Aunty Lorraine Peeters urges action on National Sorry Day plan
Aunty Lorraine Peeters is urging Australian governments to act on national sorry day after The Healing Foundation released From Sorry to Action: A plan to act on Bringing Them Home. The plan calls for stronger support for Stolen Generations survivors, including thousands of ageing survivors who are now entering their final years.
Peeters and the Cootamundra legacy
Peeters was taken from her home at Brewarrina mission in north-west New South Wales when she was four years old, separated from her siblings, and spent the next six years at the Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls Home. She said: “On entry, all your clothes were burnt, and then you were doused, or what they call delousing, and this is back in the 1940s so it was sheep dip” and “And then your head was shaven, you were given a new identity and religion.”
Her experience now sits at the centre of a new push for practical support. Peeters testified at the national inquiry that led to the Bringing Them Home report, then helped establish trauma-informed support for survivors and families like her own through the Coota Girls Aboriginal Corporation, which she co-founded 13 years ago.
Records, care and redress
The Healing Foundation says many survivors are still waiting for access to records held by private institutions such as churches and government agencies. Shannon Dodson, the organisation’s chief executive, said: “Most survivors are now eligible for aged care, and from an overall health, social and emotional wellbeing perspective, it’s really looking at what kind of trauma‑informed and culturally safe approaches are needed to ensure that survivors are not re‑traumatised during their ageing”.
The report recommends removing medical co-payments for survivors and establishing a comprehensive redress scheme in all states and territories. Queensland remains the last jurisdiction without a targeted compensation scheme, while Western Australia announced its redress program last.
Kevin Rudd and the apology
Peeters also stood with the apology era in 2008, when she presented then prime minister Kevin Rudd with a coolamon ahead of the national apology to survivors and their families. Nearly 30 years after Bringing Them Home was tabled, the new plan turns the same unresolved issues back toward federal and state governments: records, health costs and compensation are still the practical points that survivors are asking them to fix.
Peeters said: “Survivors are still suffering trauma, survivors with disability or that are mentally not right, given the trauma they’ve been through, and the organisation is still running on the smell of an oily rag with nothing.” For survivors who are already in aged care or approaching it, the next pressure point is whether governments match the report’s call for culturally safe support with actual funding and access to records.
