Dear Stakeholder Advisory Group members,
It's with great pleasure that I write this email to inform you that the Past Adoption Experiences Final Report has been endorsed for release by the Ministers and can be accessed on the AIFS website. Hard copies are going to be printed as well in the coming weeks, but I will be in touch to let you know when this happens.
We hope that the report will meet the expectations of all those who have put so much time and energy into assisting with the project to date, and indeed all of the many thousands of individuals whom this project is for and about.
Again, many thanks for your time and commitment.
Web: www.aifs.gov.au
ALAS sends our Thanks to Pauline Kenny.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Hurts of forced adoption must now be healed.
12 August 2012.
IT'S a national scandal, affecting thousands of Australians, that until recently was spoken of only in hushed tones.
While it is sometimes claimed that those involved in the forced adoptions of babies from unwed mothers in the 1950s to 1970s thought they were doing the right thing, the true extent of this cruel chapter in our history is only now beginning to be revealed.
A Senate committee report into the issue earlier this year opened a window into the true extent of the cruelty dished out, including birth certificates marked for adoption against the mother's will, and women drugged with sedatives and pressured to sign adoption papers and later denied information about the fate of their children.
On Tuesday the ACT will join Western Australia, South Australia and soon Tasmania in making a formal apology to both the women and children affected by the so-called coercive adoption practices meted out to an estimated 150,000 mothers around the country.
The federal government also recently indicated its intention to make a national apology on the issue and has established a reference group to advise on the timing and form that apology should take.
It has taken more than half a century, and even today some victims are only now making contact with their lost children. For many, a national apology cannot come soon enough, as thousands of Australians continue to suffer. Yet an apology on its own is not enough.
Many women, and their adult children, continue to battle the significant cost and bureaucratic red tape involved in tracking the birth families. It is a long, difficult and sometimes expensive battle to unearth the truth.
If the federal government is serious about righting the wrongs of the past, and bringing some form of closure for those affected, its planned apology must go further than just the symbolic.
It should include financial assistance to help those seeking the truth, a determination to collect, centralise and make available important historical records to those who have a birthright to see them and special counselling services to assist those still traumatised by their forced separation.
There is much the federal bureacracy can do to help these people find and recover records, especially with the state and territory based apologies showing a real willingness to help those affected.
Governments can assist the healing process by taking important steps like apologising. The importance of doing so, and the impact it can have on victims, should not be underestimated.
Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/hurts-of-forced-adoption-must-now-be-healed-20120811-2419p.html#ixzz23Uu0tQtZ
IT'S a national scandal, affecting thousands of Australians, that until recently was spoken of only in hushed tones.
While it is sometimes claimed that those involved in the forced adoptions of babies from unwed mothers in the 1950s to 1970s thought they were doing the right thing, the true extent of this cruel chapter in our history is only now beginning to be revealed.
A Senate committee report into the issue earlier this year opened a window into the true extent of the cruelty dished out, including birth certificates marked for adoption against the mother's will, and women drugged with sedatives and pressured to sign adoption papers and later denied information about the fate of their children.
On Tuesday the ACT will join Western Australia, South Australia and soon Tasmania in making a formal apology to both the women and children affected by the so-called coercive adoption practices meted out to an estimated 150,000 mothers around the country.
It has taken more than half a century, and even today some victims are only now making contact with their lost children. For many, a national apology cannot come soon enough, as thousands of Australians continue to suffer. Yet an apology on its own is not enough.
Many women, and their adult children, continue to battle the significant cost and bureaucratic red tape involved in tracking the birth families. It is a long, difficult and sometimes expensive battle to unearth the truth.
If the federal government is serious about righting the wrongs of the past, and bringing some form of closure for those affected, its planned apology must go further than just the symbolic.
It should include financial assistance to help those seeking the truth, a determination to collect, centralise and make available important historical records to those who have a birthright to see them and special counselling services to assist those still traumatised by their forced separation.
There is much the federal bureacracy can do to help these people find and recover records, especially with the state and territory based apologies showing a real willingness to help those affected.
Governments can assist the healing process by taking important steps like apologising. The importance of doing so, and the impact it can have on victims, should not be underestimated.
Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/hurts-of-forced-adoption-must-now-be-healed-20120811-2419p.html#ixzz23Uu0tQtZ
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Meeting 11th August 2012
Our next meeting is a north Brisbane meeting.
It will be held at a private home.
Please contact; Trish mob. 0417 077 159 for details.
!2 o'clock onwards.
Please bring a plate to share.
Gold coin donation.
It will be held at a private home.
Please contact; Trish mob. 0417 077 159 for details.
!2 o'clock onwards.
Please bring a plate to share.
Gold coin donation.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Will the Premiers of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria follow Western Australia's lead and Apologise for Former Forced Adoption Policies and Practices?
Will the current Liberal Premiers remember and acknowledge the words of its Party Founder?
Will our rights as mothers and our taken babies (now adults) and our welfare be recognised and will the Premiers do their "duty?"
Towards the end of his term as Prime Minister of Australia, in a last address to the Liberal Party Federal Council in 1964, Party founder, and longest serving leader Sir Robert Menzies spoke of the "Liberal Creed" as follows:
As the etymology of our name 'Liberal’ indicates, we have stood for freedom. We have realised that men and women are not just ciphers in a calculation, but are individual human beings whose individual welfare and development must be the main concern of government
We have learned that the right answer is to set the individual free, to aim at equality of opportunity, to protect the individual against oppression, to create a society in which rights and duties are recognized and made effective."
The Forgotten People, Robert Menzies, 22 May 1942;
"I do not believe that the real life of this nation is to be found either in great luxury hotels and the petty gossip of so-called fashionable suburbs, or in the officialdom of the organised masses. It is to be found in the homes of people who are nameless and unadvertised, and who, whatever their individual religious conviction or dogma, see in their children their greatest contribution to the immortality of their race. The home is the foundation of sanity and sobriety; it is the indispensable condition of continuity; its health determines the health of society as a whole. '
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
More News of the South Australian Apology.
Post Adoption Support Service (PASS) is not a state government service. It is provided by Relationships Australia SA and is funded by the state government. PASS will be hosting live coverage of the apology. For further information you may call them on (08) 8245 8100. Copies of the DVD will be sent free of charge to anywhere in the world. For further information about the apology, or to order copies of the DVD, please contact the office of the Hon Grace Portolesi, MP. 08 8226 1205. Please feel free to share this information with anyone who might be interested.
Thanks
Evelyn
Thanks
Evelyn
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
South Australain Legislative Council/ Wednesday 18th July 2012.
Notices and Order of the day: Private Business.
Page 5
Page 5
31. Adjourned debate on motion of the Hon. T. A. Franks -That this Council -
1. Acknowledges that previous Parliaments and Governments share responsibility for the application of some of the policies and processes that impacted upon unmarried mothers of adopted children, and now apologises to the mothers, their children and the families who were adversely affected by these past adoption practices and expresses its sympathy to those individuals whose interests were poorly served by the policy of those times.
II Calls on the Premier to move a formal statement of apology in the Parliament in relation
to-(a) past adoption practices for which it is now recognised that, for a significant part of the 20th Century, the legal, health and welfare systems and processes then operating in South Australia meant that many pregnant unmarried women were not given the appropriate care and respect that they needed and were sometimes coerced to give up children for adoption; and
(b) processes, such as the immediate removal of the baby following birth preventing bonding with the mother, which are recognised, in many cases, to have caused long-term anguish and suffering for the people affected - (March 28) - (The Hon. G. A. Kandelaars).
32. Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration (Registration of Still-Births) Amendment Bill (No. 37): adjourned debate on second reading - (March 28) - (The Hon. C. Zollo)4.
33. Criminal Law (Sentencing) (Mandatory Imprisonment of Child Sex Offenders) Amendment Bill (No. 42): adjourned debate on second reading - (April 4) - (The Hon. S. G. Wade)2.
34. Children's Protection (Long-term Removal Review Panel) Amendment Bill (No. 43): adjourned debate on second reading - (April 4) - (The Hon. G. A. Kandelaars)2.
Taken from South Australain Legislative Council pages.
ALAS has been informed that the apology will take place betwween 11 o'clock and 12 o'clock Adelaide time.
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