Apology no time for self-congratulation: Abbott=3D2
PARLY 007Mon Nov 16 15:40:18 EST 2009
Mon Nov 16 04:40:18 UTC 2009
FED: Apology no time for self-congratulation: Abbott=3D2
Steve Irons, the only member of the present parliament who is a Forgotten Australian, said the apology was about healing the scars and "starting to set things right".
Mr Irons' brother, who he did not see for 34 years after being removed from his family at six-months of age, was in the public gallery.
He welcomed him to parliament and paid tribute to two of their siblings, who also suffered in orphanages but died before they could hear an apology.
"The disconnection from family that many people experience when they are institutionalised or removed from their family and placed in care is only something that someone who has been in that situation can understand," Mr Irons said.
The MP went on to relay the stories of other abused children.
Among them was Bruce, who was so hungry and neglected he licked the moss off walls, drank his own urine and at times even ate his own faeces.
Then there was Brad, who had been molested so many times by the time he was nine years of age that he did not think it remarkable when the friend of a social worker assaulted him.
"They are graphic but it is important that these stories are told," Mr Irons said.
"To all the Forgotten Australians, I can only say that I will continue to work to make sure that you are remembered."
Mr Irons also quoted from a letter sent to him by Cheryl Warner, who wrote to him on the issue of compensation.
"When you consider that I was beaten and tortured 6,000 times since I was 13-months-old to 16 years of age it works out to be $6 a beating, a rape, an indecent assault and battery," the letter said.
Mr Irons said it was now time for the nation to move forward.
"We can now only be judged by our ability to repair and rebuild these Australian lives because we have failed in the construction of them," he said.
Labor MP Richard Marles said the stories of the abused children "represented a world of pain and a great wrong".
"It will change the lives of hundreds of thousands," he said of the apology.
"What you have endured is no longer a dark secret."
