What AFA is committed to:
A full account of AFA's memorandum of values will be made avaliable shortly. But also visit our Priorities page in the interim.

1. Obtaining adequate acknowledgement, accountability and redress for past wrongs.
2. Achieving the full implementation of the recommendations of the Senate Report, overseen by a National Watch Committee.
3. Supporting current efforts to highlight child protection issues, including those relating to Indigenous people and child migrants.

AFA welcomes the four Australian Government projects and will offer policy advice during planning and implementation:

Australian Government projects

Aged care

The Australian Government response to the most recent Senate Inquiry promises:
The Australian Government recognises that the aged care sector must be sensitive to the needs of Forgotten Australians and former child migrants and provide care appropriate in this context.
As a matter of priority, the Government will identify care leavers as a special needs group for aged-care purposes by amending the Aged Care Principles 1997. This will ensure that the needs of care leavers will be considered by the Department of Health and Ageing in the planning and allocation of aged care places.

The Government will also support the development and distribution of education materials to assist providers and carers in the aged care sector to recognise the special needs of care leavers and provide appropriate and responsive care, including access to counselling and support services.
The Department of Health and Ageing will also ensure the needs of Forgotten Australians and former child migrants are reflected in the agendas of the Ministerial Conference on Ageing and the Ageing Consultative Committee, which will broaden awareness of the experiences and challenges of each group.

Further, the Commonwealth will support state and territory governments in disseminating information about state and regional specific programs funded under the Home and Community Care Program to Forgotten Australians and former child migrants.

Pilot projects under the Department of Health and Ageing 'Innovative Pool' also remain a possibility to the extent that applications are made that would test innovative models of aged care services for care leavers.

The Department of Health and Ageing will continue to consider the needs of this group in the context of other broad reviews of the sector presently underway, including the Government's response to the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission and the pending public inquiry into aged care (to be conducted by the Productivity Commission).

History projects: Oral history (National Library) and Exhibition (National Museum)

The Australian Government response to the most recent Senate Inquiry promises:
The Australian Government is funding the National Library of Australia and the National Museum of Australia to host two key history projects to assist scholars, support organisations, the public, Forgotten Australians and former child migrants and their families better understand, reflect on and remember the experiences of those involved. These projects will chronicle, through the public sharing of items, pictures, memories, voices and other historical information, this period. Not only will this provide poignant recognition and a reminder of the past, but also an expression of hope for a better future.

and

The Australian Government is supporting two key history projects that will provide a material and visual historical record of the experiences of  Forgotten Australians and former child migrants to serve as perpetual remembrance of the history that has occurred. The aim of these history projects is to provide better awareness and understanding about what happened and to provide a permanent record to the general public, educational institutions, support organisations and, most importantly, Forgotten Australians and former child migrants and their families.

The Australian Government is providing the National Library of Australia with funding of $1.7 million, including $500,000 for counselling support for those who participate in sharing their experiences, and further funding of $1.2 million to the National Museum of Australia to fund a material culture collection and exhibition.

The history projects will involve an oral history project, material culture collecting and a smaller touring exhibition. Both projects will commence early 2010 and be guided by an advisory committee, including appropriate stakeholder representation, and overseen by a steering committee comprising officers of the Library, Museum and the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.

Find and connect service

The Australian Government response to the most recent Senate Inquiry promises:
The Australian Government will fund a new national Find and Connect Service that will provide an Australia-wide coordinated family tracing and support service for care leavers (including former child migrants) to locate personal and family history files and assist them to reunite with members of their families, where that is possible.

The service will provide a national database that will collate and index existing state identified records into a national searchable database, accessible to state and other care leaver services and also directly to care leavers themselves. Care leavers will be assisted to access and search the data base and apply for relevant files, including through Freedom of lnformation applications.

and

It is also proposed that a public interest test will be applied to the personal privacy exemption in the FoI Act which will ensure that public interest factors favouring disclosure of third party information can be taken into account in the circumstances of a particular request for access to information. In the course of developing guidelines on the application of the public interest test, the Information Commissioner (which is being established as part of the Government's FoI reforms) will be able to consider implications where a care leaver seeks access to a third party's personal information.

AFA will also continue to advocate for our other policy priorities:

1. nationally consistent redress schemes that are ongoing, portable and not competitive;
2. planning for national services that offer holistic, case managed, nationally consistent programs for Forgotten Australians;
3. better access for Forgotten Australians  to universal services, e.g. health and education;
4. support for existing organisations working with Forgotten Australians now, to ensure they can continue to cope with the workloads – including adequate funding for counselling services;
5. a drop-in resource centre in every State and Territory that offers support, services and referral;
6. development of new, and expansion of existing, services that target Forgotten Australians, such as PHaMs, noting that entry to such projects for Forgotten Australians should be automatic;
7. COAG recognition of, and commitment to, the Forgotten Australians' cause in its own right, as well as recognition within related policies (such as child protection);
8. Churches and other past providers to take action on apologies, redress and services;
9. the inclusion of States and Territories in national policy and planning, because of institutions in the NT and ACT;
10. the experiences of Forgotten Australians to inform current and future child protection policies.

Visit these links for further information:

• View AFA's Media Releases and Activities
• View AFA's priorities
• View AFA's booklet about Forgotten Australians