelaide. There is no State policy for mental health services specifically for Aboriginal people (SA Government final submission pages 49- 50).

As in other States and Territories, South Australian mental health services have concentrated to date on serious mental illness. The Government therefore identified relevant service deficiencies.

It is possible that many Aboriginal people experiencing mental illness arising from or connected with separations will not be best assisted by these services. It is likely a possible resource deficiency exists within the arenas of:
	.	community health mental health services
	.	private sector eg options such as narrative therapy or alternative healing
	.	aboriginal mental health services …
	.	non-government counselling and support services including both generic and primarily mental health focussed models  (SA Government final submission page 53).

Post-traumatic stress is not catered for (page 53). The South Australian Aboriginal Child Care Agency submitted that there are ‘inadequate resources’ for mental health services in the State. 
ACCA field workers constantly witness the need for individual and family counselling. However, within South Australia there are inadequate resources to assist with the cumulative trauma and grief that Aboriginal people suffer. It is more than just a matter of financial resources. Appropriate models of counselling and support need to be developed to assist Aboriginal people in healing. Flexible and accessible counselling programs need to be made available and support given to Aboriginal people undertaking the process of healing  (submission 347 page 18).

The Inquiry was told that South Australian mental health services are beginning to develop partnerships with Aboriginal services along the lines of those in Victoria (SA Government final submission pages 54-55).

Country services are likely to remain poor. Consultant psychiatrists refuse to work in rural areas although the use of teleconferencing both to support Aboriginal health workers and as a tool for diagnosis may overcome this difficulty to some extent (Dr David Rathman, Department of State Aboriginal Affairs, evidence). Pitjantjatjara people living in South Australia have to rely on a psychiatric nurse based in the Northern Territory.

This sole position follows up people with diagnosed major mental illness, who have been discharged from Alice Springs hospital. The nurse will cross the borders as required if clients are moving between States, but the N.T. clients have priority for a limited service (Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women’s Council submission 676 page 22).

Western Australia
The Aboriginal Health Division of the WA Health Department has ambitious plans to provide appropriate and accessible mental health services across the State (Marion Kickett evidence). At present however only two Indigenous mental health ‘programs’ are funded and both are located in Aboriginal Medical Services (Tracey Pratt, Aboriginal Health Division, Health Department, evidence). As there are now 13 Aboriginal Medical Services in WA, with an additional four planned, there is ample scope for this funding to be expanded.

The Yorgum Aboriginal Family Counselling Service in Perth was established in 1994 with World Vision funding. The service works with an average of 12 individuals, four families and five groups each week, attempting to cover the gamut of issues from grief and loss, Aboriginal identity and relationships to family violence, sexual assault and racism victimisation. The counsellors are all Aboriginal women. Since funding supports only the co-ordinator’s position, Yorgum charges a fee for its services of an amount negotiated with each client.

The State Health Department itself employs some senior Aboriginal people as community liaison workers (not trained as health workers) to assist community members to access regional offices of the Health Department.

Between 27 and 35 Aboriginal patients spend time each month as in-patients of the State’s psychiatric hospital (Graylands). The majority of these patients are from rural and remote areas, predominantly the north-west. In evidence to the Inquiry the Government’s Aboriginal Health Division noted that the treatment approach at Graylands is not ‘culturally appropriate’ and that many patients simply should not be in this hospital.

It is just that there are no other institutions set up to be able to deal with these people effectively and people just seem to think that locking them away is the way to deal with them, and it is not  (Marion Kickett evidence).

In 1994 an Aboriginal Mental Health Service was established at Graylands. It was recently relaunched as the Aboriginal Psychiatric Service. This Service provides in-patient support, operates a cultural activities centre at the Hospital and aims to provide support to patients and their families on discharge. Staff will accept referrals. For example they are available to visit prisoners in need of support for mental health related issues.

An Aboriginal organisation has recently won a contract to provide cross-cultural training for the health industry, including both government and non-government services (Marion Kickett evidence). The Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University in Perth offers health worker training to Indigenous people. The program was first offered in 1993. Most students are employed in the health field and take their qualification on a ‘block-release’ basis (four 2-week intensive teaching blocks each year). Qualifications offered are a Certificate in Aboriginal Health (1 year), an Associate Degree in Aboriginal Health (2 years) and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Indigenous Community Health (3 years). Degree students can specialise in counselling and mental health.

 Northern Territory
The Inquiry is grateful to the NT Government for the detailed material supplied on this subject. Although its Indigenous population is similar to that of WA and well under those of Queensland and NSW, the Territory has committed considerably greater resources to the provision of mental health services and shown considerable innovation. Sadly resources remain insufficient and there is evidence of funding reductions in recent years.

Funding applications by the Danila Dilba Aboriginal Medical Service in Darwin to establish a counselling service have been repeatedly rejected.

Since the establishment of Danila Dilba it has always been clear that we needed our own counselling service. We began to make submissions for funds for such a service to both the NT government and to the Federal government. We saw the counselling service as part of what we called the Family Support Unit which also included men’s health and allied services including counselling to families in crisis and beyond. All without success …
The NT government provided some project funds to Danila Dilba to have a domestic violence counsellor on staff. Although the counselling was funded from this project, she was actually providing a general counselling service and did not deal exclusively with domestic violence. This counsellor was extremely busy and we built up the expectation in our community that we could provide this service. The NT government chose after twelve months not to fund this position any longer and we lost the counsellor and placed many clients in limbo (submission 537 pages 1 and 2).

Late in 1996 the NT Minister for Health Services promised $70,000 over two years to Danila Dilba to establish a counselling service specifically for people affected by past policies of forcible removal. In 1995-96 three other Aboriginal organisations also received mental health grants of between $21,000 and $26,000 each. At the same time the Government itself employs ten Aboriginal mental health workers, two of whom are contracted to a community based health association (NT Government supplementary information, exhibit 20 page 6).

A review of the innovative East Arnhem Mental Health Teams dated November 1995 strongly supports the expectation that there is a substantial demand for culturally-appropriate mental health services which only becomes fully apparent when such a service is provided. The East Arnhem project was overwhelmed by the demand for its services once the service providers approached communities appropriately and the Indigenous people came to recognise the services offered as relevant to their needs. This experience is graphically captured in the following anecdote from a community health nurse.

I was the first Mental Health person that had ever visited this community. There was only one person from this area known to be suffering from any form of mental illness. The day was spent sitting with this small group of people listening to and telling stories about people with mental health problems. At the end of my visit one of the elders said ‘so you are the man who works with sadness problems’. While listening to my stories the elders had been conducting their own community needs analysis and then told me their priorities. In the 10 months since that visit there have been five other referrals from that community  (Mcleod 1995 page 11).

Yet resources for the East Arnhem project far from growing in response to this increased demand have been reduced. The experience of burgeoning demand in response to the provision of appropriate services was confirmed by Danila Dilba.

When we began [in 1991], we were seeing 300 people per month, now we are seeing approximately 1,100 per month to 1,400 per month. The longer our Service is in operation the more needs are demanded by our community and identified by us  (submission 537 page 1).
Tasmania
The Tasmanian Government informed the Inquiry that Indigenous mental health had not been researched for its submission or evidence. The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre advised that ‘[t]here are no counselling services available to deal specifically with Aboriginal families affected by separation’ (submission 325 page 8).

 ACT
The ACT’s mental health services strategic plan dated December 1993 identified ‘Aboriginals’ as a special needs group but made no mention of culturally appropriate service development or delivery (ACT Health 1993 page 29). However in 1996 a review of Indigenous people’s needs and an evaluation of services was undertaken (ACT Government interim submission page 23).

The Inquiry was told of a training program for Aboriginal mental health workers at the Queanbeyan Mental Health Service but no details were provided (ACT Government interim submission page 28).

Evaluation – government objectives
All Australian governments have endorsed the 1990 National Aboriginal Health Strategy and have affirmed their endorsement by approving Recommendation 271 of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody which regards implementation of the Strategy as ‘crucial’. Pursuant to the Strategy the Commonwealth commissioned a national consultancy report. Its submission to the Inquiry adopted the report Ways Forward as a baseline document to be used when planning and delivering services, developing policy, developing education and training programs and developing data collection and research priorities’ (Commonwealth Government submission page 14). 

The Commonwealth relies on the report’s principles in negotiating Commonwealth-State funding agreements on Indigenous health (Commonwealth Government submission page 15). The Queensland Government advised that the report ‘was used as a guide for development of the Queensland Mental Health Policy Statement for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People’ (final submission page 16). The NSW Government advised that ‘NSW Health supports the aims and recommendations of Ways Forward and has incorporated them in the draft NSW Aboriginal Mental Health Policy/Strategy document’ (final submission page 16). The Inquiry endorses Ways Forward as setting out the broad objectives for all governments in the area of Indigenous mental health.

