Senate inquiry into forced adoptions found barbaric, horrific abuses

Regarding the Arts in Australia.
I know quite a few who are making a living out of the Arts.
I don't think the public purse should be penny pinching the artists we have here in Australia.
If it weren't for the Arts I for one would find little pleasure in life in Australia.
So much is paid into Sports from the public purse, why not the Arts?
With forced adoptions and the Arts to do with this, there's been quite a bit, and these artists are recognised for their input into this social injustice.
The books on forced adoptions are not found because they were not given the PR and advertising they should have been given.
This may change.
A lot of people want to know more about forced adoptions.
It will only be a beginning a mere apology, it's a process like any arts projects.
One place that is very limited in knowledge and shouldn't be is P.A.R.C. the Benevolent Society.
They say they have a library, yet it's threadbare, and not thorough. They're rich as well as funded yet can't supply the artistic output, one has to wonder why.

You who've said I doubt we are that society are really saying we are not civilised enough.
I see your point there.
How to make this country a more cultured, civilised one? It begins with individuals and collectives demanding more funding into the Artists' lives and the Arts world as a whole.
We have amazing talent in this country. Some of it is being sadly neglected, or as written, without means to even showcase in ordinary shopfronts.

I've also seen right before my eyes how the media as in television and radio treats their artists, it's a bully culture, and should be scrutinised and evaluated until it changes to a civilised one.
One of my best friends died too young in that industry and I'm positive it was in part due to the bullying she received.
This can't continue.
Neither can neglecting forced adoptions and how it's affecting and has affected millions.
To say thousands is a drop in the ocean.
When one person loses a baby by force there are effects on all who are connected with her or him. That's a lot of citizens of Australia.

Best with the apology, I tend to agree, it's tokenism, yet it may be more than I, and it appears others, imagine.

In Hope

The future is filled with endless possibilities and the potential for very good things.
I just hope the survivors of forced adoptions are having some lightness, some fun, even amidst a looming apology.
It may be more than you can imagine.
Negativity breeds negativity and we choose our own focuses and thoughts.
As a survivor of forced adoptions I choose to focus on all the loving, caring humane people in my world and leave the others to their own way of focusing and being.
I understand it's difficult to focus at this time.
Yet an apology is going to be given this coming week on the 21st March at 10.30am. This is only a beginning.
It's not like any other apology, no comparisons thanks.
Take the positives from it. That's what I'll be doing and how I think.
A good degree of cautious healthy optimism in oneself and others of humane loving like minds is positive thinking which has a great power no one can take away from you.
There's something healthy about being optimistic and involved in creative ways that rises one above the negativity in this world.
There's a lot of negativity and negative pessimistic people, to avoid.
Why indeed pay the price of unhappiness, one's own sanity, ever holding onto the pains when one can try to resolve them with counselling and fine friends.
As well as find resolutions in just ways to grow further to your potentails.
I'm not saying "get over it", I'm saying we do ultimately have a lot more choices today as survivors of forced adoptions. One of which is to try and see the positives in all the amazing people, and avoid those who bring us down.
We're already a bit down about this whole terrible business. And business it was, for far too many who were meant to care. That's their limited focus.
We are not commodities or objects today.
The apology will be given on "harmony Day" now that's something positive to think about.

I've read about one Lily Arthur from Fairfields Origins Inc. stating the forced adoptions survicors (she is one) should receive a small Centrelink payment (as compensation for lost life choices).
When I read this I thought of what I'd heard of this woman who has a husband and children, a home and is funded by the government with more than "a small amount" for the work she does with indigenous groups.
I was also advised this woman once went to court for compensation herself, and failed.
That so many are seeking legal compensation which would not be a "small Centrelink payment" I think this woman should retract her statement and start thinking outside of her own gluttonous grabs for whatever she can get, and demeaning many others who have so little and would do no better with a "small Centrelink payment".
Think Auchwitz and the compensations which eventuated from that horror. Think of how just like Sophie in Sophie's Choice these mothers had to surrender their babies under the most devastating circumstances and then think about what Lily Arthur suggested.
It's a form of Lateral Violence.
The victim in her case gains recognition and monetary funding by push and shove, and wants many others to have the crumbs.
As much as I'm focused on the positives of the forthcoming apology I can see there are those as Lily who really think they deserve a lot more than others, as though their own circumstances stand alone.
How crude.
"Compensation for lost life chances" are needed and not by handing the survivors a "small Centrelink payment".
How could this help a struggling mother or mother that was live better and heal?
Many are already on small disability pensions or the like, what is this woman's motives, and why her obvious gluttony.

