My speech notes:
I think NO that they can't make up for the past decisions that were made because those poor innocent little half cast children were tortured. They were forcibly removed from their families because Mr A.O Neville wanted to get rid of the half black and half white children and he thought that he could give them a better life style and education. He also wanted to end the generation of half casts. Those children were badly miss treated in inappropriate ways, and were taught to act like white people and speak like them and they were to have no contact with their families at all. Some times the half cast Mothers were raped by white men, which is un acceptable!

Here is Bill Simon's Story:
“It was winter 1957, seven o’clock in the morning. The sun was up and the sounds of birds drifted down into our small kitchen. My brother Lenny was sitting on the floor, eating toast; my brothers Murray and David and I, rubbing our eyes in a state of half sleep, were waiting for mum to smear Vegemite on our bread before we dressed for school. A routine day in the Simon household.

Someone rapped loudly on the door. My mother didn’t answer it. We hadn’t heard anyone come up the path. The knocking got louder, and finally my mother, who was reluctant to answer any callers when my father wasn’t home, opened the door and exchanged words with three people. We strained to hear what they were saying. Three men then entered the room.

A man in a suit ordered my mother to pick up Lenny and give him to me. My mother started to scream. One of the policemen bent down and picked up my brother and handed him to me. My mother screamed and sobbed hysterically but the men took no notice, and forced my brothers and me into a car.

My mother ran out onto the road, fell on her knees and belted her fists into the bitumen as she screamed. We looked back as the car drove off to see her hammering her fists into the road, the tears streaming down her face…”. Once I arrived at the Kinchela home I lost my name I was just a number (number 33).

Simon was ten years old when he was taken to Kinchela where he remained until he was 17 years old. The abuse he suffered left him unable to have healthy relationships and trying to numb his rage and violence with drugs and alcohol.

Simon was in his 30s when he finally met his mother again. But it was too late, his mother, re-married with other children, rejected him. Bill Simon is now an aboriginal pastor, he lives and works in Redfern a place in Sydney.

1 in every 10 of aboriginal people aged over 25 were taken away in their child hood and it was estimated that from 1883 and 1969 around about 6,400 aboriginal children were stolen in NWS alone! It's really sad to hear that these innocent little children were taken away from there families when they were very young because they didn't