Dr Ros Kidd
Historian - Consultant - Writer
Pauline’s story
I
do feel very honoured to be asked to speak at this function tonight.
It’s a pleasure to assist those who work unstintingly towards achieving
an honourable resolution to our sorry denial of land rights, and to
bringing all Australians together in understanding the truths of the
past, so that we can move together, with honesty, into the next century.
When I first started researching the activities of Queensland’s
Aboriginal department I had several aims: to acquire for myself a
knowledge of government operations, particularly during this century; to
do a thorough job in accessing the widest possible range of information;
and to come up with new ways of understanding the rationale behind this
exhaustive net of controls and how they were exercised. I didn’t want
just an investigation at the level of government practices; I wanted
insights into how these practices impacted on Aboriginal lives. I kept
thinking, in another life this could have been me, how would I have
coped?
I
have to admit I did not think beyond the completion of the project. I
never thought of the wider ramifications of this personal quest for
understanding: that others were also hungry for knowledge so they could
make their own judgements rather than just accept official assertions;
that my detailed account might be the basis not only for further
research but also for those seeking to mount legal actions for past
malpractices.
It
is true that the last 8 years have been an extraordinarily busy and
difficult time for me; they have also been an amazing learning
experience. Like countless other white people, I am horrified at how
late it was in life that I came to learn the terrible realities endured
by Aboriginal families at the hands of governments. And this knowledge
is very confronting: because I’m one of the millions of Australians who
have never gone hungry, I have never been cast adrift from my family, I
have always had a roof over my head, a warm bed, my wages in my hand to
spend on my needs.
So
when people compliment me on my work and perseverance, I know that my
self-inflicted trials are nothing compared with those whose life
experiences form the context of my writings. It has been by choice that
I struggle to convert a mass of bureaucratic information into digestible
portions, to reveal both the pitiless framework of controls and the
trauma endured by those dragged into this system. In contrast, the
people whose lives are so painfully etched on the documents were, of
course, deprived, almost always, of their choice. And they were
also deprived, effectively, of a voice in their own, and their
children’s, lives. So this is a perspective which never leaves me: To
spend your time in comfort, pursuing by choice an intellectual
challenge, is no comparison.
Now I cannot claim to speak adequately for those whose struggle I have
not myself experienced.
But I can do my best to honour that struggle by alerting others to its
reality.
Pauline's Story
I
thought tonight I would tell you a story. All the facts are true. It’s
the story of a little girl. I thought I would call it - Pauline’s story.
Pauline’s earliest memories go back to some time in the 1930s, when she
was about 5 years old. She lived with her mother, older brother and
sister, and a whole lot of family in north Queensland. Her father was
German; she never knew his name. All her family lived in the Aboriginal
way in a little humpy. Her mum taught her right language and customs;
and all the children learned how to get bush tucker.
One day the police rode in and told the mothers all the half-caste kids
were going to be sent to Palm Island the next day. They told her mother
if she ran away they would shoot her. All the mothers were terrified.
They killed a goanna and mixed its blood with ashes and smeared it on
the children to make them look darker. It didn’t work. Next day they
were rounded up and put on the train, and then on the boat to Palm
Island. Pauline cried as she remembered the screaming and wailing of her
relatives. She never saw them again.
Although her mother had been taken with her, Pauline was separated from
her and put in the girls’ dormitory with her sister. Life in the
dormitory was hard and cruel. The matron hit you with a big stick if you
did anything wrong: if you didn’t do what you were told, if you wet your
bed, if you didn’t do your work, if you tried to talk to your family
through the wire fence. For weeks Pauline cried herself to sleep every
night.
She had only been there a few months when the matron spoke to her. She
said she would keep Pauline as her own daughter and teach her how to be
a good girl - good at cleaning and cooking and looking after the
matron’s baby. Pauline remembers with pride that she was "one of the
family". She ate and slept at the matron’s house; but she ate by herself
in the kitchen, and slept on a sapling and bag bed in the laundry. Until
she was ten she can only remember cleaning and working and minding the
children. She was given no schooling and feels shame that, as an old
lady today, she does not know how to read and write. One day she was
told her mother had died.
When the matron left Palm Island, Pauline was put back in the dormitory
to look after the smaller children. Here she worked from 7 in the
morning until 7 at night, and then was locked up with about 200 other
girls. There were not enough beds and Pauline remembers sleeping three
to a bed, head to foot, on a filthy sheet and a single blanket; they
were often very cold. There were no lights in the dormitory, only one
lantern. There was nothing to do for the 12 hours, just look out through
the wire. Occasionally the new matron would come and they would sing
songs. Sometimes the bigger girls would run away during the day. When
they were caught they were made to wear bag dresses and sweep the
streets with a broom made of bladey grass. Many had their heads shaved
so everyone could see their shame.
Every second weekend Pauline was allowed out to stay with her aunties
and cousins in an earth-floor shack made of timber and sheet iron. They
also slept several to a bed, and cooked over an outside fire using jam
tins for pots and bowls. Pauline never got any pay for her work in the
dormitory, which continued until she was about 15.