I choose to focus on the positive people in my life and yet had to express this as found it totally off the air.

There will always be people who think they are above everyone else and have more rights than others, shame on Liliy Arthur for being such a one.
She is spokeswoman for a branch of an international forced adoption support group.
I found this on a Catholic website with my friend, when Laverty gave his Catholic apology.

As much as it's painful to again relive your stories in a court case, you all deserve large or legal compensations which will really compensate you for your lost life choices and mainly lost opportunity to raise your own born children.

To those who suffer at this time due to the realisation an apology is forthcoming so long after the fact, I am with you and support your justifiable anguish.
It's an uneasy time, as there are so many facets to forced adoptions which will not be addressed sheerly by an apology.

Now to focus on those who did so much to show the world what forced adoptions were and are; who did so without any form of gluttony, wanting justice, decent compensations and peace of mind for the survivors.

Thanks
Birth dad

Totally agree there is something very contemptuous about the tokensim if a "small Centrelink Benefit" for "Compensations for lost life chances or choices".

For those who think the apology may be tokenism this goes further and defaults the survivors into very submissive places once again. Too shameful.

I'm wondering as the news media oftentimes misprints what is actually said and as Mrs Arthur loves a lot of news media attention, if they did so this time.
If so, she's got herself to blame for any judgements made about her anyway.

With resparations and compensations, go for them and get them, you lost far more than most of us can imagine by policies and practices that left you in tragic lives and with pains that may never heal, we all wish they would.

I'm angry that so many are living off disability pensions due to the psycho/physical effects of forced adoptions.

You should be with good lives and livelihoods, nothing less.

Fight for your justice, and ignore the likes of the Arthurs of this world, selfish creatures they are.

Lily Arthur believes there should be NO adoptions at all.
She's told many this. How can she expect humanitarian allies with this attitude.
That's extreme rigid thinking.

There should have never been and never should be forced adoptions.
I fully support the survivors of forced adoptions and wish you all wellness, healing.

There are many victims who never go to therapy or counselling after huge traumas and end up becoming the tyrants. It's as though they position themselves as authorities on something because of their victimhood and gain a following then off they go without their heads on.
They've taken the little power given them not to self empower, rather to have control and power over others.

Sounds like there are some, or at least one adoption support groups with these kinds of figureheads.

As a person said in previous comments it's best at this time, all the time, to focus on the persons who have done and are doing the right things for the right motives.
When we have lateral violence you can be sure it's because someone has not gained self awareness which can only happen with lengthy good therapy. You can be sure too someone has gained a degree of power and is abusing it on weaker ones.

I think this is one of the reasons not only an apology and reparations are essntial for forced adoption survivors, so is in depth therapy. If it happened recently the therapy would not have to be so long, it didn't, that's another tragedy of forced adoptions how there were no supports then.
Those who've had lengthy therapy or are having this, it seems they are few individuals not groups, come across as more compassionate. They want the best for the survivors of forced adoptions and have high standards as one should.
They didn't involve themselves with this or any other causes because they were power hungry or wanted to dominate, they wanted to influence in the most generous of spirit ways.

lets move forward with optimisim and focus on these people and those we each know who as said are caring, positive, humane and loving. Those who consider all not their own self interests.

I hope the apology does some degree of healing for quite a few, if not very many.
Those who are self aware, it's a process, understand it's a large acknowledgement and given with consideration to all the mothers, fathers and babies who lost to forced adoptions. They also know it may aid resolutions but isn't the end of the story. Chapter one of something far different to any other social cause.

