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FOREWORD

On conscription

“I am no saint or would-be martyr and I live as I have to live. Yet I am convinced that life is not worth living if one is not, at least on the important issues, the master of one’s own decisions. If others can make me kill and maim against conscience, I am less a man, a beast to be used and manipulated. Thus, I could fight in Vietnam only if I considered it a just cause ..."

From a letter written by a conscript, Geoff Mullen, addressed to the Australian Government in 1967 and published in his Sydney Morning Herald article of March 30, 1969

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On the stolen children

“At the age of four, I was taken away from my family and placed in [a] Home – where I was kept as a ward of the state until I was eighteen years old. I was forbidden to see any of my family or know of their whereabouts…”

“While I was walking through the bush the police and Welfare were going out to the camp which they had found in the bush. I was so upset that I didn't walk along the Highway. That way the Welfare would have seen me. The next day I knew that the Welfare had taken my brothers and sisters… “

From the Australian Government’s Bringing Them Home Report , The Report of the National Inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families.

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On forced adoptions

“I believe that a good environment will make a better job of bad genes … It is [a bad] environment which pushes the sinfulness into these babies. Adoption brings joy to the adopting parents and the prospect of a better life to the child …. The last thing the obstetrician should concern himself with is the law in regard to adoption.” D.F. Lawson M.B. F.R.C.S., F.R.C.O.G. Medical Society Hall East Melbourne August 19, 1958 in Overview of Adoption in Australia

“Upon the adoption order being finalized … the original Birth certificate was sealed away forever and was never to be released. The mother and child were forbidden by law to ever know each other’s names ….” Dian Welfare, Adoption Rights Campaigner (1951-2008)in Overview of Adoption in Australia

Between the 1950s and 1970s, approximately 150,000 Australian unwed mothers had their babies taken against their will by churches and adoption agencies. The report by a Senate inquiry investigating the Commonwealth government's involvement in past forced adoption practices was tabled in the upper house on the 29th February 2012.