The Commonwealth Government identified three guiding principles (submission page 14). Indigenous mental health services should,
•	be based on a mental health promotion and prevention model,
•	emphasise the primacy of Indigenous empowerment and self-determination, and
•	adopt an holistic approach.

Health promotion and prevention model
The desirability of this model is indicated by the prevalence of psychological distress and psychiatric problems affecting Indigenous people.

Any approach to Aboriginal mental health based simply on direct treatment programs, is unlikely to impact significantly on outcomes for Aboriginal communities  (Swan and Raphael Ways Forward 1995 page 85).

Strategies should include Indigenous community education about psychological distress and development of prevention programs for those at risk. The humanitarian benefit of prevention and early intervention is obvious. Economic benefits can also be demonstrated. The East Arnhem early intervention strategy achieved a reduction in emergency evacuations of petrol sniffers to hospital in Darwin from 43 in 1991 to just five in 1993 at a saving per patient of ovef $5,000 for an air evacuation and over $75,000 for in-patient treatment for lead toxicity (Mcleod 1995 pages 7 and 9). To date however mental health interventions for Indigenous people have significantly clustered towards acute and crisis intervention and away from community health promotion and prevention strategies.

Trauma and grief ‘were identified as amongst the most serious, distressing and disabling issues faced by Aboriginal people both as a cause of mental health problems and as major problems in their own right’ (Swan and Raphael Ways Forward 1995 page 3). Only the most recent Commonwealth initiative addresses this issue.

Ways Forward proposed that priority be accorded to violence and destructive behaviours (page 5). There is no evidence of any mental health project acknowledging that these issues should be incorporated within the definition of mental health (with the obvious exception of self-destructive behaviours) much less of recent initiatives according them priority. These matters are, however, the focus of the NSW Aboriginal Family Health Strategy launched in 1996.

Indigenous empowerment and self-determination
The Ways Forward report stated,

It is essential in terms of recognition of the needs and wishes of Aboriginal people that the implementation of policy is managed, coordinated, monitored and evaluated by Aboriginal people and organisations  (page 21).

Indeed ‘self-determination is central to Aboriginal people’s well-being’ and ‘denial of this right contributes significantly to mental ill-health’ (page 21). The 1990 National Aboriginal Health Strategy also identified self-determination in health care as essential  (Swan and Raphael Ways Forward 1995 page 21).

Most States and the Northern Territory now support Aboriginal medical and health services. Tasmania, South Australia and the ACT are notable exceptions. A preponderance of resources, including ‘human resources’ such as Aboriginal mental health workers, are still controlled by government health departments. This preponderance in part reflects the fact that most mental health resources are devoted to the care of the mentally ill rather than to health promotion and the prevention of mental illness.

Holistic approach
A holistic approach is one which permits mental health issues to be addressed in the ‘general health sector’. Mental health care must be part of primary health care as well as reflecting Aboriginal values and approaches to mental and general well-being  (Swan and Raphael Ways Forward 1995 page 26).

This approach requires, for example, that Indigenous medical and health services be equipped to deal with mental health issues and that Indigenous general health workers be trained to recognise and deal with mental health problems and mental disorders (page 26).

The general reluctance to pursue this strategy wholeheartedly seems to stem from the continued emphasis on more acute care. A preventive focus would be more conducive to facilitating a holistic approach. Similarly the more mental health resources are placed at the disposal of Indigenous organisations implementing self-determination, the more their values and needs can be incorporated in the overall approach to Indigenous mental well-being.

Evaluation – Inquiry criteria
The Inquiry’s evaluation criteria are largely consistent with the objectives for Indigenous mental health provision set out in Ways Forward.

Self-determination
As noted above, the bulk of mental health resources continue to be controlled by governments and non-Indigenous non-government agencies. If effective Indigenous-controlled primary and preventive programs were widely available it might well be efficient and appropriate for secondary and tertiary services, for a much smaller minority of Indigenous patients, to remain under government control. It would still be essential for the government to work in partnership with local or regional Indigenous community organisations in the provision of acute care.

Ways Forward proposed the establishment of a National Aboriginal Mental Health Advisory Committee to ‘oversee, coordinate and monitor’ national policy and planning (page 23). Consultations in the Northern Territory came to a similar conclusion.

The Aboriginal Reference Groups or a Consultative Network of prominent Aboriginal people must be responsible for the provision of high level advice and direction to the Minister … Territory Health Service must make their staff accountable to Aboriginal people and communities …  (Adams 1996 pages vi and vii).

The Commonwealth Government advised the Inquiry that an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Council was established in 1996 at the federal level (submission page 10).

Non-discrimination
The National Aboriginal Health Strategy and the Indigenous mental health component of the National Mental Health Policy are responses to the very significant discrimination experienced by Indigenous people in using or needing to use mainstream mental health services. Therefore there is reason to be optimistic that in the not-too-distant future discrimination in access to mental health care will be significantly diminished.

A key feature of Indigenous mental health care provision is the discrepancy between what is available in urban areas and what is provided in rural and remote communities.

Aboriginal mental health has been neglected by our profession [psychiatry]. In the tumult of political and social change the voices of young Aborigines, particularly in remote Australia, are unheard and their needs unmet  (Hunter 1995 page 382).

The Inquiry therefore commends the aspirations in the Queensland Mental Health Policy Statement for Indigenous people (1996).

The Policy aims to bring mental health services closer to where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people live; to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are employed in specialist mental health services and in primary health care services to address the two areas of need in mental health; to ensure that cultural awareness training is provided to mental health services staff by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people; and that cultural awareness training is included in curricula of relevant tertiary education courses  (page 3).

Cultural renewal
The predominant health model informing most health service provision to Indigenous people remains a Western model. Where traditional culture remains strong, insistence on the Western approach could cause significant problems including exacerbation of ill-health. Strategies within the Indigenous community for promoting well-being are undermined.
Bad Health is not being connected to your spiritual being. This indicates all those important parts of your life are not connected, being damaged by different forces not of our control or doing. For example, people taken away from their families and country, and made to live in another environment like missions or homes.

[Service delivery must recognise] that introduced influences such as colonisation, government policies, Whiteman’s invasion, alcohol, Stolen Generation, oppression, Christianity, and destruction of Aboriginal societies and cultures, genocide, institutional racism and poverty has contributed to Aboriginal mental health.

Territory Health Service [must] recognise and acknowledge the consequences … [and] make it compulsory for all health personnel to attend Aboriginal developed and delivered cross-culture awareness programs and abide by Aboriginal cultural protocols developed in partnership with Aboriginal people  (Adams 1996 page 48).

Cross-cultural training programs are slowly being introduced in the health sector. While necessary, this training is not sufficient to ensure full respect for and incorporation of Aboriginal values and concepts of health and well-being. Devolution of service provision to Indigenous-controlled organisations will best secure this objective. These organisations should be flexibly funded to utilise community healing expertise and to incorporate a model of health and well-being dictated by the community being served.

Coherent policy base
Ways Forward presents all Australian governments with a comprehensive and coherent policy base from which to develop programs and to deliver adequate, appropriate and effective services. Governments are still only in the process of developing their Indigenous mental health policies or planning for implementation. The position described in Tasmania therefore prevails more generally.

The current social welfare policies within Tasmania merely seek to patch up identified problems. There is no long term social policy in place. Government response is therefore ad hoc  (Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre submission 325 page 8).

Adequate resources
The Inquiry was told that despite the adoption of the National Aboriginal Health Strategy in 1990 mental health resources are still grossly inadequate in all jurisdictions. A comparison might be made between existing Indigenous mental health provision in Queensland Health and the need identified by the Mental Health Branch. In October 1996 there were three dedicated professional positions in the State. The Branch identified an immediate need for another nine (a 300% increase) (Queensland Government final submission page 15).

Services to deal with loss, grief and depression are virtually non-existent. Historically the emphasis has been on major mental illnesses and acute care. The extent of emotional problems caused by the forcible removal policies has only recently been revealed and has yet to be fully acknowledged. Even in the relatively well-resourced Northern Territory ‘there are not enough psychiatric nurses or mental health professionals visiting Aboriginal communities’  (Adams 1996 page 10).

There are no support facilities in remote communities for victims of family violence. When an event like family violence or rape occurs, police interview notes are taken or medical examination is completed and the victim is sent home. There is no counselling or debriefing (primary, secondary or tertiary) conducted either for the victim or the family  (Adams 1996 page 43).

These issues [where removal has led to an inability to nurture children who in turn develop behavioural disturbances] often require intensive resources [including] lots of individual therapy and also family therapy. That’s one of the key areas where there’s a real lack of good services at a primary health care level  (Dr Ian Anderson, Victorian Aboriginal Health Service, evidence 260).

Continuing emotional distress as a result of the removal policies receives insufficient attention.

There are very limited counselling or specific services available to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people directed to assisting families and individuals who have been affected by the separation under compulsion, duress or undue influence of any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander children from their families. General mental health services, i.e. mainstream, have been described as not being aware of or responsive to Aboriginal people’s mental health issues generally and to the issues of trauma and grief in particular  (Professor Beverley Raphael submission 658 page 3).