Please please please good parenting can come from single parents, often better than dysfumctional two parents.
One point.
Next Anyone who says publicly the survivors of forced adoptions require a Small Compensation Payment has no understanding of forced adoptions. The woman's a half-wit and needs therapy and a whole lot more. What a moron. What an insult to all the other survivors.
Just what is she doing with the indigenous groups?
You could sue for a fortune for a lot less than what I know of forced adoptions.
The last thing I want to raise is it's imperative the survivors receive financial compensation not small covering all their lost revenue due to the individual effects of their experiences.
Nothing less will do. There are funds available for this.
Someone has to compensate these people.

Don
Economist

We all know who runs the Australian Newspaper.
This piece about all these individuals being lumped together is rubbish.
Whoever added this comment you have every right to express your views or those of a newspaper, however they're way off key.
Single parents are not the same as drug addicts.
Not by a long shot, never were or are.
The very few may be only.

The topic and content is abominable, doesn't explain how the providers of services to vulnerable people are actually not doing things in the families best interests as in supporting them.
They're not getting taxpayers support.
If they are then well and good to get them back on their feet, if they are in the badlands.

This piece has nothing to do with forced adoptions and I've no idea why I've dignified it's addition by reacting to it.
It's rubbish, as is a lot of mainstream journalists and journalism.

As the 72 year old said they distort, or in his words, they are not doing the ethical best with real journalism.
Stop blaming the vulnerable for their places of vulnerability. There are causes and effects.
It could happen to you.

Show some compassion for the survivors of forced adoptions also by not including rubish that doesn't relate to this topical social injustice here on Indy.
What relevance does that scapegoating piece of journalism have to do with Forced Adoptions, Nothing.

Thanks Indy

I have known and know a lot of single parents.
each of these has raised into adulthood really wonderful young adults who are doing great things.
I know none of these single parents were on hard drugs, and it's also known by many you can't raise a child if you are on these.
That we have another lot of people popping their heads up speaking down about single parents is appalling.

In context they didn't want single parents to even stand a chance of raising their babies in the baby scopp era. and are again stepping on their necks for being single and parents.
Single parents should have everyone's admiration not contempt. What amazing things the single parents do for their children to have such good outcomes as adults.

It's a contradiction in terms to be a single mum or dad and also be a drug addict. Today however, they are being made out to be the same.
Noone can raise a child if they are on hard drugs.
We all know many are single parents because they've walked away from fathers usually who were on these.

Slightly different yet same topic of ignorant prejudices.
Today Nine MSN had a poll "Should vulnerable children be adopted out".
I know they always ask sweeping generalised and too often stupid questions this takes the cake.
EVERY CHILD IS VULNERABLE. IT'S THE NATURE OF BEING A CHILD. IF WE TAKE AWAY EVERY VULNERABLE CHILD WE WOULD HAVE NO FAMILIES AT ALL.
It's well known children are vulnerable, as are mothers when they have small children.

All the very best to the survivors of forced adoptions.
don't wear any stigmas anymore.

James Solicitor

I read the Australian and came to this conclusion.
Dr Jeremy Sammut thinks as follows:
"Toddlers should be removed [from their parents] before they were exposed to crime, unemployment and drug use".
This man from the Centre for Independent Studies has no idea of what Forced Adoptions are all about.
They were not happening to young ones who were in any way dysfunctional. They were happening to mothers and fathers who were made mute and helpless beacause of policies and practices imposed that were unjust and wrong.
Of course Dr. Jeremy Sammut is focused on the worst case scenarios TODAY and they being those of mothers and fathers who are very unable to parent. The few.
Forced adoptions was and is not about these kinds of parents.
I think Dr. Jeremy Sammut has a dark and dim view of reality re families and especially those who are, as we can summise from his comments, already dysfuntional prior to having any children. i.e. he is focused on the poor and weak who cannot defend themselves against his slaying words and meanings.

As if by some foul storm this man comes along with his negativity.
His harsh judgements on parents.

We all know the best of parents can 1 become unemployed, and these include the adoptive parents.
I know of one scenario where a forced adoption found the adoptive parents just so.
So, Jeremy Sammut is talking without a lot of insights, understanding, and without humanity.
I found reading the journalism pathetic, adding a dimension to forced adoptions that isn't there.
Creating the most negative stereotypes of parents that may be found in some instances today, yet weren't happening yesterday and have nothing to do with forced adoptions.
He is having a "spoiling" effect on what forced adoptions are all about, the apology, and for this he has to own his own outright contempt.
Finally any child can be exposed to crime, unemployment and drug use, not through their parents through the world we live in. We can't control what our neighbours or people in our society do that children may (we hope not) see outside their families when they are young or older.

