CANBERRA—They were beaten. They were abused. They were forgotten. They were half a million in number.
Now they will be remembered.
On Monday, federal parliament apologised to the Forgotten Australians who suffered as children inside the nation's orphanages and institutions.
Survivors poured into the Great Hall in Parliament House to listen for the one word they had waited a lifetime to hear - sorry.
It was standing room only as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd recalled the "ugly chapter" in Australia's history.
And tears flowed in the audience as he acknowledged the physical and emotional abuse suffered in state and church-based children's homes.
"Sorry for the tragedy, the absolute tragedy of childhoods lost," Mr Rudd told the 1,000-strong gathering, mostly survivors including former Australian Democrat senator Andrew Murray who championed the issue in parliament.
"We look back in shame at how those with power were allowed to abuse those who had none."
Mr Rudd apologised to the 10,000 child migrants shipped over from Britain after World War II, on the false belief that they were orphans.
"Robbed of your families, robbed of your homeland, regarded not as innocent children but regarded instead as a source of child labour.
"We acknowledge today that the laws of our nation failed you."
The apology will help the nation remember its past, move forward, and ensure all children are protected from abuse, he said.
"The Senate named you the Forgotten Australians, today and from this day forward it is my hope that you will be called the Remembered Australians."
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull, choked with emotion, retold the stories of some of those who were left "abandoned and betrayed".
"Many of you were abandoned and left without love, many of you were beaten and abused, physically, sexually, mentally treated like objects not people," he said.
"Today we want you to know, we admire you, we believe you, we love you."
Gabrielle Short was one of the survivors who travelled to Canberra to hear the apology for her years of abuse at an orphanage in Ballarat.
"If you wet the bed at the house, they'd rub your face into the sheets until it bled," Ms Short, now 53, told AAP.
As punishment the girls would also have their feet scalded in hot water or be locked under the stairs with food thrown to them, she said.
For Ms Short, the word sorry from the highest office has helped her forgive.
"Once you start forgiving, you get rid of bitterness," she said.
The government has ruled out a federal compensation scheme, but has promised to look after Forgotten Australians as they head into old age.
But Mr Murray said a compensation scheme could work alongside reparation programs to improve health and ease suffering.
"Compensation is just one part of that," he told reporters.
Liberal MP Steve Irons, also a Forgotten Australian, agreed that compensation was an issue the federal government would have to deal with in the future.
"But it's probably not the issue today," he said.
"The issue ... is about these people getting the apology they deserve."
