Blamed for being a neglected child

FOR years, Debra Lowe felt like nothing much: invisible, unloved. Now her face is known to millions, a symbol of the Forgotten Australians.

FOR years, Debra Lowe felt like nothing much: invisible, unloved. Now her face is known to millions, a symbol of the Forgotten Australians.

She is the woman who was photographed during Monday's apology to state wards and orphans, crouched on the floor, shrouded in the Australian flag, at the knee of Kevin Rudd's wife, Therese Rein.

She had no idea who she was sitting with, until the newspapers called to tell her.

"She comforted me," Ms Lowe said yesterday. "She even helped me up off the floor."

Ms Lowe's history is like so many former wards: the second-youngest of six children in a battling Ballina family, she was taken into care at the age of two, in 1964.

First stop was the Coolangatta courthouse, where she was charged with being a neglected child.

"Those are the words in my file," she said. "Like it was my fault."

From the courthouse, she went to the Diamantina Depot, which was like a receiving depot for children, where "the welfare" decided where each child would go.

The Lowe siblings went to a local orphanage. At the age of four, Debra remembers taking part in a play, for parents who were visiting the home, looking for a child to adopt.

"I played Miss Muffet," she said.

"Afterwards, they came to me and said you'll be going to this home."

It lasted only a short time, as did every placement after that, and there were as many as 22.

"Sometimes it was short-term, just Christmas or the long weekend," she says.

"Other times, it lasted longer but then they (the carers) would send me back.

"I didn't realise until I got my file under Freedom of Information that I got lost in the system. I have letters, government departments writing to each other, saying where is Debbie supposed to be? Or Debbie has no clothes."

She left care at the age of 18, married the wrong guy -- "I was lonely, I needed support" -- and had a child.

Since then, there has been another serious relationship that ended when her partner died in a motorcycle accident.

A few years ago, Ms Lowe featured in the Nine Network program Missing People, during which she was finally reunited with her father and some siblings. It helped heal some of the wounds but in recent years, she has written repeatedly to the Prime Minister, asking about her past, and questioning the system.

It was Mr Rudd who invited her to Canberra.

She wanted to "really absorb" what he said so she walked to the front of the room and, because all the seats were taken, she sat down on the floor.

It was then that Ms Rein reached down to comfort her.

Like many former wards, Ms Lowe doesn't necessarily want compensation, but she would like some help with her teeth.

"I moved around so much when I was a child, I didn't get dental care and I lost my own teeth really early in life. It can get painful. I wouldn't mind some help with my teeth now."