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From: "Kenneth Gregory Baldwin" <>
Subject: [AUS-Koori] Northern Territory Aboriginals Ordinance 1918
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 21:41:38 +1000


G'day Cobbers,

I forwarded Paul Mackett's email on the Northern Territory Aboriginals
Ordinance 1918 to a number of genealogical sites that I subscribed to, along
with the following covering note, below:

"Please accept this email to your list for the historical value that it
represents.

I have forwarded this email, which whilst not relating to the mailing lists
concerned, should be of interest to all and explains the presence in
Australia of the stolen generation, a genealogical nightmare for those
concerned.

For those of you who saw "The Rabbit Proof Fence", it should be of
interest."

I have received three responses, one denying the existence of the stolen
generation, the other two being of a hostile nature.

For your interests, I have included the responses below. These responses
show how sensitive some Australians are to this issue.

Pamela Ward []
I regard your email re "stolen, taken generation" as an unwanted
intrusion...shove your political barrow where it will give you the most pain
and stick your head up a dead bear's bum while you are at it.

[My comment: well brought up young lady. Wonder if her head got "stuck in a
dead bear's bum" and this is why she's so nasty??? This email I would regard
as funny if it wasn't for the nature of the topic dealt with]


1st Email from Bob Cunning []
This message has been posted to Kent, London and now Cornish list. It has
absolutely nothing to do with genealogy and I wonder why it is being posted
to so many lists? Bob in Melbourne

[My comments: wrong Bob, shows the living conditions under which one group
of people were forced to live, hence is of significant genealogical
interest]

2nd Email from Bob Cunning:
Why are you posting a merssage on this subject to Genealogy mailing lists?
It seems a cheap STUNT to win you a sympathy vote. Such messages have NO
PLACE on these lists and I for one am most UNIMPRESSED!!! Many people have
to pay for bandwidth and I am sure they do not appreciate such messages, of
no interest to them. Bob Cunning.

[My comment: Pretty sick puppy this one. Who wants sympathy, what does that
accomplish???]

Email from Cr CJ & Dr Julia Edwards []
Aboriginal leader sorry for stolen child claim
By ANDREW BOLT
23feb01

LOWITJA O'Donoghue - the nation's most honoured Aboriginal leader - admitted
yesterday she had misled Australians by claiming she was a stolen child.

"I don't like the word 'stolen' and it's perhaps true that I've used the
word loosely at times," a crying Dr O'Donoghue told the Herald Sun. "I would
see myself as a removed child, and not necessarily stolen." Asked whether it
would be better to state clearly that she wasn't a member of the stolen
generation, Dr O'Donoghue said: "I am prepared to make that concession."
And she called on Aboriginal activists to stop using the phrase "stolen
generation" and to drop legal claims for compensation.
"Stop saying stolen, start saying removal, and say there were degrees of
people being removed (from their parents)."
Dr O'Donoghue's admission will come as a huge blow to supporters of the
"stolen generation", which has led to more than 1200 claims for
compensation.
She is the co-patron, with former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, of the
National Sorry Day Committee, which has lobbied the Howard Government to
apologise for the alleged theft of thousands of part-Aboriginal children
from their parents.
Dr O'Donoghue, who has been awarded a CBE and AM, was the head of the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and has given countless
speeches as a spokeswoman for the "stolen generation".
"I was two years of age when I was taken from my family," she said in one
speech in 1998.
But after being confronted with evidence unearthed by the Herald Sun, Dr
O'Donoghue conceded that her white father might have given her and her four
sisters and brother to the missionary-run Colebrook Home in South Australia,
with her Aboriginal mother's possibly uninformed consent.
"He wanted to move on . . . he didn't want to be straddled with five kids,"
the former Australian of the Year said, sobbing.
"I haven't forgiven him."
Dr O'Donoghue's nephew, Professor Paul Hughes of Flinders University,
confirmed that to say Dr O'Donoghue was stolen would not "be technically
right in a pedantic way".
"In a technical sense, if someone's being brought in (to a children's home
by their parents) you can't say they were stolen," he said.
But Prof. Hughes defended his aunt, saying she had tried to be careful not
to say she was stolen, and that her anguish at being parted from her mother
was the most important fact.
"She says she tries not necessarily to say the stolen generation bit," he
said, after speaking to her about this report.
Dr O'Donoghue joins a long list of Aborigines who have been named as members
of the "stolen generation", though evidence suggests otherwise.

The late Charles Perkins admitted he was not really a stolen child, author
Mudrooroo Narogin was revealed to be neither stolen nor an Aboriginal, and
Cathy Freeman has wrongly suggested her grandmother was stolen.

A test case in the Federal Court last year found that not only had two
claimants failed to prove they were stolen, but four of their witnesses had
admitted they were not, either, despite lodging claims for compensation.

The NSW Supreme Court also found that another prominent member of the
"stolen generation" had been abandoned by her mother and been given loving
care in a children's home.

The "stolen generation" push now threatens to become an even greater
disaster for the Aboriginal cause than the fabricated Hindmarsh Island
"secret women's business".

But Dr O'Donoghue said that though she may not have been stolen, being
separated from her mother at the age of two had been traumatic. She accused
the missionaries at Colebrook Home of denying her any contact with her
mother.
But she admitted: "There were (Aboriginal) children there who were supported
by their fathers and were visited by them."
Two former Colebrook girls who grew up with Dr O'Donoghue, Nancy Barnes and
Faith Thomas, confirmed that contact with parents was not barred, and that
no children at the home were stolen.

[My comment: The majority of Australia State Governments have apologised to
the Koori community for Government policies that created the stolen
generation. For a DR (doctor) of what, I'm not sure, they don't show much
intelligence]

Shall wait and see what tomorrow brings.

Regards

Greg Baldwin
My Home Page: http://member.melbpc.org.au/~kennethb/
Researching the following Koorie names (for my wife, children & grand
children):
BULL - Lake Tyers, Vic
CARMICHAEL - Mt Gambier, SA>Lake Condah>Coranderrk>Lake Tyers, Vic;
CARTER - Lake Condah> Lake Tyers, Vic
COOMBES - Ebenezer > Lake Tyers, Vic
CORTWINE - Lake Condah, Vic
DARBY - Ramahyuck>Coranderrk > Lake Tyers, Vic.
DUTTON - Lake Condah, Vic.
EDWARDS - Ebenezer > Ramahyuck > Lake Tyers, Vic
FENTON - Coranderrk> Lake Tyers, Vic
FOSTER - Ramahyuck > Lake Tyers, Vic
GIBBS - Framlingham>Coranderrk, Vic.
HAMILTON - Ramahyuck > Lake Tyers, Vic
HAMMOND - Coranderrk>Lake Tyers, Vic
HARRISON - Ebenezer > Lake Tyers, Vic
HAYES - Lake Tyers, Vic
HOOD - Framlingham > Lake Tyers, Vic
JOHNSON - Lake Tyers, Vic
LOOLOO - Queensland
McRAE - Coranderrk, Vic
MORGAN - Lake Tyers, Vic
MULLETT - Mt Gambier, SA> Lake Condah>Coranderrk>Lake Tyers, Vic
O'ROURKE - Lake Tyers, Vic
PEPPER - Lake Tyers, Vic
SCOTT - Lake Tyers, Vic
TERRICK - Coranderrk, Vic
THORPE - Lake Tyers, Vic
TURNER - Lake Condah > Lake Tyers, Vic
WANDIN - Coranderrk, Vic
WHITE - Lake Condah, Vic
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