1 day Ago By Keira Jenkins
From living on rations and pocket money to having to ask permission to visit a nearby town, life on an Aboriginal mission has been laid bare at an inquiry. Login or signup to continue reading Aunty Lesley Williams has told Queensland's truth-telling and healing inquiry about growing up on the Cherbourg Aboriginal mission where her family had to live on rations, with those working paid "pocket money" once a fortnight. It's a story Aunty Lesley has been campaigning to bring to light for decades, and an important part of Queensland's history.
"Everyone has a story to tell, and it needs to be told," she said. "Knowing our past helps us to understand our present." When it came time for Aunty Lesley to work, she was sent to properties around the state with a brown port, or suitcase, containing toiletries and clothes she'd picked out at the government shop at Cherbourg.
She was given a pocket money book and a brown envelope, which unbenownst to her at the time held her working arrangements. Her wage was three pounds, 10 shillings - equivalent to about $7. She told the inquiry she was given one pound 10 shillings, recorded in the pocket money book, the other two pounds were to be sent back to the superintendent of Cherbourg mission.
"We were ripped off big time," she told the inquiry on Wednesday. At one property she said she was made to sleep in a shed, dragging a bag of sugar to block the door as a security measure. Residents of Cherbourg had to go to the superintendent of the mission to get a permit to leave, even to go shopping in nearby towns, Aunty Lesley told the inquiry.
"You had to carry that with you in case the white police - they were referred to as bullymen - they would question you and you could share that permit," she said. "You had to be back at the time indicated on the permit." The inquiry on Wednesday also heard from Tracey Bunda, whose mother and aunt were taken to Purga Mission, west of Brisbane, when they were children.
Professor Bunda said children were treated poorly at the mission and their routine controlled. "They were cold all the time ..
. they had one blanket," she said. "And they were hungry all the time.
" All aspects of Aboriginal people's lives were controlled at the missions, under the Aboriginals Protection Act, Prof Bunda told the inquiry. "When you dig into the Act you can see how much control is there," she said. "It was right down to the clothes we wore, who you could marry, what kind of jobs you did, what you learnt at school and when you learnt it, what kinds of food you could eat.
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