What this means for Link-Up clients and for separated people in general who are dealing with long term and profound distress as a result of separations, is that there are very few services available to meet their counselling and specialised therapeutic needs  (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 page 159).

Recommendations
Our recommendations are underpinned by the recognition that a substantial injection of funding is needed to address the emotional and well-being needs of Indigenous people affected by forcible removal. In addition it is clear that these needs must be treated as unique because of their causes and because of the family and socio-economic contexts in which they are now experienced. 

By funding rehabilitation services for survivors of torture the Commonwealth and States have already recognised the need for specialist services, in this case particularly for refugees and other immigrant torture and trauma survivors, to meet unique needs. There is a torture and trauma rehabilitation service in each State and Territory with substantial joint Commonwealth-State funding and large professional and bilingual staffing. For example, the Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS) in NSW receives $1.3 million annually to deal with a caseload of approximately 400 clients each year. These services meet a distinctive mental health need. Indigenous mental healt needs are also distinctive and require similar specialist responses.

Data collection
Before services addressing the range of needs arising from the forcible removal policies can be planned and implemented, basic information is needed on what and where those needs are. Indigenous people, specifically organisations already confronted by aspects of the traumas and other issues arising, need to be involved as partners in the collection of that information. These organisations include family tracing and reunion services, Aboriginal and Islander Child Care Agencies and medical and health services.

The [1993 National Aboriginal Mental Health] Conference demanded that research into all aspects of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, be undertaken only within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community designed guidelines, including community participation and only with full consent of the particular community, with whom research is to be undertaken  (Swan and Raphael 1994 page 35).

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recognised the importance of Indigenous participation in research design and recommended that ‘Aboriginal people be involved in each stage of the development of Aboriginal health statistics’ (Recommendation 271(a)). Further, Recommendation 48 provides,

That when social indicators are to be used to monitor and/or evaluate policies and programs concerning Aboriginal people, the informed views of Aboriginal people should be incorporated into the development, interpretation and use of the indicators, to ensure that they adequately reflect Aboriginal perceptions and aspirations. In particular, it is recommended that authorities considering information gathering activities concerning Aboriginal people should consult with ATSIC and other Aboriginal organizations, such as NAIHO or NAILSS, as to the project.

A simple count of people presenting with mental illnesses and disorders is insufficient. Emotional problems and issues relating to well-being are much broader than established mental illnesses and disorders that are at the extreme of the problems needing to be covered. Moreover the chances of misdiagnosis of Indigenous patients is significant. Governments which have adopted the national consultancy report Ways Forward already recognise these issues.
Research 
Recommendation 32: That the Commonwealth Government work with the national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Council in consultation with the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) to devise a program of research and consultations to identify the range and extent of emotional and well-being effects of the forcible removal policies. 

Indigenous well-being models
For Indigenous people ‘health does not just mean the physical well-being of the individual but refers to the social, emotional and cultural well-being of the whole community’ (Swan and Raphael Ways Forward 1995 page 1).

Aboriginal people have a spiritual contact with life as part of being in touch with the land, trees, air and earth. Aboriginal people feel better when they are involved in cultural activities. Those people who stay in the bush and participate in cultural activities seem to be more healthier, only the old people become sick through diabetes and high blood pressure … However, not all Aboriginal mental health consumers are able to partake in cultural activities. This could be caused through the lack of transport, location, ignorance or reliance on the medical model. Aboriginal Mental Health Consultants and Aboriginal Health Consultants must include cultural activities as part of their employment in primary health care  (Adams 1996 page 30).

Traditional Aboriginal culture like many others does not conceive of illness, mental or otherwise, as a distinct medical entity. Rather there is a more holistic conception of life in which individual wellbeing is intimately associated with collective wellbeing. It involves harmony in social relationships, in spiritual relationships and in the fundamental relationship with the land and other aspects of the physical environment. In these terms diagnosis of an individual illness is meaningless or even counterproductive if it isolates the individual from these relationships  (Sydney Aboriginal Mental Health Unit evidence 650).

Thus it has been proposed that,

[There is a] need to develop services and programs according to Aboriginal terms of reference, concepts, values, beliefs, ways of working, priorities that recognise the diversity of Aboriginal culture … When Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people are employed to deliver Mental Health Education Programs they must recognise and respect local Aboriginal cultures and people. Aboriginal people must be included and employed in the program development, management, processes, implementation, documentation, evaluation, funding and delivery  (Adams 1996 page 6).

The Queensland Mental Health Policy Statement for Indigenous people adopted mid-1996 has recognised the issue.

Mental health is viewed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as a broad concept. It includes the social, emotional, cultural, physical and mental well being of the individual and the whole community, and is based on current, historical and spiritual values.

Features of mental disorders may differ to those in the non-indigenous population, leading to the possibility of misdiagnosis. Mental health issues for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders must therefore be understood beyond those conditions which are dealt with in a traditional Western clinical context, in keeping with the culturally defined concept of health …  (pages 3 and 10).

Link-Up (NSW) called for ‘culturally appropriate definitions of mental health’.

Understandings of mental health are culturally specific. Aboriginal understandings of mental distress may be different from those in European Mental Health Diagnostic Manuals. In developing community-based recovery strategies, it is essential to develop culturally appropriate Aboriginal definitions of mental health and mental illness  (submission 186).

The Inquiry was advised that culturally-appropriate healing models do exist and are being used by Indigenous services and projects. They include traditional healing, art therapy and narrative therapy. Colleen Brown, NSW Aboriginal Health Educator, described her use of art therapy in which young people express problems and hurt through painting (evidence 842). Relationships Australia (formerly the Marriage Guidance Council) described the narrative therapy model devised by Michael White and utilised with Nunga people in South Australia.

It is a model that takes into account injustice, responsibility and oral history. Michael sees that our lives are a story that provides context for our experiences. He sees that society and the individual process this story and give it an interpretation. This interpretation then effects what we do and the steps that we take in life.

Michael’s counselling listens to the story that has shaped a person’s life. The theory aims to give an alternate story to ‘how life may be’ by talking through alternatives. Michael’s work also addresses mapping the effects of the problem. It is here that he looks at the effects of the problem in light of people’s lives and their relationships. It seems that Michael White is also interested in aspects such as:
.	naming injustice
.	healing through traditional means
.	caring and sharing
.	remembering
.	being listened to  (submission 685 page 7).

Further development and evaluation of these and other models, particularly as applicable to grief and trauma and the inter-generational effects of the forcible removal policies, are needed. There must be opportunities for documentation and sharing of innovations and lessons across Australia.

… Aboriginal people have been working in this area and there is a valuable amount of information and techniques available. This information needs to be brought to an awareness, documented, and distributed to National Aboriginal Australia. Thus creating a cultural sensitive counselling programme that can be added to continuously  (report from Joyleen Koolmatrie, Sept 1996).

At the same time it must be appreciated that,

Traditional healing practices are diverse and specific to individual communities and family groups. They may include traditional song and dance, food and medicine. In some communities the use of traditional healing is predominant, being regarded as essential for cultural and spiritual well being  (Queensland Mental Health Policy Statement 1996 page 12).

Indigenous healing may also be dependent on particular locations on traditional lands. Dr Jane McKendrick of the Victorian Aboriginal Mental Health Network told the Inquiry,

… it has been my experience with some Aboriginal people who have been taken away from their families in childhood and who have had severe mental health problems in adulthood have really benefited from going home, spending time on their traditional land with their elders and extended family. The healing process might take a few years, but that is by far the best way to do that  (evidence 310).

Submissions to the Inquiry made clear that primary ‘well-being’ services need to be controlled and delivered by Indigenous people.

If you did not have the mental health worker there who can communicate with the patient in language the patient understands, you know, talk in terms of things important to the patient and the patient knows are important to the health worker – it helps to settle things down. But if you do not have that sort of trained person present there can be disastrous consequences. It could even lead to either unnecessary hospitalisation or in the worst case a successful suicide  (Dr Jane McKendrick, Victorian Aboriginal Mental Health Network, evidence 310).

 I sought counselling to try and help me overcome a lot of the feelings I carry with me from my childhood, but it doesn’t seem to really help. The counselling I received has not been from people that know much about Aboriginal culture or what we went through at the mission  (quoted by ALSWA submission 127 on page 200).
Non-Aboriginal nurses have a lot of difficulty establishing rapport and trust with Koori mothers precisely because it was often nurses [in Victoria] who were most likely to be associated with the removal of Aboriginal children  (Dr Ian Anderson, Victorian Aboriginal Health Service, evidence 261).

The most important thing is that some sort of access or system is established where there is a high degree of trust. [It] would have to be very strongly focused around an Aboriginal community network or an Aboriginal community counselling service because there may be some very particular ways these issues should be addressed by Aboriginal people in which [non-Indigenous professionals] should at best have some sort of advisory role or assistance  (Dr Nick Kowalenko evidence 740).

