Elders and Stolen Generation victims connected to an Indigenous community service on the old Sister Kate's Children's Home in Perth's south-east have urged government leaders to broker a deal with the site's landowners Uniting Church Australia WA.
Speaking on behalf of the women who found a safe haven and accessed services at the former Beananing Kwuurt Institute in Queens Park during the past three years, Dorothy Winmar, Margaret Taylor-Yarran, Janet Garlett, Jessica Hart, and Sirah Coyne cited 1997's Bringing Them Home report as just cause why they should be allowed to remain on site and the land returned directly to the Noongar community.
Recommendation 41 of the report stated land should be returned by way of reparations.
The BKI support centre provided services like food, counselling, legal, housing and domestic violence support, and cultural activities, but faced closure after the Uniting Church – via a 'covenant' agreement with the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress – suspended its board led by Worrorra Walmajarri woman Katina Law in May 2004 over a claim the BKI advocated a 'No' vote in the Voice referendum, against the Church's position.
BKI operated from a small building among many abandoned ones on the 4-hectare Queens Park site, which holds considerable cultural significance.
The BKI board was ratified in 2007 and service established by the late Reverend Sealin Garlett to govern a social services arm for Aboriginal people in need.
While the BKI was closed on December 13, the women are defiant they won't be removed from a site.
Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe has backed the fight to keep BKI services on the historic site, recently urging federal minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy, WA Indigenous Affairs minister Tony Buti and WA Premier Roger Cook to intervene and engage the church.
"This place, Sister Kate's, is on Whadjuk Noongar land, and has a very dark and racist history post-colonisation," Ms Winmar said.
"Pre-colonisation, this land was a sacred birthing site for Noongar women. This knowledge has been passed down through the generations.
"Genocide happened here. This land is where they stole us and our family members - our children, sisters, brothers, siblings, parents - and tried to assimilate them to become white and 'civilised'.
"This included Aboriginal children from all over WA, displaced from their traditional Country, mostly children with fairer skin. We were raped and abused, whipped and publicly humiliated, and sent to white families as slaves."
The Bringing Them Home inquiry found the practice of forcible removals of Aboriginal children amounted to genocide.
"[T]he predominant aim of Indigenous child removals was the absorption or assimilation of the children into the wider, non-Indigenous, community so that their unique cultural values and ethnic identities would disappear… Removal of children with this objective in mind is genocidal because it aims to destroy the 'cultural unit' which the Convention is concerned to preserve," it read.
"That churches and other non-government agencies review their land holdings to identify land acquired or granted for the purpose of accommodating Indigenous children forcibly removed from their families and, in consultation with Indigenous people and their land councils, return that land."
The property and Sister Kate's has remained Uniting Church-owned land.
The BKI women referenced an article by Noongar law academic Dr Hannah McGlade, a human rights expert who herself was housed at Sister Kate's, noting commitments from the Uniting Church.
"In 1997, the Uniting Church made a commitment to enter into discussions with the associations of people from Sister Kate's, who had 'passed through' the Home, to negotiate the ways in which the Church may help to repair the damage that occurred, and its continuing consequences for individuals and families, and to assist in the process of healing in the community," Dr McGlade wrote.
Instead of returning the land, the Uniting Church set up Beananing Kwuurt Institute under the Uniting Church of Australia Act 1976 (WA).
In 2007, the church vested the land in BKI's name before its abrupt suspension of the self-sufficient board in May 2024, with suspended staff told to vacate the premises and their belongings by December 13.
"They gave us an eviction notice and told us we need to be off the property, forever," said the women in a joint statement, who remain defiant and have occupied the land with other groups including Renters and Housing Union members.
"What the Uniting Church is doing to us at the moment is what they were doing to our parents and our grandparents and our great grandparents - trying to remove us from our culture, community and our land," the women said.
"The Church are continuing the genocide today through this act of displacement, and by stopping our healing process, on our own terms.
"While we can never recover from the horrors of Sister Kate's, and how this destroyed our families, we can try to heal together."
Ms Winmar said services BKI provided included advocacy, food relief, healthy meals, sanitary products, all baby needs, household goods, clothing, health checks and mental health support.
"We also enjoy the opportunity to connect with culture through art, and to offer art and yarning sessions to the wider community, which also provides us extra income," Ms Winmar said.
"The majority of women that come here are Noongar women, who are trying to do something good on this land… most have been abused in some way, be it mentally, physically, sexually, and they are suffering a lot of depression and anxiety.
"And to be able to come here and speak with other people that have gone through these experiences, it is a comfort place where we can all be here together and begin to heal, so we can move forward."
They questioned why the church was adamant on closing the agency – and its services and programs – and kicking women off Noongar land, saying it was distressing.
"Why do you want to take this away from us? This land is women's business, and us women need to have a say in women's business - not just three Noongar men on the UAICC WA."
BKI representatives denied claims they had been disrespectful towards the late Reverend Garlett.
"May he rest in peace, we are deeply grateful for all he did for our community," they said.
Despite a three-day mediation process between the BKI, UAICC and UCA last March, the outcome was to suspend the new board and shut BKI.
One of the three WA members of the UAICC – Mitchell Garlett – did not attend mediation with the BKI board, who claim they were essentially gagged during the process.
"We've never had a chance to sit down with the Congress or the church at any time and talk through this and work something out," they claim.
"Ultimately the Church was always responsible for having Noongar leadership and representation in staffing at BKI, which it failed to do in recent years.
Initially comprising mostly UCA and UAICC members, the original BKI board was gifted $5.5 million from the sale of part of the Sister Kate's site in 2007, but it and subsequent boards allegedly spent the millions, including significant government grants.
Warnings of financial discrepancies from independent auditors were noted in early audits of which the UCA were aware.
Before the current board took over in 2021, several independent audits flagged potential concerns over the use of funds intended for Aboriginal services. It is also documented that hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on consultancy, feasibility studies, office supplies, cleaning and other miscellaneous services.
"At the end of the day, the Church and the Congress need to step up and come forward and have a chat with our ladies, and let us work something out so we can all move on together," the women said.
"We are a very strong ladies group and we are looking to do something for ourselves. So step up, come out, sit and talk with us about what we would like to do here.
"We are inviting the Uniting Church to right the wrongs of the past and not repeat mistakes. We are asking for Noongar land to be in Noongar hands, not the Church's.
"Sorry means you don't do it again."
A recent statement by UCWA said it hoped alternative services might "open their arms to some of the people whom BKI supported".
The BKI wants an indefinite extension to stay open so it can continue to deliver services.
The land title - although registered to BKI - has now been transferred to the UCA property trust.
