Wayne Costelloe is the Federal Aboriginal Education Officer. Here Wayne tells his family’s Stolen Generation story.

 

Comrades,

 

I want to tell you why the Apology to the Stolen Generations is important to me.

 

My Mother and her Mother, my Grandmother were both Stolen Generation members. My Nana, whose father was English, had fair skin, used to break down and cry when we would ask her about her youth. She told us that the Old People would cover her skin with mud so that she would look black so she wouldn't be taken away by the police to the dormitories on Palm Island. But, despite the mud or running into the bushes to hide, Nana was still taken. Then, when she became a mother she was sent out to work on the properties of NW Queensland (only to have her meagre allowance stolen and placed into a "welfare fund", she had her two year old daughter and six month old son (my Mother and uncle) taken away from her and placed in the dormitories of Palm Island.

 

There they received a token education but were trained to be a domestic or a labourer. Mum didn't know her Mother until 15 when they were reunited but by then the cultural and family ties had been broken and they had to try to rebuild it. Nana got an exemption from the Protection Acts and was allowed to get her children back. Mum's memories of growing up on Palm Island also brought her to tears.

 

That is why the Apology to the Stolen Generations is so important to me and my family. My parents and grandparents have all been called home now so I'll be happy to accept the apology on their behalf.

 

Thank you

Wayne