Her elder sister, Netta, after a couple of years in the dormitory and
four hours’ lessons a day at the school, had already been sent away to
work. Soon after she turned 14 she had been called into the office with
a few other girls and told they had to go to work on the stations. The
girls were frightened and crying but the superintendent just said that’s
where you’re going, and told them to sign the work agreements. They were
given one change of clothes, some shoes and a little money and put on
the boat to Townsville. The police met the boat and put them in the
watchhouse overnight. There were drunks and foul-mouthed men and her
sister was terrified. Next day the police put her on a train for
Cloncurry.
Netta told Pauline there were no other youngsters on the property and no
Aboriginal people to talk to. She was well treated but the work was hard
- from 5am until after all the supper was cleared away and dishes washed
around 9.30pm, 7 days a week. She had to light the stove, scrub floors,
prepare meals, clean the house, mind 3 little children, do washing and
ironing and work around the yard. Every few months she would be given a
few shillings when they went in to town. Other than that she never saw
any money. For six years Netta was sent out to work on different
pastoral stations, and was allowed only two weeks on Palm Island each
year as a holiday. Even after her little boy was born, after the boss’s
son had persuaded her to have sex, she was still sent out to work with
her baby, but at a cheaper rate of pay. When her baby was four, Netta
was put back in the dormitory for 6 months, but then she married a Palm
Island man and was allowed to stay in the village. They never let her
have the money she earned; for a while the superintendent gave her a
docket to buy some extra rations from the store, until one day he said
there was no money left.
We
know now that the government took direct control of all the wages of
those in employment, except for a little pocket money which was supposed
to be regularly paid, but in fact was never properly checked. We know
that wages went to the local police, nominated as protectors of
Aboriginals, who were supposed to make sure workers were not cheated of
their money when they made purchases. But this system, in reality,
simply deprived workers of their earnings: permission was needed, and
frequently refused, to make even the smallest purchase. The records show
widespread fraud and embezzlement by the police themselves, facilitated
by the government’s refusal to allow people to see their own bankbooks.
And this system continued until the late 1960s. The records show the
government withheld the greater portion of workers’ earnings, building
up a huge stockpile of wealth which was then profitably invested - in
public utilities and rural hospitals - to bring in revenue to offset
outlays on administration. By the 1960s the government was sitting on
£987,000 of Aboriginal money, that’s almost $17 million today, while
those whose earnings and labour had generated this bonanza were still
living and dying in poverty.
But we’ll return to our story. It was around 1950 that Pauline was
married to a boy she had spoken to a few times on the occasional day
when the dormitory girls were allowed to sit in Mango avenue, under
police guard, and talk to selected young men. Mango avenue was where the
white staff lived and it was out of bounds to Palm Islanders. Once girls
reached their teens they could not even go down to the store or to
church without a police escort. Although Pauline quite liked Bill she
was a bit dismayed when the matron told her she was going to be married
to him in a mass wedding ceremony with 6 other dormitory girls.
After she was married Pauline still worked every day in the dormitory.
She was pregnant with her second child when her first son turned 5 and
was put in the boys’ dormitory. She used to go to the showers near the
boys’ dormitory and wave to him through the wire. Mostly he was waiting
there for her. Many evenings and weekends the matron used to ring her
bell and Pauline would have to go and serve dinner to her visitors or
sometimes just carve the roast. She never got any extra money for this,
just 6/- each week for pocket money.
After a couple of years she started work in the hospital laundry and was
paid £2 or £3 a fortnight (that’s $50 today). Now she had her children
with her, but life was very hard. Mostly they had to survive on rations
- so many scoops of rice, tea, sugar and washing soap. Everyone was
always hungry: the men went fishing after work to feed their families,
and Pauline was grateful she had never forgotten what her mother taught
her about bush food. Once a year they were given a set of clothes. Not
much return for 2 full-time workers.
At
first Pauline and Bill lived in a sapling and palm-frond hut with
earthen floors and boards for a bed, but then moved into a bush timber
hut with a cement floor and tin roof. But when it rained the water ran
inches deep through the house and Pauline kept the children on the bed
to keep them dry. She was terrified that if the matron came and saw the
water she would take the children away, saying she was not looking after
her house and her family. So Pauline spent all the time sweeping
frantically to take the water out.
Bill had been working on the island since he was 14. For several years
he helped fell the trees and cart the logs to the mill, and then they
put him to work clearing the airstrip and carving a road round the
craggy hill back to the settlement. He never got any pay for this. It
was only after he married, when he was working in the boatshed 5 days a
week, doing carpentry, metalwork and general maintenance, that he got a
wage. By the late 1960s he was paid $21 a fortnight (about $153 today).
By
this time Pauline and Bill had 6 children. Life was a terrible struggle.
