An indigenous elder is the first person to given evidence at Queensland’s truth-telling and healing inquiry, explaining what life was like growing up in an aboriginal community. Aunty Lesley Williams describes living off rations and being sent away as a teenager to work for white farming families.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Lesley Williams grew up on Cherbourg Aboriginal Settlement, three hours west of Brisbane.
00:09She had little contact with the outside world because anyone living there was under curfew
00:14and needed permits to leave.
00:17Relying on rations, her father was paid just eight hours out of a 40-hour week, the equivalent
00:24of $15 a fortnight.
00:26Like her grandmother and mother, as a teen, Lesley was sent to work as a domestic servant
00:32for white farming families.
00:35Sleeping outside in the shed, and now I describe pushing a bag of sugar up to the door for
00:41security.
00:42Oh, that was terrifying, and I hated it.
00:45For years, she worked every day for pocket money.
00:49Most of her wages were held in a trust by the government.
00:53And the money that was withheld from us.
00:56After a hard-fought campaign, the 77-year-old told her truth on record at a historic hearing.
01:03We did lobby for this 30 years ago, for this, for an inquiry like this to take place.
01:10The koa elder is the first to give evidence at the inquiry, which aims to understand the
01:16impacts of colonisation.
01:18She reflected on her debut as an excited 16-year-old, saying she thinks differently about it now.
01:26These girls are now coming out into society.
01:29We were still not a part of society.
01:32We were still down the bottom of the social ladder.
01:36The inquiry will make findings, recommendations and provide advice to the Queensland Government
01:41after completing the three-year truth-telling process.
01:45It will include in-person and written submissions, and will also look at more than 200,000 items
01:51from the state archives.
01:53It's critically important that we hear from people with lived experience.
01:57We don't know what we don't know.
01:58The inquiry will hold hearings across the state.