Lowitja O’Donohue was the first Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and the first indigenous Regional Director for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in Australia. Born in Granite Downs, South Australia, to a white father and a Yankunytjatjara mother, O’Donoghue was deemed a ‘half-caste’ and was taken at the age of two to the Colebrook Home for half-castes in Oodnadatta. The details of her removal are unclear despite constant searching and a recent investigation by The Australian.

O’Donoghue has no recollection of what she now terms her ‘removal’.

In a recent interview with a journalist from Melbourne’s The Herald Sun she used ‘removed’ instead of ‘stolen’ to describe the separation from her mother, sparking intense criticism from indigenous activists and various factions of the media. She was labelled a traitor to her people and accused of dividing the indigenous community.

In this speech, given at ‘The Stolen Generations Conference’ held in Adelaide on March 14, O’Donghue hits out at what she sees as a hidden agenda to discredit reconciliation and the claims of the stolen generation. She discusses the word ‘stolen’ and its various contextual meanings and tells the truth about her own story to the theme ‘I am black. I am proud. Dealing with my Identity.’

Thank you for that warm introduction.

The topic I have been asked to speak about today is, I am black, I am proud — Dealing with my identity.

It is an important issue to explore, and especially so for me at this particular time.

As you all know, there has been some recent publicity which has sought to discredit me personally — and to discredit the Stolen Generations and Journey of Healing campaigns.

On both counts I am pleased to have this opportunity to set the record straight. And to explore the meanings of what has happened in terms of Aboriginal identity and history.

But first things first.

It is important to talk about what happened in the recent interview which created so much publicity — not only here in Australia but overseas as well.

The interview took place at a time when I happened to be researching some of the issues surrounding the circumstances of removal in my own family.

This was a personal and private family exploration — and it was prompted by some contact that had been made from Ireland — by some relatives of my father.

The interviewer concerned, Andrew Bolt, claimed to have an interest both in my own circumstances and in reconciliation generally. He pressed the question several times about my father’s role at the time. And I told him that although the evidence is sketchy, it’s possible that my father took at least my older brother and sister to the Colebrook home in Quorn.

I told him that I have no memory of my removal and neither do any other members of my family.

I reiterate that this was never discussed as anything other than my own personal story with some reflections about what may have occurred all those years ago - when I was in fact only two years old.

This point was seized upon. Words were put into my mouth and I was manipulated — partly by his insistent questioning technique. It felt like an interrogation rather than an interview.

These were the circumstances in which I acknowledged that technically this could mean that it was perhaps more accurate to say I was ‘removed’ rather than ‘stolen’.

The rest is history as they say.

You may have seen the banner headlines proclaiming that I had made a confession!

Accompanied of course by a photo — taken from another context altogether, probably in fact a Sorry Day — which conveniently showed me weeping. The use of the photo, of course, reinforced my presumed guilt — that I had misled the public.

I have to say that I had never been so outraged or disbelieving or hurt, in the whole of my life.

And I can well imagine that many of you had a similar response.

It was a shocking experience for all of us to wake up to a frenzied media, which in essence proclaimed that I had betrayed my people, and that I had been living a lie.

I want to make it absolutely clear today, that neither of these claims could be further from the truth. I have spent my entire life working with and for my people.

I am black, I am proud, and I define myself as someone who is doing my bit for Aboriginal rights in this country.

I would never, as I hope you all know, intentionally do anything which would cause harm to our people.

If I am guilty of anything it is that I made an error of judgement. I am after all, human, like anyone else. I let my guard down and spoke openly about my personal life to a journalist who turned out to be unscrupulous.

I am now aware that the interview was part of wider agenda - orchestrated by those who want to deny that any violation occurred to our people.

This journalist is not well known in Adelaide, but he has apparently been waging a campaign interstate for some years, attempting to invalidate the claims of the Stolen Generations.

And therefore of course, he and his ilk deny the legitimacy of any attempt to achieve justice - or any change to the status quo.

It seems that we as individuals, and that the reconciliation movement as a whole, are very threatening to some groups of people.

Part of me wants to dismiss their paranoia for the nonsense that it clearly is.

However, as I have recently experienced - the power of the media cannot be underestimated.It feeds people’s prejudice and in turn, politicians adopt this prejudice as ‘the view of the people’.It is a vicious cycle where ignorance and misinformation become accepted as truth.

