Kerry White: Indigenous No campaigner describes the Stolen Generation as a ‘mistruth’
Pictured: A 1934 newspaper clipping advertising Native children for adoption
The Stolen Generations were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly removed from their families as recently as the 1970s.
The first Aboriginal Act was passed in Western Australia in 1905 and the Chief Protector became the legal guardian of every Aboriginal and ‘half-caste’ child under the age of 16.
Similar laws were soon passed in other states and territories, including the New South Wales Aborigines Protection Act in 1909, and in 1911 the South Australia Aborigines Act and the Northern Territory Aboriginals Ordinance.
From the time the first law was passed until 1970, between one in ten and one in three Indigenous children were removed from their families or communities.
In 1937 a Commonwealth-State conference made ‘native prosperity’ assimilation a national policy.
“The fate of the natives of aboriginal descent, but not of the purebloods, lies in their ultimate absorption … for the purpose of taking their place in the white community on an equal footing with the whites,” the policy said.
In 1967, a referendum was held to amend the Australian Constitution, establishing laws for Aboriginal people to be included in the census for the first time.
Two years later, all states had repealed legislation allowing the removal of Aboriginal children for ‘protection’.
In 1975, Parliament introduced the Racial Discrimination Act, which made discrimination on the basis of race illegal regardless of state or territory law.
Eight years later, the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle was introduced, which ensured that Indigenous children were placed with Indigenous families when adoption was necessary.
In 1997, the parliaments and governments of Victoria, Tasmania, ACT, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia all issued public apologies to the Stolen Generations.
A report tabled in Parliament entitled Bringing Them Home recommended that then Prime Minister John Howard apologize to the Stolen Generations, but he chose not to do so.
The first Sorry Day was held on May 26, 1998, to commemorate the mistreatment of the country’s Aboriginal people.
A memorial to the Stolen Generations was unveiled in 2004 and a Stolen Generations compensation scheme was established in Tasmania in 2006.
On February 13, 2008, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a public apology to the Stolen Generations.