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IT was with a sense of injustice that Barbara Pelczynska realised the privilege that was afforded to her, 65 years ago, because of her European heritage.
She was doubtful she would have been offered the opportunity to make a home for herself in Australia if she was a woman of colour due to the White Australia policy – something Barbara said she found offensive.
Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal people was also cause for alarm.
Barbara was born in Poland and was about 20 years old when she came to Australia in 1951.
She left behind her a country traumatised by the events of World War II, and was faced with a society that failed to acknowledge the existence of its first people.
“Aboriginal people were not counted and that horrified me,” she said.
“I got [Australian] citizenship before the Aboriginal people did. That was sort of a shock to me.”
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It was not until a referendum in 1967 that Aboriginal people were counted as part of the national census.
That same referendum, which more than 90 per cent of Australians supported, enabled the Commonwealth to legislate for Aboriginal people.
But it did not impact on all laws affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Indigenous Australians are still negotiating with the federal government for recognition of their sovereignty and land rights.
“Now they are saying there will be a treaty,” Barbara said.
“I hope it will be something proper.”
For about 17 years, Barbara was a volunteer at the Jimbeyer Boondjhil Indigenous Unit at La Trobe University Bendigo campus.
It has been about eight years since the octogenarian stopped, but she returned to the campus on Friday to mark Sorry Day with a sunset ceremony.
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Barbara said the unit at La Trobe was first described to her as an information room with books and papers on Aboriginal issues.
Helping non-indigenous Australians learn more about Aboriginal history and culture was part of her role, and one which Barbara relished.
“Human rights are a passion of mine,” she said.
She was hopeful that, by sharing what she had learnt, she might spark an interest in Indigenous history and issues for other people.
“I really admire Aboriginal people and learned so much from them,” Barbara said.
“They know what we depend on: the Earth, and the natural environment. How many young people know that?”
When the unit was established, there was little information about the issues faced by Indigenous Australians.
Though we are now living in the information age, Barbara said many people still didn’t understand the issues affecting Aboriginal people.
“They don’t understand the connection of Aboriginal people to land,” she said.
Fellow Bendigo Sorry Day ceremony attendee Nellie Green sought to promote an understanding of the ongoing impact of the Stolen Generation by sharing her family’s story.
For most of her first 20 years of life, Nellie was of the impression she was one of four children.
She then found out she had two other siblings – a brother, and a sister.
First, she met her brother – one of two Aboriginal boys adopted by a non-indigenous family, which decided to move back to the UK.
A couple of years later she found out about her sister, who was with her at Friday’s ceremony in Bendigo.
“I hadn’t heard the term Stolen Generation,” Nellie said.
It wasn’t until the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission tabled its Bringing them Home report, 20 years ago, that she said the removal of children from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families became common knowledge.
Even then, she said, there was little awareness of Indigenous children living abroad as a consequence of adoption.
“People didn’t even consider there might be kids taken overseas,” Nellie said.
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She said meeting her brother and her sister was among the “real highlights” of her life.
“We muddle through it and we’re not unlike any other family,” Nellie said.
Both her brother and her sister were paired with another Aboriginal sibling in their respective adoptive families, much to Nellie’s relief.
“It might have been a white family, but they had each other,” she said.
It was distressing to her to think of how many Aboriginal young people were still being taken away from their families.
Aboriginal children in Victoria are almost 13 times more likely than non-Aboriginal children to be placed in out-of-home care, a inquiry found in 2016.
More than 17 per cent of the 8567 Victorian children in out-of-home care at the end of the 2014-15 financial year were known to be Aboriginal.
“Considering Aboriginal children comprise only 1.6 per cent of all children in Victoria, this rapidly increasing over-representation is cause for grave concern,” Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People Andrew Jackomos wrote.
The number of Aboriginal children in out of home care increased by almost 60 per cent in the two years to 2015.
Family violence, parental alcohol and/or substance abuse, and parental mental illness were among the most common reasons for children to have been removed from families.
Nellie issued all those attending the Sorry Day ceremony in Bendigo with a call to action.
“I think we all really need to stand up and make our voices heard because the damage that is done is irreparable,” she said.
In a statement released on Sorry Day, Minister for Indigenous Affairs Nigel Scullion highlighted the need for ongoing education about the hurt and suffering created by past government practices.
“In doing so, we can become a more compassionate and understanding society which will go towards reconciling the past and building a better future for all Australians,” he said.