What a very negative spin this Dr. Jeremy Sammut has put on forced adoptions and the apology.

I do understand that if he's trying to say "there should be room for adoptions" true enough today, not forced adoptions when they were from loving, caring humane parents.
Forced Adoptions that have been looked at in the Inquiry and prior were about these kinds of parents and as often stated often well off parents from higher socio-economic backgrounds, not all poor at all.

Jeremy Sammut adoptive parents can expose children to all you speak, just as can any other kind of parents, inadvertantly, and without being directly involved.
We live in a world where crime, unemployment and drug use happens. There are yellow bins in every hospital and place, to my horror, but there nonetheless.
Unemployment happens to many, including adoptive parents and the example I have written about, one of many by the way.

Save us from these biased, cynical, bitter rantings.

Thanks

Dr Jeremy Sammut assumes adoptive parents who are employed can protect their children (wrap them in cotton wool) so they never know about the harsh realities outside their immediate families.
He also appears to think adoptive parents are immune to crime, drug use and unemployment to his distorted thinking.
Also from what adoptees have said wrong understandings.
We as parents are there with major roles and one is to protect our children yet we cannot be by their sides when they are say at day care or school, where they may come across some of what he writes about which is justifiably wrong.
We can if one parent is a housewife with time to watch with every step of the way her son or daughter's activities. How many of us can afford to be home like this, and how many of us can easily be retrenched no matter what our credentials and good parenting skills.
Jenery Sammut also neglects to understand adptive parents are prone to all of which he speaks of, just as very poor and uncivilised parent/s might be.
What distortions of what the apology can mean, and what a dampener on Forced adoptions whereby the parents, at least the mothers were anything but dysfunctional.
Many from high socio-economic backgrounds with civilised ways and best intentions always.

Here's to some decent civilised journalism coming forward that doesn't demean those who are vulnerable also.
Shame on Dr. Jeremy Sammut for his outright pretentiousness.

Contrary to what Jeremy Sammut has said to journalist in the Australian it is not some but very, very many mothers and their babies whov'e suffered and suffer pain and anguish because of forced adoptions.

I believe Dr. Sammut has deliberately worded his talk on wrong facts.
The vast numbers affected by the causes of policies and practices of forced adoptions are not to be trivialised or diminished, yet this is what this man is trying to do.

We all know today it would be far better for an infant to have alive parents than none at all.
However, we also know separating parents from their infants at birth causes immense problems long term.

I can only conclude Dr. Jeremy Sammut is pro-adoption and has drawn up figures and facts that are also wrong.
We know today infants are taken from their "dysfunctional parents" and placed in Foster Care, whereby the real parents are only allowed an hour or so a month visiting rights. These are the infants of drug users and the like, not single parents.

Dr. Jeremy Sammut is so pro-adoption he forgets in Hollywood where adoptions are now very in there is a high level of hard drug usage, and of course dysfunctional families due to lifestyle factors, yet Sammut leaves this out. Being pro-adoption for overseas adoptions as well as intercountry ones.

These extremist views come from a man who has no consideration for parents, only the infants human rights are valid. He doesn't see parents change today and can with all the supports now offered to them.
That he leaves out the anguish of so very many, and states there were "some" who suffered or suffer is outlandish and terribly cruel. He's really not looking at the whole picture nor considering the realities of yesterday.
Many, many birth mothers and fathers suffered and suffer immense repercussions because of forced adoptions.
He is not one for family preservation, is a pro-adoption advocate, not matter what damage this ultimately does to families and society.

I'm appalled at his lack of humanity, worldliness and wisdom. He is a cold man with a hard heart who doesn't conceive of supporting families to stay together.
So many know separated children suffer immense loss and trauma from removal from their biological families, why can't he?

His arguments are very flawed, and that "some" we've all heard before. "Some" when it is very, very many.
How very distasteful the way he has diminished this and caused such further hurt to these many with not acceptable comparisons.

