Testimony before inquiries into out-of-home carethat have taken place in many countries over the last twenty years has severelydisrupted received ideas about the quality of care given to children in thepast. Evidence of the widespread abuse of children presented before recentinquiries internationally gives rise to the question: why didn’t we know? Partof the answer lies in the changing forms and functions of inquiries, whoseinterests they serve, how they are organised and how they gather evidence. Usingas a case study, a survey of historical abuse inquiries in Australia, this articleexplores the shift to victim and survivor testimony and in so doing offers anew way of conceptualising and categorising historical child abuse inquiries.It focuses less on how inquiries are constituted or governed, and insteadadvances an historically contextualised approach that foregrounds the issue of who speaks and who is heard.