The Homes System

Until the Whitlam government took power in 1972, Australian families in trouble had few resources to fall back on.

By law, women were barred from many occupations (e.g. driving trams or buses), and by tradition barred from others (e.g. being a bank teller). Women employed by the public service were required to resign on becoming married. Women’s wages were set at 2/3 of a male wage for equal work but, in truth, in industries where women did ‘women’s work’ (e.g. sewing machinists) the legal wage was inadequate. Women who left their husbands to escape violence or for other reasons were denied any kind of government support and, unless they were professionals, had little practical hope of supporting themselves.

Any single parent – unless a widow or widower – had no support systems available outside their own families. It was very common for people to voluntarily place their children “in care” before governments could apply to formally make them wards of the state. 

The orphanages which provided this care– or ‘homes’ as they were called – were variously state-run, run by registered charitable or religious groups, or privately owned and operated. Parents who did use this orphanage system and wished to retain parental rights were required to contribute to the keep of their children. 

It was not unheard of for people of means to use these homes as boarding kennels – somewhere to dump their children if, when and while it suited them.

Wards of the state were often fostered out – sometimes to good homes, but sometimes to people who saw the fostering system as a source of extra income, child labour, or both. Many former ‘homies’ remember being paraded, as if they were merchandise, for the benefit of couples wanting to adopt. For those who were repeatedly passed over, this process provided little encouragement for them to trust themselves or others.

In the 20^th Century, hundreds of thousands of Australian children passed through this system. Given Australia’s relatively small population, the numbers are quite shocking.

Even where we must accept that children were placed in care for the right reasons, we need not assume they were invariably better off.

Many of the charitable organisations who ran these institutions – whether for the benefit of Aboriginals, British migrant kids, or whitefella Australians – were church groups and, as inquiries have revealed, it was wrong to assume that they could be trusted more than any other organisation run by humans: Any institution, regardless of its location or denomination, provides opportunities for abuse when it is closed to outside scrutiny.