'Never again' vows Rudd

16 Nov 2009, 1:13 pm   -   Source: SBS/AAP
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Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made an emotional apology to the 'Forgotten Australians' for the ordeals they suffered in state care, vowing such abuse will not happen again.

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Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made an emotional apology to the 'Forgotten Australians' for the ordeals they suffered in state care, vowing such abuse will not happen again.

Australia is "sorry for the tragedy, the absolute tragedy, of childhoods lost", Rudd told about 1,000 of the victims in the Great Hall of Parliament House, prompting both enthusiastic applause and tears.

Between 7,000 and 10,000 child migrants were separated from their families and shipped to Australia from the UK and Malta over the course of several decades, until the 1970s.

Promised a better life, they were instead raised in institutions and orphanages, where many were subjected to mental, physical and sexual abuse.

Australian history 'filled with shame'

Rudd admitted "a great evil had been done" to many of those children.

"We come together today to offer our nation's apology. To say to you, the Forgotten Australians, and those who were sent to our shores as children without their consent, that we are sorry," he said.

"Sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where so often you were abused.

"Sorry for the physical suffering, emotional starvation and the cold absence of love, of tenderness, of care.

"Sorry for the tragedy, the absolute tragedy, of childhoods lost.

"Childhoods spent instead in austere and authoritarian places where names were replaced by numbers, spontaneous play by regimented routine, the joy of learning by the repetitive drudgery of menial work."

Rudd said it was time Australia faced up to another brutal episode in its history.

Victims facing a 'lifetime of pain'

"The truth is, this is an ugly story. The truth is great evil has been done," Rudd said, adding that part of Australia's history was filled with shame.

"As a nation we must now reflect on those who did not receive proper care.

"We look back with shame that so many of you were left cold, hungry and alone and with nowhere to hide and nobody, absolutely nobody, to whom to turn...

"Robbed of your families, robbed of your homeland, regarded not as innocent children, but regarded instead as a source of child labour.

"To those of you who were told you were orphans, brought here without your parents' knowledge or consent, we acknowledge the lies you were told, the lies told to your mothers, fathers and the pain these lies have caused for a lifetime."

He vowed that such abuse and mistreatment must never be repeated.

"We must begin to make right a great wrong... and as a nation, apologise and make sure it never happens again."

Database to help reunite families

And said that it was vital that the eperiences of the 'Forgotten Australians' not be forgotten.

"The nation that forgets its past is condemned to relive it," Rudd said.

Rudd said the government will consolidate its records to form a national database to help those who have lost family reunite with them.

And he said he hoped that, from today, those who survived the ordeal would instead be known as the 'Remembered Australians'.

A 2004 Senate inquiry recommended the apology to those who suffered sexual abuse, violence and emotional trauma in state and church-run orphanages, foster homes and institutions.
  
The probe unearthed hundreds of disturbing stories of children placed in care due to family breakdown, because their mothers were unmarried or because they were considered uncontrollable.
  
It found widespread assault and emotional, physical and sexual abuse, as well as neglect, humiliation and the deprivation of food, education and medical care.
 

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