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Record #14808
Name :
: Michael BARNETT (1946 - )


Father
:
Mother
:
BMD and other details
Date of Birth
: 24 Jan 1946

Marriage (1)
:
Marriage (2)
:

Date of Death
:
Abode (1) : Place of BirthEngland
Abode (2) : Place of Death / Burial
Sailing Information
Date of Arrival
: 7 Dec 1958
Country
: Australia

Ship
: Fairsky

Placement Family
:
Homes / Agencys
Institution (GB)
:

Agency
: Fairbridge Homes
NotesIn 1958, Michael Barnett, 12, arrived at Fremantle, Australia, in a group of children en route to Fairbridge Farm, Pinjarra, Australia. Date of birth shown as January 24, 1946; residence in the UK: 72, Melville Road, Falmouth.

Nicholas Perpitch reported in The Australian, on June 11, 2011:

Tears for fears of Fairbridge Farm orphans

STAFF at the Dickensian English orphanage where 12-year-old Mike Barnett lived did not even bother promising a life of oranges and sunshine when they told him he was going to Australia.

Unlike many others, there was no attempt at coercion.

"It wasn't, 'Do you want to go?' I had no choice," Mr Barnett, who now lives in Perth, said. "You were simply selected and told that's where you are going. In my case, though, anything would have been better than where I was. So I didn't need to be coerced."

Mr Barnett was one of up to 150,000 mostly poor children forcibly sent to Australia and other commonwealth countries last century, often to a life of suffering and abuse in institutional care. Many were told their parents were dead and they were being sent to a better place.

The film Oranges and Sunshine recounts the story of Margaret Humphries, the social worker from Nottingham who exposed the scandal, and her relentless work to reunite the children, now adults, with their families.

Mr Barnett refused to go into the detail of what he experienced at Fairbridge farm, near Pinjarra, south of Perth. Some have told of happy years spent there while others have recounted stories of cruelty, physical abuse and overcrowding.

Mr Barnett does say, having come from an orphanage, it was easier for him than others during his three years at Fairbridge.

He went on to become a state Labor MP, serving as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly for two terms. He retired in 1996, the same year he presented parliament with the interim report of a select committee he chaired into child migration. In 2005, Western Australia's parliament apologised to former child migrants who suffered abuse, and in 2009 Kevin Rudd followed suit.

Over the years, Mr Barnett, who now heads an association of old Fairbridgians, came to know Ms Humphries well.

"She's an extraordinary woman who has given her life towards former child migrants. She's done a hugely important job and continues to do it. To have the knowledge you are not alone in the world is a huge emotional step forward."

He recently saw Oranges and Sunshine and said actress Emily Watson, who did not meet Humphries before making the film, played her "to a tee". The film told the story with "unerring accuracy". "It could have been so much more open, it could have told so many more stories, but then many more people would have cried than they did in the movie."

Mr Barnett was one of the many to benefit personally from Humphries's work. She helped him find his father, but five days before he was due to leave for England to meet him for the first time his father died. And that is now Mr Barnett's main concern.

"The older people, the parents and other siblings, for that matter, are of an age where they're beginning to die. And the sadness of it is, in many cases that's when people find their parent or their brother or their sister, because of a death." 
ContributorsCreated : 2011-06-12 10:31:09 / From original database

Last Updated : 2015-08-31 15:51:54 / alanmack

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IDNameDOBPlace of birthArrivals & ShipsDest.AgencyFamily links
14808 BARNETT, Michael1946ENG,     Dec 1958 : Fairsky AUS Fairbridge Homes