The 1996 Stolen Generations National Conference recommended the establishment of ‘counselling centres, established and run and staffed by Aboriginal people [as] an essential and urgent part of the rehabilitation component of a reparation package’ (submission 754 page 50). A number of Indigenous organisations similarly called for self-determining Indigenous healing centres (Broome and Derby Working Groups submission 518 page 5, Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement submission 484 page 53, Karu Aboriginal and Islander Child Care Agency submission 540 page 34, Western Aboriginal Legal Service (Broken Hill) submission 775).

UN Special Rapporteur van Boven recognised government support of rehabilitation for victims of gross violations of human rights as essential to reparations. Principle 14 provides that,

Rehabilitation shall be provided and will include medical and psychological care as well as legal and social services.

There are very strong and cogent arguments for ‘well-being centres’ which offer a full range of healing services. This is consistent with the recommendation in Ways Forward for holistic primary health care services.

Commitment to holistic view of health and the cyclical concept of life, death, life, so that mental health programmes should be based in a community setting with no artificial separation of children and elders from people in middle life … so everything should be under the one umbrella. And also in a primary health care setting because people who are psychologically distressed often have chronic physical problems  (Dr Jane McKendrick, Victorian Aboriginal Mental Health Network, evidence 310).

Everyone at the [1995 Queensland] Gathering expressed the need for funding for Indigenous Healing Places initiated, established and staffed by our own people with access to other help as is needed and appropriate. These Healing Places are envisaged as places where intervention can happen before, during, and after crises, and provide longer term care also. We must be funded to provide an alternative to the mainstream facilities  (Qawanji Ngurrku Jawiyabba 1995 page 4).

This approach was supported by the 1993 National Aboriginal Mental Health Conference which noted that mental health should be seen as part of primary health care and not separate from it and that spiritual life and traditional ways are important to Aboriginal well-being.

The majority of mental health disorders and mental health problems in Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders do not require dual intervention for specialised secondary services. It is therefore illogical to separate emotional well being issues and therefore mental health services from primary health care (as defined by the NACCHO). A holistic, integrated team approach to well being is required through community controlled health services … resourced effectively by professionals and through financial resourcing  (Swan and Raphael 1994 page 32).

The Conference proposed an immediate allocation of $100 million for comprehensive counselling services in Indigenous community-based organisations simply to tackle immediate issues (Swan and Raphael 1994 page 25). Funding for Indigenous community-based services must empower those services to utilise culturally appropriate healing models and personnel including traditional healers where they are available.

Our traditional healers must be funded to do their work in the community. At the moment their work is not recognised by funding bodies yet their role is essential to the healing of our people – more so than white medicine and white interventions  (Qawanji Ngurrku Jawiyabba 1995 page 4).

Indigenous well-being model
Recommendation 33a:  That all services and programs provided for survivors of forcible removal emphasise local Indigenous healing and well-being perspectives.
Recommendation 33b:  That government funding for Indigenous preventive and primary mental health (well-being) services be directed exclusively to Indigenous community-based services including Aboriginal and Islander health services, child care agencies and substance abuse services.
Recommendation 33c:  That all government-run mental health services work towards delivering specialist services in partnership with Indigenous community-based services and employ Indigenous mental health workers and community members respected for their healing skills.

Staff training
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recognised the importance of training professionals dealing with Indigenous patients about Indigenous history with the expectation that a better and more appropriate service will be provided. Recommendation 154 addressed training of health professionals working in the prison system.

All staff of Prison Medical Services should receive training to ensure that they have an understanding and appreciation of those issues which relate to Aboriginal health, including Aboriginal history, culture and life-style so as to assist them in their dealings with Aboriginal people.

Health professional training
Recommendation 34a: That government health services, in consultation with Indigenous health services and family tracing and reunion services, develop in-service training for all employees in the history and effects of forcible removal.
Recommendation 34b: That all health and related training institutions, in consultation with Indigenous health services and family tracing and reunion services, develop under-graduate training for all students in the history and effects of forcible removal.

Indigenous people too will need appropriate training to meet the new demands of working within culturally appropriate models of well-being while at the same time liaising with non-Indigenous professionals and services to obtain specialist assistance as needed. The Curtin University, WA, counselling course offers one training model. The course is designed, managed and directed by professional Indigenous staff and takes a holistic approach to mental health (Collard and Garvey 1994).

Mental health worker training
Recommendation 35: That all State and Territory Governments institute Indigenous mental health worker training through Indigenous-run programs to ensure cultural and social appropriateness.

Parenting and family well-being
The effects of forcible removal are far-reaching and complex and often compounded in subsequent generations. A focus simply on ‘mental health’ therefore is inappropriate for two reasons. First, the concept is a western one which does not encompass the Indigenous perspective of social, spiritual and community well-being. Second, healing the effects of forcible removal will require a number of inter-related strategies, only one of which is clearly covered by the term ‘mental health’. All the effects of the removal policies need to be addressed including substance misuse, parenting skills deficits, impacts on physical well-being, children’s and youths’ behavioural disturbances and so on. We can understand all of these under the general rubric of rehabilitation while recognising that the need for rehabilitation will be felt by the people who were removed, their families including their own children and grandchildren and their communities as a whole.

It is imperative that separation, identity issues and their effects on Aboriginal wellbeing are kept in the forefront as Aboriginal Mental Health Services are developed and implemented, and in training Aboriginal Mental Health Liaison Officers  (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 page 159).

A very significant continuing effect of the forcible child removal policies has been the undermining of parenting skills and confidence. Rebuilding these must be a priority. The 1993 National Aboriginal Mental Health Conference recommended that ‘culturally appropriate Aboriginal family therapy programs be developed by Aboriginal Legal, Medical and Children’s Services’  (Swan and Raphael 1994 page 31).

Most communities suggest the need for special programs to support young Aboriginal people and to redevelop parenting skills both in terms of child rearing generally and traditional practices  (Raphael et al 1996 page 15).

Submissions to the Inquiry from Indigenous organisations were very supportive of these programs.

That parenting programs be developed and made available for carers who might benefit from such programs. These programs must be provided from appropriate organisations such as Aboriginal Child Care Agencies and must be developed and provided in a culturally appropriate manner … That preventive family support programs be developed and run from accessible organisations such as Aboriginal Child Care Agencies  (SA Aboriginal Child Care Agency submission 347 recommendations 7 and 9).

Today there is a massive Koori Parenting crisis, which VACCA [Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency] confronts daily with parents in difficulties coping with their children, and in the many manifestations of family violence. VACCA’s experienced workers perceive a strong link between children who do not receive adequate nurturing, consistent parenting, especially in their earliest years, and their later violent behaviour in their family settings  (Jenny Gerrand submission 578 page 3).

The 1995 report of the WA Taskforce on Families also identified the issue and proposed a similar solution.

… most of the problems faced by Aboriginal people today stem from generations of oppression and have resulted in a lack of trust in the non-Aboriginal society. The Native Welfare Department’s practice of taking Aboriginal children from their families to be brought up on missions, still impacts upon Aboriginal people in Western Australia.

One of the most important consequences of this practice is the lack of parenting skills due to the fact that thousands of children were denied nurturing, loving and modelling by their parents and extended family. It also caused a major disruption in the transmission of culture and traditional values  (page 106).

The Taskforce recommended,

That the Department for Community Development work with members of the Aboriginal community to develop and implement specific and appropriate parenting programs, services and courses designed for Aboriginal parents, recognising the primary role played by grandparents and the extended family in the upbringing of the children  (page 106).

In evidence to the Inquiry child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr Brent Waters agreed.

Young people need to have available to them people who can work with them as they deal with whether or not they’re going to form families and how they manage the first stages of parenting … It is very, very important that there are resources available, not only to support these people who are susceptible to passing on a pattern of neglectful and abusive parenting, but who can actually provide concrete advice on what to do. That certainly should come from within the Aboriginal community. A generation which in my experience has a great potential to assist there is the grandparent generation  (evidence 532).

In response to the need the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency has proposed the establishment of a Koori Parenting Centre ‘to deliver to Koories whose parenting skills need building up, the necessary input so that these parents can achieve their long-term goal of caring for their children, and of becoming self-determining people’ (submission 578 page 3). Among other strategies ‘VACCA has commenced work on a video and book about culturally-relevant ways of parenting called ‘Parenting: Doing it Our Way’. Victorian Koori elders are interviewed about the ways they parented their children  (submission 578 page 4).

Parenting skills
Recommendation 36: That the Council of Australian Governments ensure the provision of adequate funding to relevant Indigenous organisations in each region to establish parenting and family well-being programs.

In making this recommendation we do not intend to further fragment the delivery of needed services. The point was clearly made to the Inquiry that a holistic approach is essential.

