But they knew about New Norcia. [it] was the capital of… like a place of sexual abuse, but they kept on sending us there. So, the Native Welfare was in on this, and the government at that time.

I never got my Mum; I never had her in my life. [visibly anguished] Because I was aiming that she would be with me for the rest of her life, you know? But ay, I was able to get over that trauma.

When I was taken to the mission, I was eight months old. I was taken away with my Mum, probably because I was being breast-fed. That’s why they took me so young, and my brother and my other two sisters. And we we’re taken to Carrolup Mission. When we arrived at Carrolup Mission, we were put in what they called ‘The Jail’, and it was a red tin shed. Mum told me all about it. And they locked us in The Jail, and it was in December so it was hot. And the elder boys at the mission went and told the supervisor or whatever they called him, ‘if you don’t let Auntie and the kids out, we’re going to break the door down.’

When we tried to tell someone about the abuse, we were told, “There’s some things God does not want you to talk about. How dare you.”

They called them the Protectors at that time, would call us into the room. We used to go to sleep at night they would come and tap you ‘Come along, come along, wake up. Come on, it’s your turn now. Come along. […] I was taken down the back steps and down into their little quarters, and then he would have a strap out and he used to beat me, and then he used to whip me with the strap and saying I was not a good girl, ‘bad girl!’, and then he would have his way with me. He would sit me on his lap and rock me on his lap, and then penetrate me.

Mum had our last brother Dean, and when he was born, they took him off her, because we were in the mission. They took him from her. And even though he was in the same mission as Anthony, Timothy and Cynthia, he had no idea that they were his brothers and sister. And neither did they.
And when I mention ‘stolen’ I’m specifically talking about our language, our culture, our totemic connections and our connection to families.

When our kids were taken away the churches kept our kids. There was a lot of money involved. So the churches need to be made accountable too. Not only the government but the policies that allowed the churches to keep our children away from their parents.

[Standing on steps of Parliament House] In 1905 the Act was put in place here. This same building where the ‘breed out the colour’ policy was initiated. Let’s not say our children were taken because they were bad parents. ‘Breed out the colour’ policy was the eugenics of this country, and initiated by A.O. Neville.

So you know we really need to bring that awareness into the justice system, into the government, you know, the government were the ones that put all these policies down in our past to make out live like this, to keep us oppressed, and we now need to empower ourselves, our children and grandchildren and we need to start healing them before they have children so that we can break this cycle of intergenerational trauma.

We had to readjust into the community. We didn’t act like our people. We didn’t talk like them. We were different so we was more or less like outcasts. Out families could only feel sorry for us for what we went through, but as far as understanding, the only ones that understood what we went through were our brothers and sisters at the mission.