Latest news with #StolenGenerations
West Australian
6 hours ago
- General
- West Australian
Emma Garlett: No amount of money can heal the wounds of Stolen Generations
For decades, West Australian children were taken from their families, for no reason other than their race. These were the Stolen Generations — thousands of Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their homes, denied access to their mothers and fathers, their communities and their culture. They were stolen, and they were stolen from. They were robbed of the basic right to live with their loved ones. The impact from that injustice has rippled out for generations. And now, the WA Government has put a dollar figure on their suffering. Under a redress scheme announced by Premier Roger Cook during Reconciliation Week, surviving members of the Stolen Generation are eligible for a one-off payment of $85,000. Mr Cook said the payments were an acknowledgement of a great injustice. 'It acknowledges the Stolen Generations era represents a sorrowful and shameful part of our history, and recognises that it has caused cycles of disadvantage and intergenerational trauma,' he said. 'No amount of money could ever make up for the experience of Stolen Generations members and their families, and the ongoing effects on people's lives.' He is right that it is inadequate. Australia's median annual income is about $72,500. In return for lifetimes of trauma and suffering, victims will receive a little over a year's wages. What of those Stolen Generation members who are no longer living? They receive nothing, their families receive nothing. Intergenerational trauma is exactly that: intergenerational. The death of a person who was stolen doesn't end the suffering. It continues in their own children and grandchildren, handed down through families. It almost seems convenient that we should wait so long to repay the victims of direct government action and then give no heed to the impacts the stolen generations had on their families. That said, there's no way money could ever heal those wounds. Instead, the Government needs to step up on other initiatives which will help to acknowledge the sins of the past and make real steps towards reconciliation. Labor has said it intends to 'partner with Aboriginal stakeholder organisations to develop measures for healing and truth telling'. When it does so, these healing and truth telling measures need to be enshrined in law. They need to be locked in, made more difficult to abolition should a future government have a change of heart. Emma Garlett is a legal academic and Nyiyaparli- Yamatji-Nyungar woman
ABC News
3 days ago
- General
- ABC News
Noongar artist Denzel Coyne on how learning to carve wood helped him heal
Denzel Coyne shows his young daughter how to throw a kylie, or boomerang, he made from jarrah wood. A descendent of a Stolen Generation survivor, the Noongar man with connections to Menang and Goreng Country started learning to make traditional Indigenous artefacts for the first time as an adult. Once he had begun, there was no looking back. On Menang Country in Albany, Western Australia, Coyne spends his days carving, sanding and polishing everything from shields to spears. "It helps me escape my past traumas, it helps me heal." It's a sense of healing, through reclaiming culture, he wants to offer other descendants of Stolen Generation survivors, as well as people who have experienced similar struggles. For Coyne, those struggles began with deeply painful early years. "At a very young age, I lost my mother, tragically. Someone murdered her when I was seven years old," he said. "I struggled without having my mother there to nurture and show me love. "From there, my dad basically raised the four of us by himself; me and my siblings. "Dad was part of a Stolen Generation and unintendedly, a lot of the Stolen Generations traumatic events and life's challenges and stuff like that was sort of passed down in a lot of ways." His dad later went to prison, Coyne said, and he was moved to a house where he was abused. As an adult, he struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, doing several stints in jail. But when he became a father, his outlook began to change. "I think I needed a daughter to change my direction in life, really help me look at life in a whole new light." He was still in the grips of addiction, when Denzel said he was given an ultimatum. "Go to rehab, or I wouldn't be able to take my daughter home," he said. "That day was one of the hardest days of my life. I knew what I had to do." It was during the rehab program that an Aboriginal instructor began teaching Coyne, and the rest of the men's group, how to carve artefacts. "He wanted us to do some tactile learning, something that we can take away from that program, and to help uplift us when we're in a sad time," Coyne said. "Maybe if we didn't have that, I might not have stuck around, I just feel it was so important." On the other side of rehab, Coyne has started his own business, Born Wirn, and is carving out commissions for traditional artefacts. "It means tree spirit," he said. "I bring out the beauty and the grain of the wood and the grain represents the years of the wood, his spirit." Coyne is continuing to refine his skills, borrowing artefacts to study, and calling friends to share what knowledge they can. He strongly believes he is being guided by his ancestors as he learns. Coyne has also encouraged his partner, Noongar woman Penelope Williams, to take up the women's side of the business. For the most part, she was teaching herself. "He couldn't show me because it was woman side of things, but I think he trusted that I would be able to do it, so I got out there and then I started making them," Williams said. "I was in juvenile detention and that's where I learnt woodwork and wood burning, that has really helped me starting this. "When I first made my first one, I was so proud, I couldn't believe that I did it. "And the connection that I feel to my culture while making them, it's hard to describe, but I know making this stuff has helped heal my spirit." The process has prompted the couple to teach their hard-earned skills, holding workshops and talks with school groups and even at a hospital. "I think we could help lots of people, you know, just heal," Williams said. "We're giving them knowledge and culture that was taken." For Coyne, the work keeps him concentrated and connected. "I feel connected, spiritually, mentally," he said. "The whole process, it just gives me so much."
