AUSTRALIA
Care Leavers Australia Network

Too many ready to call it a day
Before the day starts
Stan Cullimore, Paul Heaton, Ted Key, ‘Flag Day’, 1985

In 2004, at the official hearings of the Senate Community Affairs References Committee as part of the Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care, Leonie Sheedy, co-founder of the Care Leavers of Australia Network, demanded that there be space made available for an exhibition about the experiences of children who grew up in orphanages: ‘Get the dinosaurs out of the Australian museum, for once, and dedicate it to orphanages and children. Let our histories be visible’

Sheedy’s plea, directed at the Australian Museum, Sydney, can be interpreted as a simple preference for social over natural history museums. The National Museum of Australia arguably fulfilled Sheedy’s prescription with the exhibition Inside: Life in Children’s Homes and Institutions, on display in Canberra from…