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The Stolen Generation paradox: how Dorothy’s grandkids were left to die · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Monday, August twenty four, twenty twenty six. A fleet
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  Speaker 1: of military style drones to detect people, smugglers and illegal
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  Speaker 1: fishing vessels. It's a fresh move by the Department of
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  Speaker 1: Home Affairs to boost surveillance of Australia's borders. Australia's sparkling
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  Speaker 1: new navy warships will be much heavier than planned because
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  Speaker 1: they'll be loaded up with heavy combat and radar systems,
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  Speaker 1: and that's prompting questions about their speed, range and endurance
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  Speaker 1: in future conflicts. Those are exclusives live now at the
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  Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au today. One woman's powerful account
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  Speaker 1: of how her own daughter became a victim and then
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  Speaker 1: a perpetrator of shocking violence, Of how bureaucrats, terrified of
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  Speaker 1: creating another stolen generation, left three Indigenous children to be murdered.
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  Speaker 1: But Dorothy paper Talk, an articulate and dignified West Australian,
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  Speaker 1: wants you and all of us to listen.
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  Speaker 2: I may be one man Nigenous lady, but I've got
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  Speaker 2: a strong, strong The way things are going in this town,
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  Speaker 2: our young children have no hope of life if we
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  Speaker 2: don't start doing something. Now that's truly gone to me
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  Speaker 2: more loss of them.
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  Speaker 1: This is Dorothy paper Talk. She's a yamachi wagero woman
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  Speaker 1: from Red Earth Country in Western Australia. Dorothy's telling her
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  Speaker 1: story with journalist Ross Thomas.
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  Speaker 3: I was approached by the pro bono lawyer for Dorothy
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  Speaker 3: paper Talk, who said to me, do you think that
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  Speaker 3: you could dig hard enough to get to the bottom
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  Speaker 3: of this? So that's like a red rag took so yes,
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  Speaker 3: we said yes. I started in April. It's taken me
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  Speaker 3: this long to get it to press.
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  Speaker 1: Dorothy's daughter, Margaret Hawke, was living in port Headland, on
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  Speaker 1: the edge of the pilbro in Western Australia's northwest.
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  Speaker 4: She was a methamphetamine addict.
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  Speaker 3: She was living in a house, a welfare house in
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  Speaker 3: port Headland, with a number of members of various mobs
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  Speaker 3: of her succession of partners. The house was filled with
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  Speaker 3: extraordinary domestic violence substance abuse, which the children were either
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  Speaker 3: the victims of or watched their mother become the victims of.
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  Speaker 4: We are talking beatings with.
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  Speaker 3: Iron bars, scissors, rock fist boot nothing like I've ever
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  Speaker 3: seen before. Dorothy Papertook, several years ago, made the first
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  Speaker 3: of her at least five appeals to the Department of
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  Speaker 3: Chile Protection to remove her grandchildren, who she said were
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  Speaker 3: clearly unsafe.
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  Speaker 4: The Department old.
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  Speaker 3: Protection did not listen to her and did not act,
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  Speaker 3: and then on July the nineteenth in twenty twenty two,
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  Speaker 3: after a math fuel bender, Margaret Hawk, the mother of
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  Speaker 3: the three children, Jamelia who was ten, Under who was seven,
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  Speaker 3: and baby Kelvin who was four months, murdered them in
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  Speaker 3: an unbelievable rampage not ten minutes after they were dropped
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  Speaker 3: home from school. No one did to help them, and
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  Speaker 3: you couldn't.
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  Speaker 2: Save them, and I didn't give a chance to say
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  Speaker 2: goodbye to them.
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  Speaker 3: She was charged with three counts of murder. She was
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  Speaker 3: sentenced in twenty twenty three by the Supreme Court by
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  Speaker 3: a judge who happened to be the first appointed Supreme
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  Speaker 3: Court Aboriginal judge in Western Australia and who also grew
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  Speaker 3: up in Port Headland. He sentenced her to life imprisonment
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  Speaker 3: with a minimum of twenty five years. The court heard
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  Speaker 3: that the succession of indigenous and other male partners who
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  Speaker 3: had brought. The incredible domestic violence on this woman had
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  Speaker 3: led to her substance abuse methamphetamines, all kinds of drugs,
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  Speaker 3: plus alcohol, and they were still actively threatening her even
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  Speaker 3: though two of those Indigenous partners were actually in jail.
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  Speaker 3: The father of the two eldest children was a drug
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  Speaker 3: trafficker from Iran. He was in jail and still threatening her,
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  Speaker 3: And I think she got to the point where her
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  Speaker 3: despair was so intense she saw no other way out.
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  Speaker 3: The night before the murders, she'd gone to the refuge
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  Speaker 3: in town. They had told her they were sorry, but
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  Speaker 3: that they were full. They got her a taxi home,
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  Speaker 3: and the next day she killed the children.