Aboriginal health issues can’t be isolated. What have we got? We’ve got alcohol and drug over here, we’ve got domestic violence centre over here, we’ve got medical centres over here, diabetes over there. They can’t be separated like that. The physical body will heal once we heal our spirit from all of our past pains, traumas and tragedies. We’ve got to look at the whole thing holistically  (Rosemary Wanganeen evidence 256).
The proposed parenting and family well-being centres are likely therefore to be located in existing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander medical and health services and/or Aboriginal and Islander Child Care Agencies.

Prisoners
Special attention must be paid to people in custody. Indigenous people are still over-represented in both juvenile and adult detention and are more likely than non-Indigenous people to be returned to prison within a comparatively short time of the completion of a sentence.

… the system that has left us with a legacy of discrimination and disadvantage also pathologises us for feeling angry and abused and imprisons and institutionalises us instead of recognising that our feelings are valid and need to be addressed. Very often our people are imprisoned when the intervention that is indicated is actually medical  (Qawanji Ngurrku Jawiyabba 1995 page 3).

The distance of most detention centres and many prisons from Indigenous population centres means isolation for Indigenous prisoners which increases their distress.

Recent reports have highlighted a range of problems for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders with mental disorders or mental distress in custodial correctional centres, linking suicide among young males with untreated mental illness, alcohol abuse, profound despair and demoralisation   (Queensland Mental Health Policy Statement 1996 page 14).

Because of repeated incarceration and isolation these people are least able to take advantage of Indigenous mental health services. Even where services are available ‘[t]here is a problem with lack of continuity of care and appropriate follow-up … particularly … when they are transferred throughout the statewide prison network’ (Queensland Mental Health Policy Statement 1996 page 14).

An efficient prison mental health service with good consultative links with Indigenous health services and employing Indigenous mental health workers will identify and assist many prisoners with mental illnesses or disorders. Again however a broader preventive approach is needed which directly addresses the emotional distress and despair common to most Indigenous prisoners and their underlying causes. A focus on more psychiatrists, as proposed by the Queensland Mental Health Policy Statement 1996, will ignore this broader spectrum of need.

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody appreciated the significance of corrections departments working with Aboriginal and Islander health and medical services. Recommendation 152 provides in part,

That Corrective Services in conjunction with Aboriginal Health Services and such other bodies as may be appropriate should review the provision of health services to Aboriginal prisoners in correctional institutions …

Particular attention should be given to drug and alcohol treatment, rehabilitative and preventative education and counselling programs for Aboriginal prisoners. Such programs should be provided, where possible, by Aboriginal people …

The involvement of Aboriginal Health Services in the provision of general and mental health care to Aboriginal prisoners …

Prisoner services
Recommendation 37:  That the Council of Australian Governments ensure the provision of adequate funding to Indigenous health and medical services and family well-being programs to establish preventive mental health programs in all prisons and detention centres and to advise prison health services. That State and Territory corrections departments facilitate the delivery of these programs and advice in all prisons and detention centres.

Mental health services
Mental health services
Mental health services

Carol
[Carol’s grandmother was removed to Beagle Bay at the age of 10. She and her husband had 10 children. When her husband was transferred to the Derby leprosarium, all ten children were placed in the Beagle Bay dormitories. Carol’s mother was 8 years old when she was removed. Carol was born in Broome in the mid-1950s. When she was three, her mother died leaving four children. Although her grandmother was still alive, Carol and her siblings were removed to the Beagle Bay dormitories. Carol spent the next 14 years there.]
Five generations of my family have been affected by removal of children. Four generations of my family have been removed from their mothers and institutionalised. Three generations of my family have been put into Beagle Bay Mission dormitories. Four generations of my family went without parently love, without mother or father. I myself found it very hard to show any love to my children because I wasn’t given that, so was my mother and grandmother.
When I think back on my childhood days – sad, lonely and unloved childhood days – we should have been treated better than we were by the Church. We were mistreated badly. I was abused by the missionaries from all angles – sexual, physical and mental. I am a strong person in myself. I had to be strong, I had no-one to turn to, no-one to guide me through life. 
6.30am every morning, straight from bed, we had to kneel and say our morning prayers. 7am we had to go to church for mass. If we didn’t we would be punished, like going without a piece of bread for breakfast or get the strap or whipped on our palms. 7.30am we had to thank God before and after our breakfast. 8.30am before and after class we said our prayers. 10am we had to say another prayer before we had our cups of milk and morning tea break. 11am we had catechism taught to us which was part of praying and learning the history of our church. 12pm again we said our prayers before and after our lunch. 1pm we said another prayer before and after class. 5pm we prayed again before and after our supper. 6pm most times we had to go to church for Benediction or rosary. 7pm we would kneel and say the last prayer of the day, which was our night prayers.
We were locked up every night. Also during the day on weekends and public holidays. That was only when we didn’t go out on picnics. 
7am breakfast – very light which was only sago with milk or most times porridge. 10am morning tea time: one cup of Carnation milk. 12am lunch, very light sometimes one piece of bread covered with lard along with a small piece of boiled meat. We loved it all the same. 
5pm supper, very light which was ‘bubble-bubbles’ which was only flour, sugar and water, and if we were lucky we would have a piece of fruit. 
We had nothing else to eat, only if we stole vegetables from the garden. We had two big vegetable gardens. Every vegetable was grown there yet we were never given any. We never had vegetables. Things that we never saw on our meal table yet were sold elsewhere from Beagle Bay Mission. When it was my turn to work in the convent kitchen I saw that all the vegetables that our people grew were on their meal tables.
Everyone would think we were doing the laundries for a big hospital, how many times and how we washed the missionaries’ laundry. Every Sunday evening we had to soak the missionaries’ laundry. Every Monday morning we washed clothes by hands or scrubbing board. We then had to rinse and put it into the big boilers. Then rinsed, then starched, then rinsed, then squeezed and hung out to dry. We had to iron all the clothes, plus mending and darning. 
We made our own clothes for the girls and the boys that were in the dormitory. We never was given footwear, only when and if we were making our first communion, confirmation or crowning of Our Lady. It felt real good to wear shoes and nice dresses for only an hour or so.
We were treated like animals when it came to lollies. We had to dive in the dirt when lollies were thrown to us. The lollies went straight into our mouths from the dirt. We had to, if it was birthday or feast day of the missionaries, wish them a happy day, take our lollies and run, knowing what could happen. We had to sometimes kiss the missionaries on the lips, or touch their penises. I remember clearly on one occasion, I was told to put my hands down his pants to get my lolly.
The nuns taught us that our private parts were forbidden to touch. If we were caught washing our private parts, we would get into trouble from the nuns. I grew up knowing that our private parts were evil, yet missionaries could touch us when they felt like it. That is why when I grew up that I automatically thought when a man wanted sex that I had to give it to him, because that’s what, y’know. Sometimes I had sex not for pleasure, but just to please the man.
Even at the dormitory, when we used to complain to the nuns about what the brothers and the priests had done to us, we were told to shut our mouths. That’s why they used to always tell me I’m a troublemaker. Those same priests, they’re still alive, they’re still working down south. Even the nuns are still here in Broome; there’s a couple of them still there.
It never happened to me, but I remember the priest … used to just walk into the dormitory and pick any girl out of the crowd, ‘You, come with me’, and take them. And I noticed, when those girls used to come back they were very upset. I can’t say what really happened there, but ‘til this very day, those people don’t go to church.
The thing that hurt me the most while growing up is that we were pulled away from our sisters and brothers. My sister’s a year younger than I, yet I could not hold her, cry with her, play with her, sleep with her, comfort her when someone hit her, and eat with her. We weren’t allowed to be close to our sisters or brothers. The missionaries pulled and kept us apart.
I was taken out of school when I was only 15 years of age by the nuns and placed with the working girls. I had no further education. To leave the mission I had to have two people to sort of say they’d look after me. [Carol lived with an aunt and worked as a domestic for a family in Broome.] I remember being reminded many times about being sent back to Beagle Bay if I did not do my work properly or not listening to the them. I did not want to go back there, so I had no choice but to listen. This is one of many times I felt trapped. I was treated like a slave, always being ordered to do this or do that, serving visitors and being polite to them.
[At 19, Carol gave birth to a son.] I had no-one to guide me through life, no-one to tell me how to be a good mother. A year later I fell pregnant with my second child. My son was only a year old and I kept being reminded by the Welfare and by my so-called family that they’d take my babies away from me. So instead of giving them the pleasure of taking my baby, I gave her up. I was still working for the M family and I was encouraged by a few people. My daughter was removed from my arms by policy of Welfare 5 days after she was born. I never saw my daughter for 20 years, until 2 years ago. He [Carol’s employer] more or less encouraged me to put my baby up for adoption. Two months after that, he got me in bed. We had a relationship for so long – 4 or 5 years. And then I had a daughter to him. And this is what my trouble is now. I found my daughter, the one I gave up for adoption; but the last one, Tina, she’s about 18 now, Mr M never gave me one cent for my daughter for the last 16 years. About a year ago he started helping me out, but then his wife found out, so now he won’t help me. So my daughter now has to live in the same town as Mr M, knowing her father’s in the same town, yet we could go without food. I reckon he should recognise her, stand up to his responsibilities.
[Carol has tried to document her stay at Beagle Bay but has been told there is no record she was ever there.] I haven’t got anything to say I’ve been to Beagle Bay. It’s only memories and people that I was there with. I don’t exist in this world. I haven’t got anything, nothing to say who I am.
Confidential evidence 504, Western Australia.

