Child migrants — Formal service agreements

Extract from Hansard

1234. Hon Alison Xamon to the Minister for Child Protection

I refer to the formal service agreements signed by employers of child migrants from at least the 1920’s. The service agreements usually indicated the children would be paid a wage, half in cash and half banked by Child Welfare to be held in trust until their 21st birthday, and I ask -

(1) Were any formal service agreements signed by non-Government institutions (for example, Bindoon or Castledare) as employers of child migrants?

(2) If yes to (1), please advise, -

(a) in what years the agreements were made;

(b) which institutions the agreements covered; and

(c) the number and ages of the children covered by the agreements?

(3) If yes to (1), did those agreements conform to the Child Welfare Act 1947 (sections 51 and 54)?

(4) If no to (3), in what respects did they not conform?

(5) Upon turning 21, did the children covered under the service agreements receive the money which had been held in trust for them by Child Welfare?

(6) If yes to (5), how many children received these entitlements?

(7) Will the Government address the non-payment of money held in trust as one of the historic injustices suffered by former child migrants placed in institutions in Western Australia?

Hon ROBYN McSWEENEY replied:

(1) Yes

(2)     (a) Information taken from the Department's Annual reports indicated agreements were made  between the years of 1926 to 1962.

(2 )    (b)

Perth's Girls' Orphanage
Swan Boys' Orphanage
Parkerville Children's Home
Clontarf Boys' Orphanage
St Joseph's Girls' Orphanage
Seaforth Salvation Army Boys' and Girls' Home
Salvation Army Girls' Home,  Cottesloe Beach
Salvation Army Boys' Home, West Subiaco
Methodist Childrens' Home
Home of Good Shepherd
Werribee Farm School
Castledare Special School
Tom Allen Memorial Home for Boys, Werribee
Clontarf Orphanage
St Joseph's Farm and Trades School
Salvation Army Boys' Home, Nedlands
Presbyterian Childrens' Home
Tardun Agricultural School
Castledare Boys Home

(c) Below are the years and number of children as they were recorded in the Annual Reports.

The ages of the children covered by the Service Agreements were not recorded.

(3) On the information in the Department's possession, the Service Agreements conformed to sections 51 and 54 of the Child Welfare Act 1947.

(4) Not applicable

(5) The reports state that each year when a child attained the age of 21 years the monies were returned to the children.

(6) The records do not state how many children received these entitlements.  

(7) The Commonwealth Parliament conducted inquiries into the treatment of child migrants (Lost Innocents: righting the record) in 2001, and in 2005 produced a report on Australians who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children (Forgotten Australians). Many child migrants and those raised in institutionalised care were made to work as young people on farms, as domestic labour or in factories. In many cases, it was said that a percentage of the wages were held in trust by the Department, generally until the child reached the age of majority. In many cases, the funds were fully expended on behalf of the child.

Unfortunately, many of the files and accounting records relating to child migrants and wards were destroyed in accordance with policies of the time. However, it is understood that all steps were taken to return monies held in trust to child migrants and wards and that regular audits were carried out to ensure that this was done. Until 1993, advertisements were placed in Western Australian newspapers of the day inviting wards and child migrants to come forward and claim monies owed to them.

If the Department was unable to trace the person at the time the funds or remaining funds became payable, and the money was unclaimed for a number of years, the remaining funds were required to be sent to Treasury to be paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund as unclaimed monies.