Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM. This week,
Speaker 1: devastating figures were released which show the overrepresentation of Aboriginal
Speaker 1: and Torres RD Islander children in out of home care
Speaker 1: and the child protection system. It's damning evidence that not
Speaker 1: enough has changed since the Stolen Generations. Last year, we
Speaker 1: published a story about the long shadow cast by a
Speaker 1: policy of child removal centered on the notorious Kinchella Boy's
Speaker 1: Home in New South Wales. It's a place that holds
Speaker 1: painful memories for the many survivors of the Stolen Generations
Speaker 1: who went through its doors. Hundreds of Indigenous boys were
Speaker 1: sent there and subjected to torture, abuse and reprogramming in
Speaker 1: order to assimilate them into white society. Now, the survivors
Speaker 1: and their families want to take ownership of the site
Speaker 1: to make it a place of healing for future generations.
Speaker 1: Today Gernacai and Watchabalic writer and contributor to The Saturday Paper,
Speaker 1: Ben Abertangelo on the enduring legacy of the Kinchella Boys
Speaker 1: Home and just a Warning. Today's episode discusses abuse and suicide.
Speaker 1: It's Sunday, December fourteenth. This episode was originally published in
Speaker 1: October twenty twenty four. So then you've been looking into
Speaker 1: this home, this institution where original children were sent for decades.
Speaker 1: It's called the Kinchilla Boys Home. Tell me about the place.
Speaker 2: Well, Kinchillar is known as one of the most notorious homes.
Speaker 2: It was open in the nineteen twenties and closed down
Speaker 2: in the early nineteen seventies. Young boys from across New
Speaker 2: South Wales predominantly were taken from their families and institutionalized
Speaker 2: at that home and just went through some of the
Speaker 2: most torturous years of their lives. So the children were
Speaker 2: as young as six or seven up to fourteen, fifteen,
Speaker 2: sixteen years of age, and you know, across varying periods
Speaker 2: of time, were just subject to humiliation, to torture, to slavery,
Speaker 2: to sexual assault, to rapes, to indentioned servitude, to just
Speaker 2: the most brutal reprogramming and re engineering that I think
Speaker 2: this country has seen. So yeah, it's a really tough
Speaker 2: story to cover. There's now only forty nine of the
Speaker 2: six hundred survivors remaining. Four of those uncles have passed
Speaker 2: in the last four to six months, so there's a
Speaker 2: real sense of urgency around the fact that a lot
Speaker 2: of these young people who are now old that went
Speaker 2: through that home, you know, are now coming towards.
Speaker 3: The end of their lives.
Speaker 1: Okay, So these boys who made it out, who survived
Speaker 1: that torture that you described, can you tell me more
Speaker 1: about them, about their stories.
Speaker 2: I was really humbled to get the opportunity to hold
Speaker 2: the stories of people like Uncle Roger Pigeon Jarrett. Can
Speaker 2: you just start with me by just telling me your
Speaker 2: name in full, Rotch Jarrett. He speaks about June twenty five,
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight, when he was merely eleven years old,
Speaker 2: and he speaks with just vivid clarity about the day
Speaker 2: that the big black English riley rolled onto the mission,
Speaker 2: and how the sergeant stepped out of the car, came
Speaker 2: up to the house, sat his mother down on the
Speaker 2: verandah outside of their little home. I shot mom down
Speaker 2: there and just said to her, missus Jarrett, if you
Speaker 2: signed these papers, your kids will return within twelve months.
Speaker 2: Uncle Roger's mother didn't have a formal education. She knew
Speaker 2: that she was confronted with an ultimatum, and within the
Speaker 2: confluence of those circumstances, she signed those papers. Now, Uncle
Speaker 2: Roger reflects on you know, only being eleven years of age.
Speaker 3: His other brother was only six, and he.
Speaker 2: Speaks again with just real clarity about the moment that
Speaker 2: the sergeant who was acting on behalf of the Aboriginal
Speaker 2: Welfare Board grabbed him. Was going so he says that,
Speaker 2: you know, as they grabbed him, he clutched his mother's dress,
Speaker 2: and you know, the sergeant just was wrangling like a
Speaker 2: piece of meat.
Speaker 4: A mom was crying. After this day, I still three
Speaker 4: with on my arm.
Speaker 2: He said that the sergeant basically grabbed him, dragged him
Speaker 2: to the car and threw him in the back. And
Speaker 2: you know, he can still remember sliding across those seats,
Speaker 2: hitting his head on the window wiper and basically splitting
Speaker 2: it open. And it was from there, within a matter
Speaker 2: of hour that he was at the front gates of
Speaker 2: the Kinchler Boys Home. Another survivor that I was fortunate
Speaker 2: to sit with was Uncle Richard Bare Campbell, and he
Speaker 2: was only eight or nine years old when he was
Speaker 2: stolen from his family in nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 4: My name is Richard Campbell. I'm a combat that gutty
Speaker 4: man from the back Obacker and the the KBSY bellies
Speaker 4: off the north coast, so we had their buckerheads cos Harbor.
