What Steven Cousley Does

These words are not my own, but I do agree wholeheartedly with them.

** This article may contain the names and images of deceased people. **

Who could have anticipated that segue in Brendan Nelson’s apology speech from compensation to the “ultimate sacrifice” of Australian soldiers who “put responsibilities to the nation before their rights”?

Remember that his audience in the House of Representatives included survivors of times when Aboriginal people had no rights at all, not even the sacred right to remain together as a family. It would have been appropriate to pause to remember the men and women who sacrificed so much to achieve these rights and who started our nation on the long journey to this historic occasion.

Of course nations are notoriously selective in what they remember and celebrate. Powerful stakeholders boost their own myths of nationhood. The public celebrates events that reinforce a positive image; ignoble acts are silenced and forgotten.

But even a nation’s foundational myths can shift with the times. Histories from the margins chip away at cherished narratives and leaders are inspired by new visions of nationhood. Events and people are remembered and forgotten in the changing seasons of national memories.

Our nation has a long history of remembering and forgetting the Stolen Generations. We remembered them in the 1990s when the nation was rocked by disclosures in the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Paul Keating’s Redfern Speech, the Going Home Conference in Darwin, the Kruger case, the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children, the Bringing Them Home Report and the Gunner Cubillo case. Then, after a sustained period of often-vicious debate, the issue suddenly disappeared from the headlines, only to be revived in 2008 by the Rudd Government’s Statement of Apology.

This cycle of remembering and forgetting happened down the years. Who remembers the nation’s shocked reaction 50 years ago to West Australian parliamentarian Bill Grayden’s film footage of diseased and starving children at Warburton Mission and his allegations that government plans for their mass evacuation contravened the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights?

What of the horrific report in 1968 by Reg Worthy, Director of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in Victoria, on the ‘trafficking’ of Aboriginal children in Melbourne and the finding that over 300 had been ‘”illegally adopted” into white families?

During the 1970s a new Aboriginal leadership put their stamp on the issue, but who remembers this? In 1974 the nation was divided by sensational media reports condemning or praising the actions of Bill Ryan, Director of Northern Territory Aboriginal Legal Aid, who rejected government directives and returned an Aboriginal girl to her parents after she was kept in foster-care for eight years without just cause.

A heated national debate on the fostering of Aboriginal children erupted and culminated in calls from the National Aboriginal Consultative Council for a federal inquiry. Bill Ryan told his own tragic story of removal to the press and called for a Royal Commission into the “dangerously cruel” practice. Gordon Bryant, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the Whitlam government, announced that he would appoint an inquiry into foster placements in the Territory and that the children would be returned to their families. Shortly after he was removed from office, reportedly because of his handling of the Darwin case.

What do we remember of the struggle for practical strategies and resources to restore rights to Aboriginal families? A leading force here was Molly Dyer, daughter of Margaret Tucker whose autobiography If Everyone Cared remains a classic account of removal.

Working for the Aboriginal Legal Service in Melbourne in the 1970s, Dyer noted the link between Aboriginal child removal and imprisonment and the high rate of breakdowns of adoptions and foster placements.

She fought successfully for the development of an Aboriginal Child Placement Principle based on Aboriginal values and practices and a national network of Aboriginal Child Care Agencies to deliver professional Aboriginal foster care and link-up services. Dyer also built networks of exchange with indigenous groups overseas. Adding fuel to her campaign were international debates on the Convention of the Right of the Child adopted in the United Nations in 1978 and celebrations for the 1979 International Year of the Child.

In 1981 Brian Butler became the public face and driving force behind the new Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care. Criss-crossing the country, he lobbied relentlessly for federal control of services for Aboriginal children and families, claiming that the 1967 referendum made this a moral and legal obligation.

A new generation of leaders led the national campaigns of the 1990s, and many of them were in Parliament for the Apology.

But the decades of sacrifice had taken a heavy toll on their elders. Of those mentioned here only Brian Butler was present in the House of Representatives to hear the historic Statement of Apology.

These elders are national treasures.

As we remember the Stolen Generations we should seize the opportunity to ensure that these men and women who sacrificed so much are enshrined in our national history – lest we forget once again.

Anna Haebich is professor in the School of Arts at Griffith University. She is author of Broken Circles The Fragmentation of Aboriginal Families 1800-2000 and Spinning the Dream Assimilation in Australia 1950 to 1970, both published by Fremantle Press.