Mia

As a social worker I see the opposite of what Dr. Jeremy Sammut has spoken of in the Australian.
I also think he talks down to some of our most terrified and tragic ones who suffer.
This man has immense contempt.
I studied psychology prior to working in my present position and find Sammut is a thorn in the side of the apology and Inquiry all involved in Forced Adoptions.
I feel a bit sad dignifying Sammut by mentioning his bigoted, stereotyping and prejudiced person.

Fiona
c

Dr Jeremy Sammut has come up with some flagrant lies.
This that he speaks of is not happening.
We work in the field on the coal face today.
He's muddied the waters as one of my colleagues has said re. the huge numbers of horrifying forced adoptions.

Best of good fortune to the survivors of forced adoptions.
Ignore the Sammut's they have a lot to learn,nd areeady being scrutinised.
Trevorxa

What a dangerous and evil mind Dr Jeremy Sammut has.
He has shown by his words via the Australian that he's no compassion no empathy for those who are today struggling or with very severe disabilities. He's behaving like a sociopath by his words.
He is a man who has a lot of hate. I'm an ex-psychologist, gave this up to raise my two children and will be back in the arena after they are as my husband and I want them to be.

I find Dr Jeremy Sammuts commentary objectionable and shall ask my husband (a lawyer) if this Sammut can be up for slander. He should be and a lot more. What he's said and is doing here is very dangerous.
I'd go so far to say he's evil. I don't know what other way to describe how it affected me reading what he spoke to that journalist. They are blame worthy also for printing such propaganda as that.

Vile, objectionable and totally out of place when we're dealing with a very different social injustice called forced adoptions.

Full support goes to the victimised of these tragic forced adoptions. You are very many not a small SOME collective.
You are valuable and deserve the very best from this day forward.
May the apology tomorrow be authentic as it should be.

I have no idea how you survived these terrible things which were imposed on you.
Anon for legal confidentiality reasons
Available soon via media if we pursue this, it's quite important.

I'm a single mother who can't stand illicit drugs yet feels a great depth of empathy for anyone who has walked that treacherous path. They are trying to resolve what is apparently very very deeply disturbing.
That a doctor comes along and slings arrows at them is terrible.
He needs some counselling himself.

It's amazing how he views single mothers and yet I never allow people of his ilk to intimidate me or my necessary choices to be a single mother. I am not a bad woman and am known for being an upstanding mother/parent for my son.

What has surfaced is very harsh and cold blooded.
I can't believe this man has no access to his feeling world.
It's all about "taxpayers moneys going to what he considers they shouldn't".
Does he want single mothers, those on illicit drugs and the unemployed (of which he could become just like anyone else) to be put on a train and taken to death camps.
Left to their own devices, and without support?

I know one family where the adoptee's mother is on illicit drugs. It's not uncommon for anyone from any family to have one member who tries these things and becomes addicted. I'm not religious but there but by the grace of god go not I. In the world today it's easy to pass judgement on the less fortunate, now this man has to substantiate what he claims. They, I believe, are false claims.
He talks as though the adoptive parents are always preferable even to a good single parent.
That's highly illogical.

I go to a centre as a volunteer to listen to people this "doctor" talks down about, and hear of those who lose their babies because they have been into illicit drugs and so forth. It's quite challenging, knwoing they are suffering and have very little support.
How this man can say the taxpayers are paying for support beats me. I can't see this and neither can my work mates.

I can see and very clearly, the man has no sense of fellow feeling.
No sense of people as being able to transcend even the most horrendous backgrounds, and also no sense of time.

When forced adoptions happened we didn't have the drug problems we do today. There was alcohol, but no illicit drugs not even pot. If there was most people were underground with it all as I know a lot of people and they say no there wasn't.

I am insulted by this man putting me and mine as a single mother into a large category of no-hopers. How dare he.
There are so many remarkable single mothers.
Our Andrea Stretton, a long time friend of mine was one.
Jackie Weaver was one, as was Kate Fitzpatrick.
We all are appalled at this man's callous position regarding the apology coming forward.