During the 1970s when new commonwealth houses were built with tap water
and electricity, they couldn’t afford the rent. Although Bill was now
working in the mill and Pauline worked part-time cleaning the hostel
there were many times when everyone went to bed hungry. Wages got better
during the late 1970s but then suddenly Bill was sacked along with many
others. All the building and maintenance gangs were slashed, houses
deteriorated, and few new homes were completed. In the early 1980s
Pauline’s sister and her family had to move in with them, and with 4 of
their own children and two grandchildren also at home there was much
tension. Records of the time show an average of 12 people to each small
3-bedroom house on the island, and 99 people for every one waged worker.
Like many other men with no work, Bill was now drinking heavily and
there were many fights. Often the women and children hid away with other
relations just to escape the trouble. Finally Pauline told Bill he would
have to stay away; she was better off without him on a pension than
having him drink his dole money and beat them up. It broke her heart to
send him away but she was tired of being frightened and worried for
herself and her family. There were many men and women who lost their way
- and their lives - to alcohol and despair.
This, very briefly, has been the story of Pauline. Although, I will
admit, Pauline is a fictional character, all of the evidence you have
heard is all too real, culled from the experiences of real people, whose
lives are a recording of real pain, of deprivation, of humiliation.
How different it could have been. What if Pauline had not been taken
away to Palm Island, deprived of her freedom, trapped in a cycle of
poverty? She may have been one of the thousands of people of Aboriginal
descent who were never made wards of state, who went to ordinary school
and got jobs and had access to their own money. What if she had been
given proper schooling on Palm Island and been trained as a nurse, an
unfulfilled dream? How different life would have been if she and Bill
had been paid the same wage as white workers, if she and Bill had been
allowed to spend the rewards of their labour on their home and their
family, instead of struggling in poverty and destitution while the
government added their money into the bulging trust funds, or economised
by underpaying them.
Many people today say that to acknowledge this pain is to wallow
unnecessarily in guilt. But when governments claim the moral high ground
for so-called "well-intentioned" practices of the past they are in fact
invoking a collective social amnesia. They are hoping that a century of
poverty, hunger, sickness, despair, under-education and under- or
non-employment will continue to be blamed on those who were trapped,
unwillingly, in the most comprehensive regime of controls ever imposed
in this country. But surely the body which controlled all aspects of
Aboriginal lives for all of this century must be questioned as to why
its guardianship created and sustained the worst outcomes on all social
indicators for those unhappy "wards of state"? Guardianship which
continued until only a decade ago here in Queensland cannot be masked as
a "well-intentioned" policy of the past.
Acknowledging the truth of the past has nothing to do with
self-defeating guilt. It is about living honestly in the present. We
must all know the whole truth of how governments have operated to
dictate the possibilities and limitations of Aboriginal lives. We must
ask why children who were removed from families and homelands "for their
own protection" were then institutionalised in dormitories which were
well known as health risks, were fed rations which were well known as
medically inadequate, were given schooling which was well known as
substandard, were encaged and suffered shameful punishments merely for
acting like the children they were. We must ask why young teenagers were
sent to remote properties as cheap labour when for decades official
records showed the physical and sexual dangers they were prey to. We
must ask why people who worked all their lives were deprived of the bulk
of their savings, and why they were then somehow blamed for living in
overcrowded poverty. What other agency of "care" would be allowed to
walk away from 80 years of failure in its duty? And insist that those
whose lives were so dreadfully damaged have no right to question their
judgement, that they are vindictive in exposing the scandals, that they
are ungracious to seek an apology.
There are workers today who have legal actions underway to regain their
missing savings, or to be paid money wrongfully withheld by the
government which always illegally underpaid Aboriginal employees on the
communities. Other actions are in train to expose the whole of the
government’s mishandling of trust funds, of accumulated savings, of
pensions and child endowment. We know trust funds were spent on
development projects on missions and settlements, we know the bulk of
private savings was withheld to raise revenue for the department, we
know child endowment was diverted to capital works, we know only a small
portion of pensions was passed on to the elderly, to widows, to
invalids. We know the government sacked 1500 workers between the
mid-1970s and the mid-1980s in full knowledge of the devastation to
housing and community amenities, brought frequently to crisis point, and
in full knowledge of the devastation to the social fabric - they even
discussed the inevitable increase in violence and alcoholism this policy
would cause. We know the government did this out of a bloody-minded
determination not to put a single cent towards paying its Aboriginal
workers the legal wage.
So
when we hear talk of "extra" money going to Aboriginal communities
today, of "positive discrimination" in funding to address appalling
health and housing and living conditions endured in so many Aboriginal
communities, be well aware that this money is not "for Aborigines". It
is to redress deficiencies in government management. It is to redress
money withheld - both through intention and through negligence - during
a century of government control.
As
whites, we should feel angry that we have been kept ignorant for so
long. We should now demand accountability and justice. We should all
stand together and say, Never again. Above all, we should remember that
anyone of us, in another time and another place, might have been this
Pauline.
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