Institute of Advanced Studies

The Forgotten Australians: Identity, records and their search for the past

This lecture covered identity related issues for those referred to as the 'Forgotten Australians' in the 2004 Senate Community Affairs Committee report, Forgotten Australians: A report on Australians who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children.

Comprising more than 500,000 people, they are made up of three groups: the Aboriginal 'stolen generations'; those shipped to Australia from Britain, Ireland and Malta as child migrants; and those Australian-born, non-indigenous persons who experienced institutional care as children.

All three groups have been the subject of national inquiries, the findings of which have revealed that the loss of identity and connection with family has been one of the most traumatic and distressing outcomes from lives lived in institutional care.

Their search for the past through records held by both government and non-government agencies has posed enormous difficulties and frustrations for them.

Accordingly, all three reports of these inquiries: the 2004 Forgotten Australians report; the 2001 Senate Community Affairs child migrant report, Lost Innocents: Righting the Record and the 1997 Human Rights and Equal Opportunity 'stolen generations' report, Bringing them Home, all incorporated recommendations concerning the preservation, availability and access to records relating to those who have been in care.

Senator Andrew Murray was elected as an Australian Democrats Federal Senator for Western Australia in 1996 and again in 2001. He retired from the Senate on 30 June 2008.

In February 2000, Andrew secured the support of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) for an inquiry into child migration to Australia. Then in 2003, and with all-party support, again with ALP support, he initiated an inquiry into those Australians who were not child migrants but who also experienced institutional care as children.

4 August 2008