How dare this man be so utterly hateful of single mums and place them alongside drug addicts and others.
How dare he not consider the immense suffering of those drug addicts also.
Here's one heartless doctor to avoid.
Don't be intimidated by his nasty vitriol in the Australian, it's political and propaganda at it's lowest degree. I pity this man. One of his contemproraries could be out of work in no time and he would label him "unemployed" and therefore one of the people who is not worthy of any tax spent on them, no matter what.
Shame, shame, shame Dr. Jeremy Summet, you do not deserve to have a doctorate in anything with your lack of awareness and human empathy.

I forgot to mention I find it very harsh listening to people who do violence against themselves.
Apparently I am a great help listening to them, or so I'm told.
On most days I work as a professional in health and my son is well looked after by my extended family when I'm working.
There was a time when I needed to be available for my son as a single parent and needed welfare. Isn't that fair enough? Surely the welfare has not lost it's care component.

I can empathise with forced adoptions because of people like Jeremy Sammut who have bullied me when they have found out I was a single parent.
There still is a father, he is emotionally unavailable.So I do most of the parenting, and live with my son alone.

I think Jeremy Summet should be sued for what he's said publicly about single parents, it's so hurtful and cruel beyond all consciousness and human conscience.
He's a very prejudiced neocon.

Thanks Indymedia

Here we go again.
This time a man of no cosequence is with a hate speech about single unwed mothers, or single parents.

Back off bullies, beware.
You're being scrutinised and judged this time.

It's true what the older man said there is an ingrained hate toward single parents in our society that we all need to be viglant against.

Do not wear his insane commentary, it's totally unjust, unfair and un-reasonable.
He's a very unsosphisticated drongo, mr. sammut.
I can't believe how he's distorted so much in the name of pro adoptions and discrimination against our most tragically tormented.

Single motherhood is something many people are admiring, as it's one heck of a job to be this.
This man belongs to the camp that 'hates' anything he considers 'beneath him'.
He's one of those people we all know who are called in psychological circles a sociopath.
Ignore his bully commentary, don't take it to heart, he wants this and feeds off negativity.
He's the Fred Nile of Academic circles, no less.
Laughable really, if it weren't so dangerous what he's spreading.

Abi(gail)

Anyone whose interested in understanding why Jeremy Summet has come up with all this carnage, he's got a PhD in Social & Political History and is in a think tank connected with polcy making today.

This is telling all just where he comes from and why he has said what he's said.
The government don't want to own their own mistakes and in the case of forced adoptions they are gigantic.

For all the survicors of forced adoptions, let his hate speach go over you, beyond you and out into the ether.
He's about to be called to account on several matters he's raised.

Sammut is an oppressor with huge prejudices.
He's also not far from being sued for libel as in defamation of single mums and ones I know are justifiably angry at his commentary in the Australian.
They're all well known, so who knows what's next for the Sammuts of this world.

Good luck to all the many survivors of forced adoptions, let's hope this apology is authentic and not distorted by Sammut's ignorant input.

I believe Julia Gillard has at least some compassion, if not a lot now with forced adoptioms, yet we'll see tomorrow.

James

What this doctor wrote in the Australian about mental illness people is outrageous.
Everyone to a lesser or greater degree has a mental illness.
What he's said is usually something I wouldn't dignify with a response either yet I'm repulsed people like Sammut can spew out such hate toward people who are not the same as he is.
Having said this, to say what he did he is not well at all.
It's outright flagrant discrimination.
He has no family of his own as I have come to understand or is with a bent on being a destoyer of human lives.
You can tell a persons humanity by how they respect or don't the most vulnerable in every society.
If they have no human respect for all people no matter what their disadvantages or advantages, they lack humanity and need help to gain it, especially being in his position.
He's certainly not an authority on forced adoptions.

Best with the apology, I'm sure it will be fine and hope it heals those I know, and all altogether, whove been through all those now in Hansard forced adoption hateful practices.
Becky (Friend and co worker of two birth mothers)

"We'll get by with humanity, to not care is insanity ...."
by Jenny Morris ( Australian Singer and Songwriter)

The National apology from Julia Gillard will be given at 11am this morning, 21st March 2013.

If you can't access it and are not attending, you can go to ABC Open Website (https://open.abc.net.au/) to see the transcript, hopefully.

There are other ways to get the transcripts.

Best of luck to all who have suffered what I could not ever imagine.

