By XAVIER SMERDON
A WERRIBEE South man who was a victim of forced adoption is stepping up his fight with the Victorian and Federal Governments.
As revealed by Star earlier this year, John Good was calling on both levels of government to support a move to provide his fellow victims with free access to their birth, adoption and ancestry records.
Since then he has managed to find his birth mother and put a few of the pieces of the puzzle that is his life back into place.
But that has not stopped him in his cause.
Recently Mr Good received the support of the Member for Tarneit, Tim Pallas, who wrote to the Victorian Attorney General, Robert Clark, on his behalf.
“Mr Good advocates that all members of the Forgotten Generation should be granted fee waivers for Birth, Death and Marriage Certificates required in order to investigate their family history, for both medical and personal reasons,” Mr Pallas wrote.
“I ask that you give strong consideration to Mr Good’s request.”
About two months later Mr Good finally received a response from Mr Clark.
Mr Clark stated that more than 100,000 children were placed in institutional or foster care in Victoria between 1928 and 2003, and over half of these children were made “wards of the State”.
Mr Clark said while it was possible to waive individual’s fees, there was “no provision for the Registrar to apply a ‘blanket’ waiver of fees to a class of persons or group”.
But Mr Good said the response was “inappropriate”.
“This is boiling down to money, have no fear about it,” Mr Good said.
“I’m finding this all pretty hard to deal with.
“They are basically saying they don’t want to help a big group of people, but we are the victims, we’ve done nothing wrong, why should we have to pay for it?”