19		Responses of Churches and Other Non-Government Agencies
With the wisdom of hindsight we can only wonder how as a nation, and as a Church, we failed to see the violence of what we were doing. Hopefully, today we are more vigilant regarding the values we espouse  (Catholic Church of the Diocese of Darwin submission 536 page 2).

Sharing responsibility
In most cases of forcible removal government officials and agents were responsible for the removal under legislation or regulations. However, there were early cases of removal of children by missionaries without the consent of the parents. In Victoria the absence of government oversight of welfare services enabled churches and other non-government agencies to remove children from their families without any court order or other official approval.

The churches share some responsibility for forcible removals because of their involvement in providing accommodation, education, training and work placements for the children.

With hindsight, we recognise that our provision of services enabled these policies to be implemented. We sincerely and deeply regret any hurt, however unwittingly caused, to any child in our care (The Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Australian Province submission 541 page 1).

To the best of our knowledge, at no time have the Church’s child welfare services and organisations been given any legislative power or authority to forcibly or physically remove any children from their families. This is so in the case of any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander children. We do accept that there were cases where the actions of Church child welfare services and organisations were instrumental in keeping children separate from their families and in this respect the Church holds some responsibility in playing a role for the state to keep these children separate from their families (Joint Statement to the Inquiry on behalf of the Bishops’ Committee for Social Welfare, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council and the Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission).

The Aboriginal Legal Service of WA advised the Inquiry that 85% of the people it interviewed who had been forcibly removed as children had spent at least part of their childhood in the care of a mission. Nationally the proportion is probably somewhat lower.
The experiences of children cared for in church homes and missions varied considerably.

As individuals, there are memories which we can recall with some fondness. The friendships that bonded us as orphanage kids, the weekends at Riddell Beach and other happy occasions. But as individuals also, each of us could pick out at least half a dozen grievances with Nuns as our caretakers – the discipline, the notes made on our records in relation to our intelligence, the removal of personal possessions, the removal of birth names, the denial of access to family members, the chores, being locked up… (former resident quoted by Holy Child Orphanage, Broome, submission 520 on page 1).

At the age of 16, when most of us left the care of the Church, we were young girls; we were very vulnerable. We didn’t have much skills in terms of preparation for life or life experiences. So consequently most of us had kids, went from one relationship to another, from one broken marriage to another. Most of us have ended up being drunks and alcoholics at early ages. But there’s been nothing there to help us through, to unshackle that shame and blame. And what the Church has done, it just continuously reinforced to us all the negative things about us. And it makes us feel guilty. And it’s done nothing to remove any of that guilt. And what I’m saying is that the apology isn’t enough. There’s got to be some sort of public statement to say to us, ‘You are not to blame for it. And we were wrong’.
Confidential evidence 548, Northern Territory: WA woman removed to a Catholic orphanage at 4 years in the 1950s.

I found the Methodist Mission [Croker Island] very helpful and myself, from my experience, I really can’t condemn the United Church, or Methodist Mission. Because they’ve been excellent to us. There were one hundred children and they showed a little bit of affection to each of us, y’know. They didn’t show any favouritism.
Confidential evidence 544, Northern Territory: woman removed to The Bungalow at 5 years in the 1930s; after seven years transferred to Croker Island Mission.

Contemporary attitudes
Many church organisations provided information, submissions and evidence to the Inquiry. Generally the churches expressed interest in assisting and supporting all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and doing what they can to remedy the hurt and damage suffered by those affected by forcible removal in particular. Many statements expressing understanding of that hurt and damage, acceptance of a share of responsibility and regret were made publicly to the Inquiry (Chapter 14). The Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission expressed a view we believe to be widely shared.

… the Church has a moral responsibility to work towards healing the pain that separation has caused Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (submission 479 page 36).

The Rev. Aubrey Quick, a former Methodist minister, also made this point.

… the fact that things happened with even the best of motives does not absolve us from our present responsibility to make what amends we can (submission 234 page 1).

General proposals
The churches can provide practical assistance to those suffering the effects of forcible removals. The National Standing Committee of the Uniting Church in Australia recently passed a number of resolutions including,

that Standing Committee support and encourage the Northern Synod and the Northern Regional Committee of Congress to continue discussions with the former Croker Island residents and if appropriate to bring recommendations as to how the Uniting Church within the limits of its resources may best express its support for the Croker Islanders and their descendants (submission 457).

The Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission recognised the need for consultation with Indigenous people in the design of any programs the churches might offer.

… in seeking to compensate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for the pain that its involvement in separation has caused, the Church must enter into honest and open dialogue with those people, in order that true reconciliation can occur (submission 479 page 36).

Of particular interest to Inquiry witnesses affected by forcible removal are,
1.	provision of access to personal and family records and other information held in church archives,
2.	the availability of counselling and related services provided by churches and non-government agencies, and
3.	the return of mission and institution lands.

Access to personal and family records
Need for records
Churches, adoption agencies and other non-government agencies may hold critical information in their records to enable former residents or clients to establish their own identities and personal histories and the identities of family members. 

The records of Koonibba Mission [SA] are mighty comprehensive so that I would be very surprised if anyone who wants to trace their family line, their ancestry, couldn’t find the complete information that they desire in those church records (Rev. Clem Eckermann, Lutheran Church, evidence 262).

Private individuals may also hold relevant records. Examples include pastoral station managers who employed Indigenous workers and accommodated their families and anthropologists and former missionaries who undertook private genealogical research. Without this information people may be unable to prove their Aboriginality, locate family members or participate in family and community reunions. Indigenous people, especially children, were not in a position to maintain detailed genealogical, birth, marriage and death records themselves.

Government and non-government records are vital in tracing a person’s origins – these records may be the only way of finding your identity (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 page 155).

Practical access problems
Privately-held record collections suffer from at least the same deficiencies as government departmental and archival collections. They are fragile, poorly indexed if indexed at all, often stored inappropriately and in some cases have been lost or destroyed accidentally or intentionally. To an even greater extent than government archives, church archives lack the resources to identify relevant records, preserve and index them and administer an access procedure. Rev. Paech of the Lutheran Church in South Australia advised that the Koonibba register for which Rev. Eckermann had such hopes cannot be located in church archives. The register was possibly given to the SA Government when the administration of Koonibba was transferred in 1963 (personal communication 10 December 1996).

Much of the material has not even been sorted through and catalogued yet. It’s all going on at the time and the archivist himself had only been in his position about 3 months at the time – had taken over from the previous archivist who’d retired – and so he was not able to help me in trying to even find which were the most helpful places to even start to look. But the archives are open to anyone, but my own opinion is that I doubt whether anything of personal significance is likely to result – but they are there (Rev. John Vitale, Lutheran Church, evidence 431).

Similar difficulties were described by the Anglican Church of Australia, Diocese of Adelaide. Some of the records relating to the Point Pearce mission had been destroyed by fire. In other cases some names had been deleted and there were gaps in the records.

The Anglican Church holds some records, particularly concerning the Children’s Homes, which may be helpful to Aboriginal people looking for personal information. They vary in content and nature, and they are still in the early stages of archival processing, and therefore need time to locate and review (evidence 259).

Policy deficiencies
The general experience of searchers interested in accessing privately-held records has been a negative one.

I have found that it is quite difficult to access a number of files on behalf of clients. Church organisations and private organisations are unwilling to even understand the problems that this group encounter without archival information. The effect of not being able to access this information can have devastating consequences for people attempting to piece their family history together (Rosie Baird presentation submitted with Karu Aboriginal and Islander Child Care Agency submission 540 page 6).

It is quite difficult to get access to some mission files. Negotiations have not yet been productive. Access to information of this sort is not only a right by virtue of citizenship, and the treatment that Stolen Generations received, but also it should be recalled that the institutions were the Stolen Generations’ de facto parents. Their responsibility to assist access goes beyond mere citizenship (Karu submission 540 page 31).

A range of difficulties has been encountered.

