FOR the children of former Branxholme woman, the late Eunice Wright, last Wednesday was an extremely emotional yet incredibly important day that saw them gather on Lake Condah Mission to continue their mother’s fight for justice.

On February 15, Eunice and Jimmy Wright’s daughters, Joanne Farrant, Tina Wright, and Donna Wright - with the support of their brother Sonny who was unable to attend - met with the Commissioners from the Yoorrook Justice Commission to give evidence about the past and ongoing injustices experienced by their family who were members of the Stolen Generation.

The hearing saw the sisters display photographs of their family as they discussed the trauma suffered by each member, including their mother, at the hands of the government and legal system.

Donna said hearings were normally conducted as round-table discussions in court, and this was the first completed on country as they thought it was important for evidence to be given where her mother’s family lived happily before the children were forcibly removed.

“It’s about lived experience but also giving testimony on behalf of our mother and family,” she said.

“It was important for them (the Commissioners) to come out on country, to come and see the place where mother was born and raised on Gunditjmara country, so they could feel the loving family, her loving home with extended family all around, that she had before she was taken.

“We really wanted them to understand the impact of what happened to mum and our family.

“For a short period of time when the courts intervened apparently to look after kids, they actually destroyed them and their quality of life.

“We wanted the Yoorrook Commission to understand that even though mum lobbied and used her voice, the government made promises they didn’t keep, and they lied to her.

“It was never about monetary gain, we wanted to expose those lies.”

Tina said they wrote the word ‘murder’ underneath the images of their deceased family members to reinforce the mistreatment each person suffered and the lasting effect it has had.

“We put the photos up of all the family and we put the word murder underneath them for all the Commissioners to see,” she said.

“Already (there were) the frontier wars and all the massacre sites, and then you steal our land and take our kids with no retribution - so we spoke about that too.

“We poured our hearts out. We were mum’s voices.”

Eunice Wright was born at Hamilton Base Hospital in 1944, and lived on Lake Condah Mission with her mother, Lyall Foster; father, Charles ‘Monty’ Foster; older sisters, Valletta and Gloria; and little brother, Ronald, before the children were forcibly removed by police when Eunice was around eight to ten years old.

In 1954, while their mother received treatment for tuberculosis and their father was away working, two police officers took Gloria, Ronald and Eunice to Heywood Police Station where they were locked in cells overnight before being escorted by police to Melbourne and eventually taken to Ballarat Orphanage.

The only child not taken was Valletta who was 18 years old at the time.

Lyall visited her children as often as she was allowed, meanwhile, Monty was so distressed by his children being taken that he suffered significant mental health issues and was admitted to Kew Mental Asylum, where he passed away in 1958 and was buried in a pauper’s grave.

Donna said the hearing also included a visit to their grandparents’ gravesite which is located on the Mission, after her father, Jimmy, played an instrumental role in bringing Monty’s remains back to country.

She said it was important for others to understand how “strategic racism has affected families” such as theirs and caused “massive” loss and suffering.

“There’s this racist system that exists and these racist decisions and unconscious bias that removed children away from their parents,” she said.

“We had the State Government come in and take children, traumatising them, and the fact they were incarcerated in cells … we wanted to expose all the lies that were told.

“And the absolutely disgraceful way they picked the opportune time to take my mum and her siblings and the threats they made to our aunty when she hid our uncle.

“We also wanted to expose the inhumane way our uncle was treated … we spoke about the child labour at the Ballarat Orphanage. Mum and her siblings suffered injuries, why wasn’t that documented?”

Records of the suffering, inhumane treatment, and loss of identity experienced by members of their family have been passed on to the Yoorrook Justice Commission for investigation, with hopes it will lead to a Royal Commission through Treaty.

Eunice’s story was included in the Bringing Them Home report and she was passionate about fighting for justice and using her voice to advocate for redress, taking every available opportunity to speak with ministers and rally on the steps of parliament, fighting until the very end of her life.

Eunice passed away in March 2020, with Tina saying it “brought an outpouring of grief from the community” and prompted the announcement of redress, despite pushes from their family for it to be fast-tracked.

“When she passed, the minister for Aboriginal Affairs rang us three days later and said they were making an announcement for redress for Stolen Generations - it was a bit of a kick in the guts for us,” she said.

“Her death brought about an announcement, but she didn’t see it.

“With mum, having a voice and speaking out about injustice gave her so much strength. It would give her a little bit of hope and healing because someone would listen to her and show her a bit more respect than what she was previously treated with.

“We were asked what justice looks like for us and that was a hard one - the way mum was treated, she was forgotten about.

“She lost everything - she lost her culture, connection, her language, her kinship - she was removed, all of her family dead, and there’s no compensation that was claimed for her.”

Eunice’s strength and fight has been passed through the generations, with Donna saying the hearing was about “honouring mum, our grandparents and our family”.

“Our kids know the truth about what happened to mum, they all know what happened to her. So they will speak her truth long after we’re gone,” she said.

“And she’s left a huge legacy on generations of our family that will fight to honour her and the family and to not disrespect our mother, our parents and our grandparents’ name.

“Every white organisation, hospital, or agency that provides aboriginal services has to understand what happened to our people.

“The wider community needs to understand it’s mum’s truth, our family’s truth, we’re not holding individual people accountable. It’s the state, and the government and the courts that need to be accountable.

“We wanted to honour them and expose every part of the system … it’s all about the justice.”