And in the case of one recent politician, for example, ignorance has even been used as the basis of her election platform!

Pauline Hanson proudly offers her ignorance as the very reason to trust her! She makes a virtue of not letting the facts get in the way of a good story.

But to return to the realm of reality…

I would like to clarify some of the confusion that surrounds the term: stolen generations.

Andrew Bolt for example, seems to think that the definition of stolen applies only where children were snatched, put on to trucks and driven off — with their distraught Aboriginal mothers screaming and wailing after them. (And even in these circumstances it is still often argued that it was for their own good.)

This was the scenario for many hundreds of people.

And I know that many people here today experienced such trauma. And for all I know, it could even have happened to me.

But it was not the only way that children were taken.

The attitudes and policies of the time - which were supported by the legal system as well as by influential members of the Church, meant that children of mixed parentage were removed.

The thinking behind this was, that the older and traditional Aboriginal people would die out — and that the so-called ‘half castes’, (assisted by their white genes), would become integrated into the white industrial classes.

You may have noticed that in the last few moments I have used the words: stolen, removed and taken. They are all appropriate words to use, depending on the context.

Certainly from the point of view of Aboriginal parents - stolen describes precisely what happened.

From my own mother’s point of view, she would have had no legal recourse. She would have had no moral support and no understanding that she might never see her children again. And no assurance that her children would all be together.

From her point of view of course we were stolen, and her life destroyed.

What word other than stolen could accurately communicate the fact of her children being taken away without her informed consent or understanding of what was happening?

And, from the point of view of the children themselves, most would not have had words to describe the event.

Because to find the words, you have to have at least some sort of concept of what was happening.

Most of the children had no idea of what was going on, or why their lives were suddenly so drastically changed. As people here know, the trauma and tragedy of this is well reported in the Bringing Them Home Report.

The language surrounding forcible removals can get very complicated.

The Bringing Them Home Report devotes many pages to explaining the subtle distinctions between duress, compulsion and undue influence.

All forcible removals involved some or several of these.

Whether the children were forcibly removed by the authorities, or whether parents were harassed or encouraged by force of circumstances to surrender their children, is largely irrelevant.

The consequences have been equally tragic.

Aboriginal people needed a clear catch-all term to give voice to what happened to us. And, as a press release in April 2000 by the National Sorry Day committee explained, the term ‘stolen generations’ was first used by Dr. Peter Read of the Australian National University in 1981 in a pamphlet entitled, The stolen Generations.

It was a title chosen to emphasise that the practice had been going on for five or more generations. It is a term that has powerful meaning for Aboriginal people.

And, it is a term that has been the basis of a re-education about Australian history for many non-Indigenous people who were misinformed or left in ignorance during their education.

It has been important to me in my public life to convey to people that the devastation caused by such policies is ongoing.

I have consistently argued that we cannot, as many senior politicians attempt to do, simply see these atrocities as something that happened way back in our past.

Our people live with the consequences of invasion and white fellas’ rules every day of our lives.

It is felt in the day to day racism that we experience.

It is deeply embedded in structural ways within the systems of society.

It is felt in the ongoing assumptions of white superiority.

It is felt in the shattered connections with family and culture and land.

It is felt in the hardship that our people suffer in every sphere — whether in health, housing, education, or employment.

It is felt powerfully in economic disadvantage.

It is demonstrated in the lack of political representation at all levels of government.

And, it continues to be felt in terms of what is currently happening to our young people, many of whom are still being removed in a variety of ways.

So what do we do about all this?

For a start, let’s not waste our emotional energies any longer on quibbles about the meanings of words like removed or stolen or taken.

Or whether it was 10% or some other percentage who were stolen.

Let’s not allow the mean spirited forces of conservatism to divide and defeat us.

Let’s not allow the real issues, the important issues, to be hijacked by the media.

Let’s focus on what has brought us all here these last few days — and focus on what we all have in common. And how we can together continue on our journey of healing.

What we all — I am sure — agree upon is that the legacy of colonisation, and the legacy of the policies of forcible removal, have been devastating for our people.

And it is a legacy which continues to impact on each successive generation, causing immeasurable grief and trauma and loss of culture.

This is why our people continue to demand that this devastation be understood and acknowledged. This is why an apology is still on our agenda.

