Campbell Newman, the Premier of Queensland, Australia, has just apologized for a quarter-century of stolen babies.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, hundreds of thousands of single women in Australia were forced to give up babies for adoption. They were bullied, misled, and sedated. In some cases they were shackled, their signatures were forged, or they were told their babies had died.

Margaret Oakhill-Hamilton was 19 when she gave birth. Forbidden to see or touch the child, she was pressured by doctors and by her parents to give the baby up for adoption.

Before the Queensland apology was delivered, she said she wanted it in writing that what happened was illegal, immoral and unethical. “If it doesn’t, the apology won’t be worth the paper it’s written on. We all need to know the crimes were theirs, not ours. We need that recognition.”

Queensland is nearly the last Australian state to apologize for these policies, under which the babies were given to married couples, and birth records sealed.

Before the state parliament, Newman said:

“Today this Legislative Assembly acknowledges the wrongs that have been inflicted by past forced adoption policies and practices in Queensland.

We acknowledge those who were denied the choice of parenthood, especially the mothers, as well as the fathers and other generations of their families.

To the mothers whose babies were taken and hidden from them, and who were misled, deceived, threatened or forced to relinquish their babies, we say sorry.

You were denied a voice, dignity and care and, in many cases, the fulfilment of your pregnancy was turned into anguish.

We regret the untruths that were told to you and about you, and any illegal acts that were perpetrated upon you.

Today we say that you need not suffer in silence any more.

To the sons and daughters taken from their mothers, we also say sorry and express our deep regret for the trauma that many of you have suffered. We acknowledge that you were denied the right to experience the bonds between you and your natural mother, father, siblings and other family members because of the practices that took place at the time of your birth. We know that for many of you this has caused immeasurable pain.

We acknowledge that this experience has impacted on the lives of fathers, siblings and other family members and to them we are sorry.

We acknowledge also the partners, children and others who have supported their loved ones over the years in coping with the grief they endure.

This Legislative Assembly offers its unreserved and sincere apology to all those families forcibly and unlawfully broken apart by these past practices and we acknowledge that your pain and suffering continues.

We acknowledge the shame, guilt and secrecy carried by many for too long in silence, and that when it was expressed often it has not been believed.

Today, in this Legislative Assembly, we place on the record for future generations and say to all those affected, you have been heard, you are believed and you are not to blame.

We will continue to listen to, work with, and support you to heal and we are committed to ensuring these policies and practices are not forgotten and are never repeated.

To all those affected we say sorry.”

Opposition leader Annastacia Palaszczuk then told Margaret Oakhill-Hamilton’s story, finishing by saying, “These women… were lied to. They were tricked into giving up their children. They were… lied to and browbeaten and bullied into believing they had absolutely no choice other than to give their children away. It was illegal. It was wrong.”

Those are good apologies. I think they meet Oakhill-Hamilton’s standard. One person who helped draft Newman’s apology is Kerri Saint, once a baby taken for adoption. In childhood, she was told that her biological mother had been 16 and had died in childbirth. Years later, she discovered that her mother had been a 34-year-old widow, who was forced to give her up.

An interesting (45-minute) investigative broadcast from Four Corners has interviews with women who were forced to give babies up. Also interviewed are two retired social workers (then called almoners) who worked with the mothers. One is seen in darkness, from behind, and is granted anonymity. She is angry about what she was called on to do.

The second social worker was at the Crown Street Women’s Hospital, then the largest source of adoptable babies in Australia. She is guarded, but also chillingly candid as she talks about how she refused to let the women see their babies until it had been decided what would happen to them. “I felt that had to be resolved.” It’s clear that many mothers thought they had to agree to give the baby up in order to see it, and that she knew this, and used it. “So… from the girl’s point of view, [they might have thought] ‘Oh well, she will only let me see the baby if I promise her I’m going to have the baby adopted’ – see what I mean?”

When the interviewer mentions apologies made in Western Australia for forced adoptions, she says “I suppose there are two sorts of apologies. You apologize for something that you’ve done that was wrong. The other one is when you say you’re sorry for something that has happened to somebody. And I think that anybody who was in that business, like me, for example, I would be happy to say that I’m extremely sorry for the pain and trauma and the things that happened to women in those days – but I don’t think I was doing those things.”

The apology in which she says how extremely sorry she is for “the things that happened” isn’t an apology at all. As for the apology for doing something that was wrong, which she doesn’t want to make – I don’t like to say it, because I think it was brave of her to be interviewed, but she was doing some of those things, and she should take responsibility for doing them. And apologize.