ABC News
6 days ago
- General
- ABC News
Push for school curriculum changes to improve First Nations history literacy
When Jegan Sivanesan's nieces began asking him about First Nation's history, he didn't know how to respond. "They would have NAIDOC week [at school], they'd have questions, not really being able to answer a lot of questions was confronting," he said. The first-generation immigrant from Sri Lanka grew up in the northern Victorian town of Mooroopna, but said his schooling barely scratched the surface of Australia's pre-colonial history. "What we did learn was about the First Fleet and a bit about the Stolen Generations but nothing that really went in depth, which was challenging," Mr Sivanesan said. Bombarded with questions from his son as well as his nieces, Mr Sivanesan decided to fill his gap in historical knowledge through further reading and attending the Yoorrook Justice Commission's public hearings. "It was an opportunity to talk about things that I've felt for a while, to be able to bring up that our education system needs to be really reformed so that our next generations can learn about these things," he said. Mr Sivanesan is not alone in his experience, with others raising the issue in submissions made to the Yoorrook Justice Commission. Yoorrook is the first Australian truth-telling process of its kind, led and designed by First Peoples, with the powers of a royal commission. The inquiry is piecing together Victoria's true history, by listening to the experiences of First Peoples through an inquiry focusing on injustices within health, education, country, criminal justice and child protection. Multiple witnesses have told Yoorrook that settlements were illegally established outside of the boundary set by the Crown, in areas across Victoria in the 1830s, including the Henty brothers' settlement of the area now known as Portland. It also heard from researchers involved in mapping the 49 known massacres in Victoria in which 1,045 Aboriginal people were killed. A report is due to be handed down in June and is expected to include recommendations to modify the school curriculum to include the inquiry's findings. Mr Sivenasan was one of dozens of Victorians who made a submission to the inquiry. As was Our Lady of Sion Sister Denise Cusack, who said she learnt almost nothing about First Nations history during her schooling, only becoming aware of it as an adult. "We would have known growing up that the Aboriginal people were here in this country but nowhere near the awareness of their sovereignty, what happened to them, what happened to the country," she said. "I realised much, much later on that there was a tangible grief in the country, that people carried, they weren't setting out to put all this on us. "But there's something in the country, I think, that carries that grief." Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan was the first Australian leader of a state or territory government to appear before an Indigenous-led truth telling inquiry last month. Ms Allan said she was distressed and ashamed to learn of the brutality involved in massacres of Aboriginal people on Dja Dja Wurrung country, where she lives in Central Victoria. She said her government was committed to ensuring Yoorrook's findings on Victoria's full history was better taught at schools. "Growing up and living as I have all my life, in Central Victoria, on Dja Dja Wurrung country, I did not know about the massacres that occurred so close to home," Ms Allan said. "That was the area that was particularly concerning to me that I hadn't learnt of that, the depth and the extent of the brutality that went on as part of that. "What I see as the legacy of this part [Yoorrook] of the process is to be the writing of the fundamental truth of the history of our state, for that truth to be told in classrooms across the state." Yoorrook Chair Aunty Eleanor Bourke said in a speech at the Melbourne Press Club earlier this month that Yoorrook was expected to make more than 100 recommendations based on the evidence coming before the Commission. "These recommendations include significant