Les

The Government and all who did these things to so many mothers and their babies need more than a simple apology.

I have every empathy for their lives and wish them well.
Families and history or families matter.
Ali

For a copy to read the actual appology given today at 11am one can go to The Age National Times "Apology to victims of forced adoption" 11.35am March 21st 2013.

I'm looking forward to reading what transpires now, and if the governments do tangible things to really assist the healing of the mothers in particular of forced adoptions.
I'm also interested in what they can do for the adoptees as these people cannot sue for damages, or defamation etc.

All my best
Alan

Comments by the head of the Apology Alliance, Christine Cole, who lost a child through forced adoption practices:

"The apology has been a long time coming.

"It is an historical day for me and one that I have worked towards since 1994, I have been involved in bringing this issue to the public and educating the public about what happened to us," she said.

"I had my baby taken from me in 1969, and I think the use of the term forced adoption polarises the actual phenomena of what was going on.

"What was going on was kidnapping children, kidnapping newborn babies from their mothers at the birth, using pillows and sheets to cover their face, drugging them as I was drugged, with drugs like sodium pentothal, chloral hydrate and other mind-altering barbiturates.

"It was cruel, it was punitive and then often the mother was transported like I was away from the hospital so you had no access to your baby.

"In some hospitals the babies were removed from the hospital and the mother was there. This has been labelled as kidnap of the mother, kidnap of the newborn, so we're talking about really criminal acts that are finally being acknowledged and this is very important because it allows our children to know that they were not just given away.

"It wasn't because of stigma or lack of finances. It was because of a policy that was implemented coming from the Commonwealth Health Department, which influenced State Health Departments, which then had these policies going on within these policies going on within the hospitals."

Ms Cole says the Government needs to do more to reunite adopted babies of the past with their natural parents, and suggests the creation of a DNA database.

"We certainly need a central database because there are many adoptees who are undocumented, so they just turned up as if they sort of landed here from some alien place," she said.

"They can't find actually where they were born in some cases, or who their natural parents or their original family is, how they came to be here.

"And so we certainly need some sort of, even a DNA base, because many of the mothers who had their babies forcibly taken were told when they put up a fight that their baby had died.

"And then those babies went on in the family being lied to and told that they were the children born to the adoptive parents.

"So unless we set up a DNA database, for instance, so these adoptees can finds out their original parents, they have no chance."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/we-apologise-pm-tells-v...

If we had no books, no connectedness with our families of origins, if we had no history?
This is for Jeremy Sammet who believe it or not studied Australian History. His focus is uncompassionate.

To those who heckled Abott good on you, there has been (and I have consistently addressed this with the appropriate departments) very demeaning adoption dialogue.
No more.

The apology is only a beginning to resolutions for forced adoptions however I found the transcript very well phrased.
It included all who could be affected by the dark times of forced adoptions.

GetUp.Org have told a friend of mine they have no active interest in forced adoptions, by the way.
This is quite sad on their part.

Best wishes
Mother of two

I think it would make it easier to find this topic if you published at http://www.indymedia.org.au/2013/03/21/apology-for-forced-adoption-polic... from now on.

Thank you for your incredible 26,216 visits from 06/03/2011 (10:16pm) until 1:05 pm today.

It must be one of, if not our most-visited story.

- One of the editors

The Apology reinded me of Pamela Bridgefott's Expose at Taylor Square Sydney..
I thought it would have been good to have her sing some of her original adoption songs there and then.
The Apology wss done in a way to cover all parties.
It doesn't dismiss the fact that today there are times when adoptions are very real and needed, when they're not forced.
Good on the Government for doing this.
Taking a stand for these mothers and their offspring who were all affected one way or ano0ther.
I think from what I see today it's a very different attitude even if we still treat single mothers in a fairly unreasonable way.
Best of good fortune to all the survivors of forced adoptions. You're not victim mentalities, or not the ones I know.
Good on You.
Col

Now that Parliament has apologised, please post your comments at http://www.indymedia.org.au/2013/03/22/the-prime-minister%E2%80%99s-apol... to make them more easily accessible

When will the government do what they said they would?
There's been no immediate news media ever since the past pm said a victimising apology and later lost the elections.
A lot of us are eager to see justice here.
Johnathon A.