In some cases the problem is cooperation; some of these agencies refuse to give Link-Up any information about a child, and refuse access to their records. In other cases, the agency has closed and the records have been lost or destroyed, or the agency only keeps the records for a short time as a matter of policy … Since the record trail of any given person may move through a number of different placements, both government and non-government, one missing or inaccessible file can cause serious problems (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186 pages 155 and 156).
These difficulties are exacerbated in the case of records kept or taken by private individuals. Link-Up (NSW) reported, for example, its unsuccessful efforts to obtain records held by private landowners in whose pastoral property journals the births or deaths of Aboriginal residents were often recorded. There is a very significant risk that these records will be destroyed or will disintegrate for want of appropriate storage. The Inquiry was told that a former Darwin institution manager stores children’s personal records in his garage, making them available to searchers at his own discretion. Some have been lost while the remainder are held in poor conditions in a humid tropical climate.

In July 1995 the Australian Cultural Ministers Council appointed an Archives Working Group. The Working Group’s first project was to identify and survey the current state of access to records relating to Indigenous people. The report of that project was finalised late in 1996 and covered both government and non-government archives. However, the report is not comprehensive. Some record-holding agencies were undoubtedly not identified and some of those from whom information was requested did not respond.

Current access procedures
A number of church agencies employ archivists or other professional staff to administer records and to assist searchers.

All of the Catholic organisations which responded to specific request from ACSWC [the Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission] regarding access to records by individuals seeking personal information thought to be retained by an organisation have indicated that they are prepared either to give open access or restricted access to bona fide inquirers. Understandably, for reasons of confidentiality rather than an attempt to hinder the efforts of those who are seeking information, most organisations have indicated that access will be on a restricted basis (submission 479 page 16).

The Benedictine Community at New Norcia in WA advised the Inquiry of its commitment to the policy adopted by the Australian Society of Archivists (submission 486 page 10),

… to design and implement service environments, systems, routines, finding aids and promotional material which do not discomfort or embarrass Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander users, but which make appropriate access to records a culturally-sensitive, welcoming and relatively stress-free experience for Aboriginal Australians (ASA Bulletin June 1996 page 77).

The Inquiry was advised of a project being conducted jointly by the Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council to compile a listing of all relevant record repositories in the 28 dioceses and more than 200 religious orders and congregations (Joint Statement).

Where access can be provided, a charge is usually levied. However, while most churches expressed to the Inquiry their willingness to provide access, there is no legal requirement that they do so. Proposed extension of the Commonwealth’s Privacy Act 1988 will extend the eleven information privacy principles to non-government organisations which collect and record personal information. A searcher will have a right of access to personal information held about him or her by a non-government organisation (Principle 6). The searcher’s consent will be required in most circumstances before the organisation will be permitted to disclose that information to a third party (Principle 11).

The Inquiry was told that the churches are already aware of the implications for individual privacy of permitting free public access, and even access by close family members, to their archives.

… it is unlikely that personal records as such could be perused because this could involve breach of confidentiality with respect to others. We ask that all applications for information be made in writing, and we will endeavour to give every assistance (Anglican Church, Adelaide Diocese, evidence 259).

There is a difficulty about giving access to archival materials at New Norcia to everybody who asks for it. It is rarely possible to find genealogical information on one family without at the same time giving information about related families. We find that some Aboriginal (and other) people resent other enquirers discovering information about their own family members in this way.

Likewise there can be cases where records were written in a way that would now be found offensive to Aboriginal (and often equally to non-Aboriginal) people. Yet we feel history will be distorted and yet further misunderstood if such materials are bowdlerised, dispersed or destroyed. Other parties, including the New Norcia monks, are also mentioned in nearly all such records; they too should be recognised as having right of access to their contents.

Enquirers are given every assistance, while we try to ensure that appropriate privacy of information is respected. Our archival access policy is under constant review (submission 486 pages 9-10).

Proposals
The National Standing Committee of the Uniting Church in Australia has urged synods and other church agencies, 

… to ensure that all assistance is given freely to people who were taken from their families, and, subject to privacy considerations, to other family members, who wish to study the records of the Uniting Church relating to the taking of the children and their institutional care (submission 457).

The Catholic Social Welfare Commission developed a detailed proposal for the preservation of and provision of access to records held by the Catholic Church. The proposal contemplated a standardised database with a capacity to make referrals nationally and a procedure to resolve conflicts which may arise regarding access to records (Catholic Social Welfare Commission submission 479 pages 15-18). The Commission called on State and Federal governments to fund the project. 

The Catholic family welfare agency Centacare similarly asserted that governments are responsible for funding support. It complained that the absence of government funding has hampered a project commenced in 1992 to collate and centralise personal information relating to Catholic Children’s Home residents (Centacare Sydney submission 478 page 4).

The Aboriginal and Islander Commission of the National Council of Churches also recognised the need for an injection of funds without, however, asserting a government responsibility to provide those funds.

One suggestion we have … is to raise funds for a qualified NCCA [National Council of Churches] research team to organize the numerous church and mission archives which exist, but very many of which currently are in a woeful state of disarray. The goal is to locate, document, codify and research these church and mission archives, and to produce very high-quality (well-researched) resources which would be made available to the public … We feel that this would be the major contribution the ecumenical movement could make in redressing its involvement in this chapter of history, and in moving toward the process of healing and reconciliation between Australian Indigenous Peoples and the Christian community (letter to Sir Ronald Wilson dated 15 January 1996).

In 1993 the Aboriginal and Islander Commission of the National Council of Churches hosted the ‘Martung Upah Indigenous Conference’ which called for the churches to open their archives, mission and other church records to Indigenous people.

The Victorian Stolen Generations group recently called for ‘the government to publish a full list of archival material … not only the records held by government departments but material held by universities, private individuals and organisations that record the history of Aboriginal people in Victoria’, ‘to collate and archive the information’ and ‘to instigate a moratorium on destruction’ (Resolution of November meeting). This resolution echoes that of the Stolen Generations National Workshop 1996.

The National Workshop determines that all records relating to Aboriginal people and their communities, including those that are kept by governments, churches and private agencies, are the property of the people and communities to which they related. Thus, no agency (government or non-government) currently holding records relating to Aboriginal people has the right to destroy, alter or deny access by the owner to these records. Further, as the subject Aboriginal people and their communities are the owners of these records all intellectual property rights in such records reside in those people and their communities (submission 754 page 23).

Recommendations
Because of the role played by churches and missions in the placement and care of Indigenous children and families generally, many records were created which may now be essential to enable family and/or community links to be re-established. Like government record agencies, the churches have reasons for retaining these records. Some lack the resources, however, to preserve them appropriately and administer access. Some churches have deposited their records in State Libraries or other repositories. For example the records of Sister Kate’s Home in Perth are now in the Battye Library.

Private collections
Recommendation 38a: That every church and other non-government agency which played a role in the placement and care of Indigenous children forcibly removed from their families, at the request of an Indigenous language, culture and history centre, transfer historical and cultural information it holds relating to the community or communities represented by the centre.
Recommendation 38b: That churches and other non-government agencies which played a role in the placement and care of Indigenous children forcibly removed from their families identify all records relating to Indigenous families and children and arrange for their preservation, indexing and access in secure storage facilities preferably, in consultation with relevant Indigenous communities and organisations, in the National Library, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies or an appropriate State Library.
Recommendation 38c: That every church and non-government record agency which played a role in the placement and care of Indigenous children forcibly removed from their families provide detailed information about its records to the relevant Indigenous Family Information Service or Services.

We have proposed that the churches and other relevant non-government agencies should be represented on each State and Territory Records Taskforce. Private record agencies should implement the minimum access standards. The Catholic Social Welfare Commission, in a detailed submission relating to records, concluded that,

… the principles which should guide access arrangements to any records containing personal information relating to an individual who is seeking to establish or trace their personal and family identity are:
•	as a general rule access to records should be permitted;
•	every assistance be given to ensure that access is available;
•	access be free of charge to  bona fide inquirers;
•	maintenance of confidentiality at all times; and,
•	the provision of professional and culturally sensitive counselling to an inquirer prior to and during the access of personal files (submission 479 page 17).

Application of minimum standards and common guidelines
Recommendation 39: That church and other non-government record agencies implement the national minimum access standards (Recommendation 25) and apply the relevant State, Territory or Commonwealth common access guidelines (Recommendation 23).
Counselling services
Need
The emotional and psychological effects of forcible removal are documented in Part 3 of this report.

Removal affects the individual, the family, the culture from which they were removed and the broader society. From Relationships Australia’s experience these outcomes and consequences of forced removal of children are consistent with grief and loss on a large scale, which when unresolved, affect the quality of people’s relationships (Relationships Australia submission 685 page 6).

Some church and other non-government agencies have turned their attention to survivors’ needs for counselling and related support. The National Standing Committee of the Uniting Church in Australia has resolved to request,

… synods to invite organisations such as Burnside in New South Wales, Copelen Family Services in Victoria and Adelaide Central Mission in South Australia to seek discussions with the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress with a view to entering into arrangements under which facilities, resources and expertise of the Uniting Church’s family counselling services may be made available to the Aboriginal community for child care or adult counselling in an arrangement in which responsibility and authority would be negotiated (submission 457).