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  Speaker 1: This grandmother has spoken to you in such moving terms
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  Speaker 1: about those children. Their lives must have been awful, their
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  Speaker 1: short lives. They were obviously living in fear.
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  Speaker 4: Lost. All feel.
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  Speaker 2: The hot flames of fire, the torture they went through
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  Speaker 2: every time when I go out and visit the grave
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  Speaker 2: for their birth base.
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  Speaker 3: We are talking to a completely broken Indigenous grandmother. She
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  Speaker 3: has not been able to reconcile what her daughter did,
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  Speaker 3: but more importantly, she cannot reconcile the institutional neglect that
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  Speaker 3: left her grandchildren still in an incredibly violent home despite
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  Speaker 3: her multiple attempts to try to save them. I have
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  Speaker 3: obtained internal DCP reports that show Jamelia had been smashed
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  Speaker 3: in the face by a rock used by her mother
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  Speaker 3: not eight days before the murders, that police were called
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  Speaker 3: to the house at least twenty two times to intervene
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  Speaker 3: in incidents of domestic violence in which the police picked
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  Speaker 3: the children up and took them to Dorothy so that they.
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  Speaker 4: Would be safe.
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  Speaker 3: There is no doubt that these children were at extreme
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  Speaker 3: risk of harm. There is no doubt that those children
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  Speaker 3: should have been removed into the care of their grandmother,
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  Speaker 3: who was not only Indigenous, but had been looking after
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  Speaker 3: them most of the time anyway. So there was the
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  Speaker 3: indigenous grandmother, which the Aboriginal child Placement principle wants children
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  Speaker 3: who have to be removed to go straight to the
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  Speaker 3: nearest and dearest. In that kin, she was there holding
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  Speaker 3: out her arms waiting for those children to be given
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  Speaker 3: to her, because she knew how unsafe they were. DCP
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  Speaker 3: would not give those children to that grandmother. I have
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  Speaker 3: sent the DCP an extensive list of questions asking them
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  Speaker 3: about all the things that I have seen in their
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  Speaker 3: internal reports, and they have given us a statement saying
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  Speaker 3: that this is obviously a tragedy and that child removal
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  Speaker 3: is last resort and that systems will change as a
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  Speaker 3: result of this case. I was hoping for a maya culpa.
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  Speaker 3: I did not get one.
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  Speaker 1: It's reminiscent, of course, of the story of Kumanjai Little Baby,
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  Speaker 1: the five year old girl who died after being abducted
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  Speaker 1: from the town camp where her mother was living.
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  Speaker 5: It was never a matter of if police were going
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  Speaker 5: to charge forty seven year old Jefferson Lewis, but only
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  Speaker 5: a matter of time, and yesterday afternoon they did exactly that,
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  Speaker 5: charging mister Lewis with one count of murder and to
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  Speaker 5: other offenses.
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  Speaker 1: There's been reporting that her mother was also the victim
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  Speaker 1: of serious domestic violence, and in response to that disappearance
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  Speaker 1: and death, there's been a big change in the Northern
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  Speaker 1: Territory about the way kinship care is administered. So the
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  Speaker 1: principle is now supposed to be that the child's welfare
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  Speaker 1: comes first. What is the situation in WI. Has there
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  Speaker 1: been any kind of change like that and would that
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  Speaker 1: have made a difference in this case anyway? Given that
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  Speaker 1: the department seemed to just be ignoring the kinship request
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  Speaker 1: to have the children.
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  Speaker 2: Well.
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  Speaker 3: The legislation in WA is similar, if not the same,
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  Speaker 3: as in other states in the country, and that is
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  Speaker 3: the Aboriginal placement principle is that if at all possible,
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  Speaker 3: if a child needs to be removed from an unsafe
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  Speaker 3: home with an unsafe parent, then you know the absolute
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  Speaker 3: priority is to try and place that child with family first.
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  Speaker 3: And in this case, family was available. Family was not
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  Speaker 3: only available, but desperate to have those children.
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  Speaker 4: Desperate. And that's what I don't understand.
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  Speaker 3: I don't understand how that grandmother and her clearly competent
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  Speaker 3: caregiving could not have been seen as the only option
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  Speaker 3: for those children.
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  Speaker 2: I told my granddaughter whenever she felt unsafe to run
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  Speaker 2: from the house, to run to the.
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  Speaker 4: Phone box, they call grandma. They felt very scared all.
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  Speaker 2: The time, crime because mommy was getting followed by the daddy.
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  Speaker 3: When we have evidence of Jamelia, the ten year old,
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  Speaker 3: running from a house attack to the street payphone to
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  Speaker 3: call the cops. She was responsible for her little brother
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  Speaker 3: and a four month old baby, and there was the
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  Speaker 3: grandmother sitting not ten minutes away, having made five at
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  Speaker 3: least five appeals to DCP to say, please, I want
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  Speaker 3: to be the children's legal guardian. I look after the
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  Speaker 3: most of the time. Already, please give them to me,
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  Speaker 3: because I'm telling you they're not safe.