reforms to broken systems, and a range of practical solutions to problems the government can implement now," she said. "Yoorrook also wants to see improvements to education, such as the way history and other subjects are taught in school. "This includes better teaching methods for First People's students and for all children to be educated as to the true history of the settlement of Victoria and its impacts on First Peoples." Professor Bourke said learning about the past from First Peoples' perspective would allow students to better understand how the past connects with the present. She said the history taught in schools was different to the history experienced by First Peoples and that the people behind the massacres and the removal of children from their families were remembered as founding fathers, pioneers and heroes. "They were cogs in the colonial machine, which was charging full steam ahead, leaving a wake of death and human devastation behind," Professor Bourke said. "Yoorrook's goal has never been to encourage shame or guilt. Instead, listen and learn, open your heart and your mind to our story. Last week, the Yoorrook Justice Commission began its Walk for Truth, inviting the public to join them throughout the journey from Portland on Gunditjmara country, where colonisation began, to Parliament House in Melbourne. The walk will mark the commission's report being handed down to Parliament. Victorian Year 10 student and Yorta Yorta Bundjalung Wiradjuri woman Gymea said throughout her 11 years of schooling, there were only two pages within a textbook that addressed Indigenous culture, condensing information about Captain Cook, protests, NAIDOC week and Australia Day into just a few classes. Gymea even approached her school's Vice Principal, who spoke with the Head of Humanities, who then contacted the publisher of the history textbook about the lack of First Nations history content. "I don't think that Aboriginal history is taught enough at school because there are so many other things to our history like we have different clans, different tribes, different languages … and people don't know that," she said. Gymea said she learnt about Aboriginal history through her family and many of her peers asked her directly about her culture. "There is more to what happened in our history, I feel like people are living too much in the past," she said. "They're living too much in the protesting of what happened to Indigenous people instead of embracing our culture more and putting it out there more." Deakin University NIKERI Institute lecturer and Dja Dja Wurrung man Aleryk Fricker said the Victorian school curriculum and the teaching of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history was inadequate. He said the commission's report would likely highlight the deficiencies present within curriculums across the country for decades. "It's often quite bitsy, it's inconsistent, and there's no real scope of sequence of engagement," Dr Fricker said. "One of the ways that we can address this is to support teachers to be able to deliver quality content better. "This involves professional learning and involves the provision of quality resources." For the curriculum to change Dr Fricker said recommendations would need to be passed through to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority which will liaise with the Department of Education before it's reviewed by the national curriculum body, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. He said the challenge in modifying the curriculum was that the content could not be standardised as First Nations history differed across Victoria. Dr Fricker said reform was needed across early childhood, primary and secondary education. "We need to recognise that Indigenous content goes across every single discipline area. Literacy was not invented when the Europeans arrived, nor was mathematics, nor was science, nor was geography. "These are all discipline areas that have had Indigenous knowledge as a part of them for millennia and these need to be featured centrally in all of these different discipline areas."
