Eileen Cummings continues to fight for the NT’s Stolen Generations

Eileen Cummings was four when she was taken from her family. She was playing on the veranda when a man in a truck took her away. After almost 80 years, she’s still campaigning for her people.

Eileen Cummings, one of the champions of the Northern Territory’s Stolen Generations, continues to campaign for the people impacted by the disgraced government policy, while acknowledging her own satisfaction at what the fight has achieved.

Now 80, Ms Cummings’ struggle over three decades eventually secured tens-of-millions of dollars for the Territory’s Stolen Generations with redress up to $75,000, healing assistance payments of up to $7000 and a personal acknowledgment from the Commonwealth for individuals affected.

The circumstances around Ms Cummings’ removal are no less shocking almost 30 years after the release of the Bringing Them Home royal commission report brought the separation of thousands of Indigenous children from their families to the attention of most Australians.

With National Sorry Day on Sunday, Ms Cummings reflected on the day she was playing on the veranda at Mainoru Station, about 250km east of Katherine, when a man wearing khaki pulled up in a truck and turned her world upside down.

“Jack McKay at Mainoru always warned they’d take us away and Mum and Nanna used to hide me,” she said.

“This day I thought I was smart running up and down the veranda on my house and he saw me.

“He was in his khaki clothes. He said ‘you want to go for a ride’ and being an inquisitive child I said ‘yeah’. But I didn’t know they were taking me for good.

“I just said ‘yes’ because I wanted to go for a ride in a truck around the community. Past the station house all the men were down in the stockyards and I was going around the community and Mum came out from the kitchen and saw me on the back of the truck.

“They took me to Maranboy Police Station and that’s where I stayed by myself. My cousins came two days later and they put us all on the back of the truck and sent us to Darwin. From there we went to Retta Dixon Home (in Bagot).

“We tried to run away and then we went to Racecourse Creek. I thought we were going to Katherine.”

Northern Territory Senator Malarndirri McCarthy with Eileen Cummings and her daughter Raelene Rosas, interim chief executive NT Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

She was four, her cousin was eight and she spent the next 13 years at Croker Island Mission.

But the redress scheme Ms Cummings has fought for decades for the Territory’s Stolen Generation has gone someway to healing the lifelong pain of loss and separation.

It was 15 years before she reconnected with her mother, who was still bewildered her daughter had been removed.

“She said ‘why did they take you. Your grandparents were looking after you, I was working, you had a home, you had all your family here’ because I had all my cousins,” Ms Cummings said.

“What hurt me most was not having my mother and my people with me because that was part of my life.”

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s 2008 apology to the Stolen Generations went some way toward easing her pain as did a letter of acknowledgment from the Commonwealth she received in May 2023.

“I did connect with my family and I have very good relationships with my family,” she said. “My kids have gone through ceremonies with them so that was something I got back, and I’m happy for that, but a lot of other Stolen Generation people never got that.”

It’s estimated that of the original Territory Stolen Generations, probably only 200 are still alive.

Ms Cummings was replaced at the NT Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation by her daughter Raelene Rosas, and the pair is now pushing for allocation of a $50m redress payment to the descendants of the Stolen Generation.

“People are waiting to be paid, and they haven’t been,” Ms Cummings said.

Shine Lawyers, which is handling the claim, said the settlement payments were expected to commence in July.

Head of Class Actions, Vicky Antzoulatos, said the distribution of payments was a court ordered process and the timing was not something within their control.

“The administration of settlement payments is a business priority as are accuracy and justice,” she said.

To mark National Sorry Day, Territory Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, who is responsible for the NT redress scheme, announced the government would contribute $3.5m for community-led healing services.

“National Sorry Day is a time to remember a shameful chapter in our country’s history and acknowledge survivors of the Stolen Generations,” Senator McCarthy said.

“This funding, announced today, will enable community organisations to continue their important work supporting survivors of the Stolen Generations and help the healing to occur.”

Originally published as Eileen Cummings continues to fight for the NT’s Stolen Generations