Speaker 2: But his first memory of Kinchler was being wrestled out
Speaker 2: of the car and being separated from his three young sisters.
Speaker 2: And you know, he tells this really graphic story of
Speaker 2: you know, his his sister's screaming in the car and
Speaker 2: you know him being at the gates of Kinchler and
Speaker 2: the car driving off.
Speaker 4: And then we can eat he screaming as the car
Speaker 4: was going around the corner away from kitchen. We can
Speaker 4: still hear him screaming, you don't fade away in the distance.
Speaker 2: You know, that was his first and most enduring memory
Speaker 2: and Kinchula because it was also the last time that
Speaker 2: he saw his sister in approximately twenty years.
Speaker 1: And so these men, well they were children at the
Speaker 1: time they were taken from their families, taken to Kinchilla.
Speaker 1: So what did they tell you about what happened next,
Speaker 1: about what their life was like in the home.
Speaker 2: I think the first really significant point is that, you know,
Speaker 2: Aboriginal families were stolen from their country and rounded up
Speaker 2: onto missions, and these young boys were then secondarily from that,
Speaker 2: you know, stolen from their communities. So they were stolen
Speaker 2: from their country, stolen from their communities, and sent to
Speaker 2: these institutions where they were then stolen from themselves. Uncle
Speaker 2: Roger Pigeon Jarrett basically says that, you know, the moment
Speaker 2: that you get to those gates is where you lose
Speaker 2: your identity, your culture, and your name. Now, for him,
Speaker 2: when he walked in those gates, he was no longer
Speaker 2: Roger Jarrett.
Speaker 3: That's when he became number twelve.
Speaker 2: And it was the same for Uncle Richard, who as
Speaker 2: soon as he walks into the gates, he says, the
Speaker 2: first thing that happened to him and his brothers was
Speaker 2: that they just started getting bashed.
Speaker 4: Just okay, Richard cambll anymore, you are there number twenty
Speaker 4: eight to be older brother bad You are not Robert
Speaker 4: Campbell as well, you number twenty nine.
Speaker 2: They spoke about the minutes feeling like hours, and the
Speaker 2: hours feeling like days.
Speaker 3: The boys were humiliated, they.
Speaker 2: Were beaten, they were sexually assaulted and raped, they were
Speaker 2: staff they're enslaved, they're indoctrinated and re engineered.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Uncle Witty Walsh, who is another one of the survivors
Speaker 2: that I spoke to, you know, reflected on the fact
Speaker 2: that boys would go missing that you know, they were
Speaker 2: classified as flora and fauna at the time. You know,
Speaker 2: in one of the testimonies from Uncle Witty he spoke
Speaker 2: about basically the ex army men that ran the site,
Speaker 2: you know, would have animals that had names, but for
Speaker 2: the young Aboriginal boys that were on the site that
Speaker 2: were just subject to the most barbaric of treatment, they
Speaker 2: had numbers, right.
Speaker 1: And so then when survivors say that some of these
Speaker 1: boys went missing, do we know what happened to them?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we know that.
Speaker 2: Recently there was a report from experts who used ground
Speaker 2: penetrating radars at the homes and essentially what they found
Speaker 2: were readings consistent with clandestine burials in other places around
Speaker 2: the world and at Kinchla. Now there's approximately nine sites
Speaker 2: that could hold graves of young boys.
Speaker 3: Now that report has.
Speaker 2: Been tabled with the Minister, the New South Wales Premier
Speaker 2: Chris Means and his Minister for Abridginal Affairs and Treaty,
Speaker 2: David Harris, have committed to further investigations at the site
Speaker 2: and to engage further specialists to explore in full, you know,
Speaker 2: the really serious question marks that are lingering over the place.
Speaker 2: But when I speak to the uncles around whether or
Speaker 2: not they are surprised about the prospect of their being
Speaker 2: potential burial grounds. There's not so life at Kinchla. From
Speaker 2: listening to these stories, the one thing that was a
Speaker 2: constant in all of these testimonies was that terror was
Speaker 2: just there at every moment of the day.
Speaker 1: After the break, the survivors on a mission to reclaim
Speaker 1: the Conchilla Boys Home, so ben Kinchilla Boys Home. It
Speaker 1: closed down in nineteen seventy. Hundreds of boys were taken there.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a bit about what life was
Speaker 1: like for them once they were old enough to be
Speaker 1: able to leave.
Speaker 2: I think Uncle Richard summarized it really aptly by saying that,
Speaker 2: you know, most of he and the other survivors were
Speaker 2: basically on a suicide journey having stepped out of there.
