Westbrook

Westbrook

Shayne Breen and Dyan Summers, Aboriginal Connections with Launceston Places (Launceston City Council, 2006).

Wonnarua nation (also known as the Wanaruah people) Wonnarua language Murri Qld

Confidential evidence 441 - Graham Personal Qld Westbrook Westbrook Training Centre

The only problem which I had at that [Aboriginal] TAFE was that the Aboriginal community there wanted me to go to these dances and get involved in Aboriginal dances in the community and all that sort of thing. But I couldn't do it because I hadn't had any contact with people before and all the whites told me they were this and this and that I should stay away and all that sort of thing; they're bad people. So it was sort of very difficult to get involved with Aboriginal people at that stage still (p. 210).

People go on about compensation and all this. And they don't seem to get the real reason as to why people want some sort of compensation or recognition. I need to be given a start. I just need something to make the road that I'm on a little bit easier (p. 261).

I was adopted as a baby by a white European couple. They were married at the time. They couldn't have children and they'd seen the ads about adoption and were keen to adopt children. There were seven of us altogether. They adopted four people and had two of their own. The first adopted person was Alex. He was white. The next one down from that is Murray who was American Indian. Next down from that was me, Graham. The next person down from that was Ivan and they were the five who were adopted into this white family. The next two after that were their own.

My adopted mother loved children and that's why she wanted to do this so-called do-gooder stuff and adopt all these children. After that, from what I can gather is she did the dirty on my adopted white father and they broke up. He walked out and started his own life, and she was left with seven children. Alex was 10 years older than me and he had to take on many of the roles.

Then from there on in, one by one we were kicked out at the ages of 13. It wasn't her own family members [the two youngest] that were kicked out. It was the five that were adopted. I must say Alex never got kicked out, although he suffered. He had to look after us and he couldn't go out and do what a teenager did and go roller skating or ... So he never got kicked out because she needed him to look after us basically.

Twelve, thirteen was the age at when she decided like we're uncontrollable, we've got this wrong with us, we've got that wrong with us, we've got diseases, we're ill all the time, we've got mental problems, we've got this, we've got that. She used to say that to us, that we had all these things wrong with us.

Murray was the first to go. When he turned 13 he got booted out because she made out that he had this wrong with him again. He stole things, he did this, he did that. He went to an institution. So seeing that we're Indigenous we all had the double effect: one was adoption and one was institutionalisation.

They took Murray. He went to [a Queensland boys' home]. Murray got caught up in the prison scene because he started stealing and whatever. He was angry. He was in the Home for two years. He got involved in a few stealings and he had to go to Westbrook institution which is a lock-up. There's a difference between care and protection and care and control. Where Murray first went into care and protection and then he had to go into care and control.

After that the next person to go wasn't me. I wasn't quite 12, 13, the uncontrollable age. Ivan, who was the one aged below me, wasn't adopted properly. He was sort of fostered in a way. There was a legal technicality there. So because he wasn't adopted properly, another family took him over and he's still with them today [now an adult].

So I didn't realise my time was coming, but basically when I hit the ages of 12 and 13 I was next to go. She met this new fellow. She wouldn't marry him until I was out of the scene. She basically said, 'Oh Graham is uncontrollable'. So she got rid of me as best way she could without her feeling that she was doing wrong (p. 417-418).

Confidential evidence 441, New South Wales: Graham was placed in short term respite care but his adoptive mother did not retrieve him. The court stepped in and an order for care and protection was made in 1985. He was placed in the same boys' home as his brother Murray. He was 13 years old. He remained in the Home until he turned 18. Having failed almost every subject in secondary school, Graham is now about to complete a university degree.

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Bringing them Home: National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Children from Their Families (1997)

Birth Confidential evidence 441 - Graham