Church counselling services
Most churches provide services for individuals and families experiencing financial, emotional or spiritual distress. The range of services is usually related to the size of the organisation and the resources available to the church. Few services are specifically provided for Indigenous people, although they are available to Indigenous people seeking to use them. In practice, utilisation by Indigenous people depends on whether the service is culturally sensitive and appropriate.

A number of churches identified services specifically directed towards the needs of Indigenous people and relevant to the survivors of forcible removal. The Catholic Church, for example, offers Centacare programs including the Aboriginal Family Worker in Brisbane, the Financial Counsellor in Wilcannia-Forbes, Family Care Teams and Family Support Programmes generally and a number of other Catholic marriage and family mediation services across a number of regions which may be relevant to those affected by forcible removal (Centacare Catholic Community Service evidence 478, Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission submission 479).
The Uniting Church’s Burnside agency in New South Wales also identifies family support services, including family counselling specifically related to child behaviour problems within families as being relevant, along with parenting education programs, one of which has been developed in consultation with a rural Aboriginal community to ensure cultural relevance (Uniting Church in Australia submission 457). 

Relationships Australia described a collaborative arrangement in the Hunter Valley with the Awabakal Aboriginal community in which training is provided to Aboriginal women to enable them to lead groups and develop counselling skills. Importantly, the collaboration results from the initiative of the Awabakal community which also determines training arrangements.

Evaluation
Relationships Australia and the Anglican Diocese of Adelaide both expressed reservations about their capacity to provide the counselling and related services needed to address some of the effects of forcible removal. The Anglican Diocese of Adelaide identified the absence of Indigenous staff in its own Family Connections Programme as a barrier to effective service delivery.

[It] has been operating for approximately six years and has, until recently, worked with few Aboriginal families. Currently, out of a caseload of 32 families there are five Aboriginal families working with the Family Connections Programme and one Aboriginal family on the waiting list. All referrals come from Family and Community Services. For a programme with only non-Aboriginal workers this work presents a number of dilemmas and a great challenge and we question whether it is helpful to these families having non-Aboriginal workers working with them for reunification. It is an intensive programme and workers from the programme may spend up to 10 hours a week in a families home (Anglican Diocese of Adelaide evidence 259). 

Relationships Australia, formerly the Marriage Guidance Council, identified ‘obvious problems of accessibility and cultural appropriateness’ and a lack of resources (submission 685 page 4).

A further problem is that we already have waiting lists of 6-8 weeks in all areas. If we were to advertise specifically to provide a new counselling service for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people we could not guarantee how soon there is a risk of violence or severe conflict in the family or relationship.

Therefore while there is a need for access issues to be addressed the resource problem is the major hurdle and we believe that to address this, funding would need to be provided.
Non-government agencies with responsibility for counselling and support services for survivors of forcible removal must ensure the cultural suitability of their services, including through strategies to employ Indigenous staff, so that effective services are provided. Relationships Australia submitted that Indigenous organisations may be best placed to provide the services needed.

There is also the important consideration of ownership of services for Aboriginal people. We do not believe that funding organisations such as ourselves is necessarily the way to go … funding to Aboriginal organisations to manage such programs in which expertise could be purchased from Relationships Australia and others, or joint projects may be a better solution (Relationships Australia submission 685 page 4).

The Inquiry endorses the view that services are best provided by Indigenous agencies. The existence of specialist agencies, however, does not relieve agencies funded and intended for all Australians from their obligation to ensure their services are accessible and appropriate for all, including Indigenous clients. This obligation is even more binding when there are no Indigenous agencies or when those which exist are poorly resourced and unable to deal with every need in the Indigenous community.

Counselling services
Recommendation 40a: That churches and other non-government welfare agencies that provide counselling and support services to those affected by forcible removal review those services, in consultation with Indigenous communities and organisations, to ensure they are culturally appropriate.
Recommendation 40b: That churches and other non-government agencies which played a role in the placement and care of Indigenous children forcibly removed from their families provide all possible support to Indigenous organisations delivering counselling and support services to those affected by forcible removal.

Restitution of land
… it is a sad but truthful fact that the church and Christian people in the history of this Sate have contributed to the trauma, the decimation of the language and the culture among the Aboriginal community (Rev. Finlay submission 327 page 90).

Church responsibility
The loss of connection with and entitlements to land through forcible removal are discussed in Part 3. Some churches appear to understand that forcible removal has caused these losses and the further losses that flow inevitably from dispossession.

It must be acknowledged that, no matter how well intentioned the motives of the church were in its involvement in separating children from their families, it’s complicity has contributed to the dislocation of the people concerned and therefore to their loss of land, language and identity (Anglican Church of Australia, Diocese of Perth submission 410 page 2).

The staff members who served at Marribank [WA], the scatter homes and the hostels, with few exceptions, were not trained for cross-cultural work. Many acknowledge that they knew little of the cultures of the Aboriginal tribal groups. This had the inevitable effect of further isolating the children from their Aboriginal heritage. One of the social workers comments: Aboriginal values, traditions, and cultural mores were ignored in the care arrangements that were made for the children (Baptist Churches of WA and the Aboriginal and Islander Baptist Committee of WA submission 674 Page 15).

Church efforts
Some churches have expressed an intention or a willingness to return land acquired for the purpose of housing forcibly removed children or other land acquired for purposes relating to their missions to Aborigines.

Recently, during research through our records in preparing this submission, Baptist Churches of Western Australia discovered Crown Lease of 8094 square metres still inadvertently held by us, at Kojonup Location 4086, Reserve No. 16908, in Trust for the purpose of a Cemetery ‘Aboriginals’.

We are willing to hand this land over to the Aboriginal people, as appropriate. (Baptist Churches of Western Australia submission 674 page 24).

The National Standing Committee of the Uniting Church in Australia has recently apologised,
… to the people of Minjilang, traditional owners of Croker Island, that the church took over a large part of their ancestral lands without their permission, and used it for forty years to provide care for children separated from their parents (submission 457 page 2).

The process of returning mission land has not been straightforward. The Inquiry was told in Broome that the Catholic Church was willing to hand back land used for mission purposes and that negotiations were under way. The Catholic Church proposes to hand back most of the land, retaining some portions as freehold. It is negotiating for an ex gratia payment in the order of $500,000 from the WA Government in return for relinquishing the land it holds on trust. It is proposed to invest that amount for the benefit of the residents of the missions (Bishop Chris Saunders evidence 519).

Proposals
The Kimberley Land Council called on churches to ‘resolve any outstanding land issues with relevant communities’ (submission 345 page 72). The KLC noted that Indigenous people lost land entitlements by being removed from their traditional country to missions. The practice of gathering children together in missions on country belonging to others created problems communities must grapple with today.

Today around the Kimberley there are several large communities of people who have elsewhere been referred to as ‘the historical people’. These are people who live in ex-mission communities on land which is not their traditional country, but is only their home place. They are the people who were taken away, or the children and grandchildren of people who were taken away.

The mention of native title on the country they call home has often caused them great concern. They are afraid that they will have to leave once the land is handed back to the Traditional Owners. They are afraid the Traditional Owners will use their new control over land to kick them off, or that it will no longer be appropriate for them to continue to live there.

So far there have been two claims in the Kimberley where this has been a factor. The Traditional Owners and the KLC have developed an approach where community areas are not claimed, although the surrounding country is. This is to ensure that members of the community who are not Traditional Owners do not feel threatened or obliged to leave. Traditional Owners will seek to control their country, but will have to be able to accommodate the needs of the communities that live there and have lived there for a long time. Traditional Owners recognise that it is not the fault of those ‘newcomers’ that they are there, and that for many it is their only home.
Where the KLC does lodge a claim on behalf of Traditional Owners over an area where other groups have a strong historical connection, we are committed to helping to negotiate a solution over their respective land needs. People hold very strong historical connections to former mission or institution land and these connections must be acknowledged (submission 345 pages 21-22).

Recommendation
The return of land used by the churches would express their recognition that the policies and practices of forcible removal were wrong. It would indicate their refusal to profit from a practice most have publicly acknowledged was wrong.

Land holdings
Recommendation 41: That churches and other non-government agencies review their land holdings to identify land acquired or granted for the purpose of accommodating Indigenous children forcibly removed from their families and, in consultation with Indigenous people and their land councils, return that land.

In the hard copy version of this report there is a reproduction of the following item:

Aboriginal children in canoe spearing fish, Port Macquaire area, NSW, 1905
Courtesy Bicentennial Copying Project, State Library of New South Wales.
Our home was out in the bush, many miles from Kempsey. It was an old wooden shack consisting of only two rooms. It may not sound like much but it was the only home I ever knew. We children were little free spirits, exploring the bush surrounding our home, building cubbie houses, and just being allowed to enjoy our childhood. Our big brothers were always our protectors, we could rely on them to look after us and not let us come to any harm.
Confidential submission 332, Queensland.