ABC News
27-05-2025
- General
- ABC News
Stolen Generations survivor Kath Ryan reflects on her life after WA redress scheme announced
More than 60 years ago, Stolen Generations survivor Kath Ryan was pulled screaming from her mother in Western Australia's Gascoyne region. WARNING: This story contains details that may be distressing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers. At just seven years old, she became one of thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Australia taken from their families. Years later, her own daughter was taken from her. But in the years since, she has reconnected with her family, graduated university and is proud to be a grandparent. On Tuesday, the WA government announced Stolen Generations survivors would be eligible for payments of up to $85,000 as part of a landmark redress scheme. It leaves just Queensland as the only state or territory without a compensation scheme for survivors. Ms Ryan, a 72-year-old Yinggarda elder, was at the steps of WA's Parliament House when the announcement was made. "It's wonderful. I cried when [Noongar traditional custodian] Jim Morrison told us," she said. Ms Ryan was born in Carnarvon in 1953, her skin much lighter than her single mother's. It put authorities on alert, with Ms Ryan's hardworking mother always on the move to evade welfare officials. When they eventually caught up to her, she was powerless to act when a seven-year-old Ms Ryan was shoved into a paddy wagon and taken away. "I was screaming and kicking and stuff like that. I saw my mum walking off and she didn't look back," she said. "The penalty was back in the day if you kicked up and carried on, you would be thrown in jail." Ms Ryan was placed in a Church of Christ mission in Carnarvon, where she spent her days carrying out domestic tasks and looking after the younger children. When she was about 12 years old, she was sent to live with a family in the affluent Perth suburb of Cottesloe. She said the prospect of going to a big city was exciting, and she went to a private school where she worked hard. But she felt keenly the absence of her family and other children who looked like her. During this time, she fell pregnant and was sent to a home for women and babies. But as soon as her daughter was born, she was taken from Ms Ryan. "I had no choice in the matter," she said. Ms Ryan went on to have six other children, whom she vowed to keep close. "No way was I going to let those other six go," she said. Ms Ryan returned to Carnarvon in her 20s but received a shock when she was ostracised by her family. "It's sort of like … as we say in our language, 'you've been living with Wadjela people, you've got to live that life now'," she said. But she persisted in rebuilding a relationship with her mother, whom she only spent a combined nine years with before her death in her 90s. As well as taking away precious time with her family, her experience as a Stolen Generations survivor also made Ms Ryan doubt her intellectual abilities. It was not until a friend convinced her otherwise when she was in her mid-30s that she pursued a university education, graduating with a degree in community health. Her granddaughter is now following in her footsteps and is pursuing a law degree. "It makes me so proud," she said. Now retired, Ms Ryan enjoys spending time with her grandchildren and other Stolen Generations survivors. But she said she feels deeply the loss of other survivors who died before the announcement of redress this week. "It was great to hear it, but a great sadness as well, because the Aboriginal people don't have a good life span. I'm fortunate, I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd reach 60, let alone 72," she said. "For the unfortunate ones that have passed … it's a little bit too late." For some time, Ms Ryan wanted to keep her story close out of feelings of shame. But she said the time for silence had long passed. "People need to know that these things happened," she said. "With this truth-telling and stuff like that, hopefully we'll make a lot of people realise these things are true, they're not just made up." The state government estimates there to be between 2,500 and 3,000 survivors of the Stolen Generations in WA. Registrations for the redress scheme are expected to open later this year, with payments to follow towards the end of the year.
Daily Mail
27-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
Stolen generation survivors to receive $85,000 payments as part of reconciliation efforts in Western Australia
The Western Australian government has announced a redress scheme for members of the Stolen Generations, after years of campaigning by survivors and their family members. Aboriginal people who were forcibly removed from their families in WA before 1972 will be eligible for individual payments of up to $85,000 under the scheme, in what the premier, Roger Cook, said was 'a major step in the pursuit of reconciliation and healing'. The announcement follows National Sorry Day on Monday, which marks the anniversary of the tabling of the Bringing Them Home report to parliament in 1997. Redress for survivors was one of more than 50 recommendations in this landmark report. Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities under accepted government policies during a period spanning from the 1910s until the 1970s. The announcement by Cook on Tuesday leaves Queensland as the only jurisdiction without a redress scheme. 'The WA Government has long acknowledged the historical injustices and their ongoing impact on the Stolen Generations, their families, and communities,' Cook said. The state government said it would also work with Aboriginal organisations to support communications, the rollout of the scheme and planning for additional measures to assist the healing for survivors. The WA attorney general, Tony Buti, said the announcement of redress is a recognition of the wrongs of the past. 'It marks a significant step in recognising members of Western Australia's Stolen Generations by providing reparations for surviving members,' he said. 'We hope this support can contribute to healing for those impacted.' WA's scheme is expected to open for registration in late 2025. The Healing Foundation, which represents members of the Stolen Generations, this week called for a national funding package to provide equitable redress and access to personal records to allow survivors to learn their stories. Prof Steve Larkin, the chair of the foundation, said ageing Stolen Generations members were running out of time. 'Many survivors have already passed away, without seeing justice for themselves or their families,' he said.'Even the youngest survivors are ageing now, with most eligible for aged care. Yet they are facing a system that can re-trigger the trauma of being placed in an institution as a child.' Larkin has called for a guarantee of at least five years of operational funding for organisations that support Stolen Generations members, including the Healing Foundation.