This is why hundreds of thousands of people, from all walks of life, from all ethnic backgrounds, walked for reconciliation last year.

And yet still the Prime Minister refuses to budge.

But it looks as if he will indeed be sorry — come the next Federal election — when the new incoming Prime Minister will almost certainly offer an official apology, probably on his first week, possibly even first day, of office.

And won’t that be a wonderful moment of celebration for us all!

I want now to turn to another matter of what is our due — the thorny issue of compensation or reparation.

This, too, is another example of an issue which has been the subject of fear mongering by the media.

Many have been persuaded that an official apology automatically means that millions of dollars will have to be forked out by the government in compensation claims. There is no legal basis for such paranoia. An official apology carries with it no admission of legal guilt nor any obligation for financial compensation.

You only have to look at comparable situations in Canada and New Zealand, where this has all been done relatively easily, without causing terrible rifts or recrimination, to see that this is nonsense.

It has always been my own view that a reparation tribunal, or a dispute resolution tribunal, is the best way to go. I believe it to preferable to the adversarial court process.

Having said that, I also want to say that I respect the rights of others to seek redress through the courts.

But I believe that the legal issues are too complex and the likelihood of success too slim.

There can be a huge gap between what appears to be natural justice and what the legal system can deliver.

The Bringing Them Home Report recommends that compensation be widely defined to mean ‘reparation’ and that reparation should consist of:

1. acknowledgment and apology

2. guarantees against repetition

3. measures of restitution

4. measures of rehabilitation, and

5. monetary compensation.

It further recommends that reparation be made to all who suffered because of forcible removal policies. And this includes not only individuals who were forcibly removed, but family members who suffered as a result of this removal and communities which suffered cultural disintegration.

It also recommends that those descendants who have been deprived of community ties, culture and language, and links and entitlements to their traditional land, are entitled to reparation.

To me the pressing issues for us now are to demand that the recommendations of the Bringing Them Home Report are implemented.

And that the Government allocate adequate money to achieve this.

I was interested to hear Malcolm Fraser recently make the point that the Canadian healing fund to redress the historical wrongs of their Indigenous peoples is about $350 million dollars. Australia’s $60 or so million seems paltry by comparison — and much of this has not been spent.

The priorities for me are :

ß Access to personal and family records

ß Family tracing and reunion services.

ß Appropriate Indigenous health services to heal loss and grief, and training for health workers

ß Reform to the child welfare and juvenile justice system to ensure that there are guarantees against repetition.

Each of these is a topic in itself, and I am sure they have been covered by other speakers. They’re certainly covered comprehensively in Bringing Them Home.

I would just like to say that access to personal and family records is a basic right, and must be adequately resourced. All too often red tape and costly delays inhibit people’s access to Government and Church records. Rural and remote people are particularly disadvantaged.

Family tracing and reunion is one of the most important aspects of rehabilitation for the stolen generations. And I am full of praise for the invaluable work being done by Link Up and other similar agencies. It is imperative that they be better funded however, and that regional centres be adequately resourced.

There is a crucial need for culturally appropriate health services to care for the social and emotional wellbeing of Indigenous peoples, and to help heal the grief and loss associated with removal.

Training of Indigenous counsellors is a priority. Again adequate funding must be provided.

The area of child welfare and juvenile justice is one I feel especially strongly about.

Far too many of our children are taken into welfare.

There are many other Indigenous people who are facing a crisis with their families who will not seek appropriate assistance, because of the association that welfare has for them.

And, fear of their child's removal is a fear close to the surface for many.

Aboriginal youth are the least likely to be employed and the most likely to be living in poverty. And our young people are being detained in custody at alarming rates. For example in Western Australia, 61% of people in juvenile custody are Indigenous people.

Mandatory sentencing is an appalling travesty of justice and has been condemned by the United Nations.

We must advocate vigorously for non custodial options, and for diversionary youth programmes to help prevent the problems arising in the first place.

These are the areas where we need to put our energies. Each of us in our own contexts, with our own expertise.Within our own ability to contribute effort and time. And we need to keep up the lobbying. We need to become strident in our demands.

But I need to return to the title of this address:

I am black. I am proud. Dealing with my identity.

Yes, I am black and I am proud.

I guess I could even take my cue from the famous Aboriginal footballer, Nicky Winmar (known to some of you as the wizard) — and lift up my top to show you!