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  Speaker 4: Nothing happened.
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  Speaker 2: They just pushed everything under the carpet.
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  Speaker 4: They did nothing at all.
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  Speaker 2: They just turned the blind eye. And this is what happened.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up how the Stolen Generation story where Aboriginal children
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  Speaker 1: were taken from their families, looms over this modern child
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  Speaker 1: protection crisis. One of the things that springs to mind
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  Speaker 1: when you read about violence in remote Indigenous communities is
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  Speaker 1: that the remoteness is part of the problem. That it's
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  Speaker 1: very difficult to get police or nurses or ambulance workers
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  Speaker 1: to come to these communities. It's very difficult for there
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  Speaker 1: to be any kind of consistency in services for child protection,
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  Speaker 1: for example. That's not really the same import Headland, though,
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  Speaker 1: is that this is a pretty major center. It's not
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  Speaker 1: like Yundmu or the town camps in Alice Springs. How
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  Speaker 1: do you think remoteness plays into these if at all.
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  Speaker 3: Well, let's not forget this is one of the richest
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  Speaker 3: mining towns in the country. This is the world's biggest
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  Speaker 3: bulk export port. This is a town of seventeen thousand people.
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  Speaker 3: This town has three thousand Aboriginal people. I don't understand
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  Speaker 3: how a town this big and this relevant to the
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  Speaker 3: mining industry could somehow exist outside of the laws. And
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  Speaker 3: a former director General of the Department of Communities agreed
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  Speaker 3: to speak to me if I was to conceal his identity,
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  Speaker 3: and he said to me that if these children had
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  Speaker 3: been in Perth, they would definitely have been removed from
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  Speaker 3: their mother. So why the change in that regional town.
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  Speaker 3: I also had a call in the midst of the
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  Speaker 3: time that I was in port Headland from an anonymous
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  Speaker 3: source within the DCP in Perth saying, don't let the
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  Speaker 3: port Headland So the Department Child Protection tell you that
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  Speaker 3: they're not a well resourced and significant office. There is
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  Speaker 3: at least twenty five people working here. And I ask
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  Speaker 3: this particular anonymous source from Perth what percentage of the
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  Speaker 3: children at risk in this town are Aboriginal and the
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  Speaker 3: reply was ninety eight percent. It is not a small problem.
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  Speaker 1: The difficult thing about telling these stories is often that
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  Speaker 1: they are so bleak that we don't want audiences to
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  Speaker 1: turn away. We want our audience to read these stories,
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  Speaker 1: to watch the video, to see Dorothy's appeal. How do
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  Speaker 1: you navigate your way through telling this story and honoring
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  Speaker 1: Dorothy's wishes for this to be public, knowing that that
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  Speaker 1: this is our hard story for people to consume.
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  Speaker 3: It's a hard story for people to consume, but it's
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  Speaker 3: a necessary story for us all to read. Dorothy has
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  Speaker 3: given me permission to not only publish the children's names,
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  Speaker 3: but they're photographs, which I think is highly unusual and
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  Speaker 3: gives a measure of the desperation that she does not
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  Speaker 3: want her grandchildren's death to count for nothing. She has
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  Speaker 3: also been in almost daily contact with me. I have
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  Speaker 3: spent an enormous amount of time with her, and she
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  Speaker 3: tells the story of intergenerational Indigenous violence from the inside,
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  Speaker 3: and I haven't heard that story before. She says that
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  Speaker 3: in her world, parents are not parenting, and if they're
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  Speaker 3: not parenting, then their children should be removed. And she says,
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  Speaker 3: you know, people say to me, why would you want
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  Speaker 3: to create another stolen generation? And she says, well, at
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  Speaker 3: least our children would be alive, alive and beautiful, she says.
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  Speaker 3: And the interesting thing about spending a lot of time
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  Speaker 3: in Headland is that a number of Indigenous people I
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  Speaker 3: spoke to said that the DCP is terrified of being
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  Speaker 3: seen to create another stolen generation and that is perhaps
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  Speaker 3: what drove them not to remove the children, the Hawk
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  Speaker 3: children in this case before they were murdered, because fears
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  Speaker 3: of political blowback were greater than the fears that these
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  Speaker 3: children were absolute risk of critical injury or death.
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  Speaker 1: Well, thank you Roz for telling this story, and thanks
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  Speaker 1: to Dorothy for being so courageous to share it with us.
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  Speaker 4: Thank you, Yeah, my pleasure.
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  Speaker 1: You can read Roz Thomas's story right now at the
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: link in our show notes. The Australian has a long
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: history of fearless, nuanced reporting of life in Indigenous communities.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: You can join our subscribers at Beaustralian dot com dot
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: aju