Speaker 2: Now today there's only forty nine survivors remaining. Four survivors
Speaker 2: have passed away in the previous four to six months.
Speaker 2: You know, we really aren't getting towards that later chapter
Speaker 2: of the Stolen Generation survivors' lives, but the impacts from
Speaker 2: Kinchla have permeated every single aspect of these young boys' lives.
Speaker 2: Uncle Richard spoke about the story of him sort of
Speaker 2: being thrusted out of the gates of Kinchula and back
Speaker 2: into society thinking that he was a white fella. He
Speaker 2: speaks to how powerful the indoctrination, the engineering was that
Speaker 2: he was subjected to. But at the same time, you know,
Speaker 2: large sections of the Aboriginal community also turned their back
Speaker 2: on him because they didn't see these boys that went
Speaker 2: through Kinchulla as one of them anymore. So they were
Speaker 2: stuck in this no man's land, not belonging anywhere, and
Speaker 2: just with these really deep wounds and no support to
Speaker 2: mend them. For Uncle Roger Jarrett, you know, he spoke
Speaker 2: about going out into the world and just not knowing
Speaker 2: how to love.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: His words are that when you come out, you've got
Speaker 2: no idea of what love is. You can spell it,
Speaker 2: you can write it, but to feel what love is,
Speaker 2: it's been killed. Uncle Richard has had multiple kids to
Speaker 2: multiple women. He speaks about not having strong relationships with
Speaker 2: his children, about his children having challenges with substance abuse.
Speaker 2: For Uncle Witty Walsh talks about, you know, his children
Speaker 2: being removed from him. His grandchildren being removed from his
Speaker 2: sons and daughters.
Speaker 3: I put the.
Speaker 4: Gun in my mouth, but I was about I think
Speaker 4: it was about nointy at the time when I was
Speaker 4: going to shoot myself because they took us away from
Speaker 4: the woman that I married.
Speaker 2: We've seen Kinchler actors this really fractious moment in these
Speaker 2: people's lives, and that has continued to reverberate every day,
Speaker 2: every week and every generation. We know that the number
Speaker 2: of First Nations children being removed from their families.
Speaker 3: Today is at record rates.
Speaker 2: The projections are for the years to come that those
Speaker 2: rates will continue to increase. They currently make up forty
Speaker 2: three point seven percent of the children in out of
Speaker 2: home care. We know that, you know, the pipeline of
Speaker 2: children from out of home care into youth juvenile detention
Speaker 2: centers is also ever expanding. So in the uncle's eyes, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's what's old remains new.
Speaker 3: And so been.
Speaker 1: One hundred years on from when Kinchella was opened. Some
Speaker 1: of the survivors want to try and reclaim that site.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a bit about that, because I
Speaker 1: imagine that it would be complicated trying to work out
Speaker 1: how you might mark a place where all of these
Speaker 1: horrors happened to you in a way that feels right.
Speaker 2: It's a great point, Ruby, And the first hurdle has
Speaker 2: been the survivors being able to reimagine what the site
Speaker 2: could be, that the place that was a catalyst for
Speaker 2: so much harm and heartbreak could be actually repositioned.
Speaker 3: As a site for healing.
Speaker 2: So that first hurdle was one of the hardest, I
Speaker 2: think for many of the now men to overcome. The
Speaker 2: second hurdle has been negotiating a just timely and fair
Speaker 2: agreement with the KEMPSI Local Aboriginal Land Council, who is
Speaker 2: the owner of the Kinchula site. Now, a lot of
Speaker 2: the survivors believe that their own community continues to turn
Speaker 2: their back on them, and that that is playing out
Speaker 2: within these negotiations. You know, Uncle Richard spoke to me
Speaker 2: about the fact that when they first endeavored to put
Speaker 2: an offer forward to reclaim ownership of the land, a
Speaker 2: lot of people within the community saw that as a
Speaker 2: land grab and saw that the uncles were trying to
Speaker 2: take land from other members within the community. And I
Speaker 2: suppose what's really important from their perspective at what I've
Speaker 2: captured is that ownership matters absolutely, but it's an endeavor
Speaker 2: to have custodianship over the site. It's not ownership in
Speaker 2: as they would say, Whitefellow Way, its ownership in Blackfellow Way,
Speaker 2: and having that it means that they cannot only repair themselves,
Speaker 2: but importantly ensure that that site remains standing until the
Speaker 2: end of time so people will never forget what went
Speaker 2: down there, and as importantly to ensure that it never
Speaker 2: happens again.
Speaker 1: Ben, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thanks Ruby, thanks for listening to this episode of seven Am.
Speaker 1: As summer approaches, we've also been getting ready to share
Speaker 1: some new episodes with you at our favorite books, music
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