But you’ll be relieved to know you’ll be spared that spectacle.

Can’t you just imagine the front page of the papers tomorrow if I did ?

On a more serious note, I might just make the point, that using the terms ‘black’ and ‘proud’ can have a few associated problems.

We are all familiar with an additional prejudice that some of our people face when they are told for instance: "You aren’t a real Aboriginal."

This of course reinforces stereotypes about physical appearance or the significance of skin colour.

And how we look is just a small part of our identity.

Like everyone else, my identity was shaped by my childhood.

For me being a Colebrook kid — a tji tji tjuta — was one of these defining factors.

We are all at least in part, a product of what has happened to us.

We respond to events in certain ways and in turn, people view us in particular ways.

Identity is a complicated mix, but I can trace some important aspects of it in my own life.

I have no memories that pre-date Colebrook.

But I can remember as a small child at the Home spending many hours absorbed in my own thoughts.

I brooded about questions like:

ß Who is my mother?

ß Who is my father?

ß What am I doing here?

ß Where did I come from?

These questions were never answered of course.

And I never felt special or loved.

I think this is why I used to be a bit of a show off — because I wanted to feel special in some way.

I think these days they would call it poor self esteem.

I’m not sure — but often I felt as if I was an ugly duckling, and not particularly good at my school work.

I often used to wish that they would dress me in something pretty and frilly, so that life wouldn’t feel so drab.

I was actually quite good at sport.

I’m not sure whether today I could run the length of a hockey field.

But I’m pretty good at spectator sport.

As an older child I resented the assumptions of Colebrook — that we would spend our lives in some sort of domestic service.

My most lasting memory of Colebrook is that it was time of rigid rule-bound discipline, joyless religious observance, lack of privacy and a stultifying denial of autonomy.

When I left at the age of sixteen I felt I didn’t know how to make a personal decision.

But ironically, I had made one momentous decision.

Matron had told me that "I’d get into trouble" (ie. get pregnant) and that "I’d never make anything of my life".

I decided to prove her wrong.

And so part of my identity was formed from a rejection of what other people were assuming about me — and my people.

It was the beginning of a fighting spirit which grew over the years as I became more aware of our history and social circumstances.

Part of my identity is also as a public person.

And this means that there are many situations where people assume that what I say is public property.

Most of the time this is fine, but it is difficult to be constantly aware of all the implications of every remark that I might make.

I am also aware that when I speak, it is often assumed that I speak for all Aboriginal people — as if we all have only one opinion on every issue!

So it is not always easy to get the balance between being a public and a private person exactly right.

I might also add that as a private person, there are also issues for me about trust.

I think that I — like many who were removed as children — have some difficulties in trusting and getting close to people.

I think that many of us also have to negotiate between Aboriginal and white fella realities.

Sometimes the values are in clear conflict.

But it is also true that it is not possible to talk about non—Indigenous people as if they are all the same either.

This is quite obviously not the case.

Clearly, identity is complex and it develops in various ways depending on life events.

For example, I have only quite recently resolved some issues about Christianity.

This occurred as a consequence of the death of my sister Vi - and my reflections at that time that she was very special.

And being able to embrace faith and spirituality also contributes to my identity — both in the way I feel myself, and in the ways others see me.

Identity is not a static thing. It changes over time and with different encounters.

Yet we all have fundamental aspects of identity that give a central meaning to our lives. And we have our own individual ways of talking about these.

What we do have in common is our passion and commitment to achieving justice for Indigenous peoples.

We have a shared history and a shared future that we will forge together. And to do this we need to trust and support each other in our differences - as well as in our common ground.

Dialogue and debate are enormously important. It is only through honest exchange that we will be free to grow and develop and respond to new challenges.

But let’s get our priorities right.

Let’s focus on the big picture — on what it is we want for our future and our children’s futures.

And most importantly of all, let us trust each other and be generous with each other.

For it is only in a spirit of trust, acceptance and optimism that collectively we will be strong.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank people for all the messages of support I have received in the past two weeks.

They have been a great source of strength to me.

I am confident that together we will work for truth and that the truth will set us free.

Thank you.

For further articles/information:

The Age - A cruel case of absurd historical denial

The Australian - Mandatory training in crime and despair

ATSIC (The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission)