National Sorry Day Committee

FAQ

Who are the Stolen Generations?

The Stolen Generations is the name generally given to Aboriginal people – mainly those with some non-Aboriginal ancestry – who were removed from their families as children and sent to institutions or adopted into non-Aboriginal families as a result of government policies now recognised as misguided and destructive.

Why "Stolen"?

Because in the vast majority of cases, agents of government used compulsion, duress or undue pressure to remove these children from their mothers and communities. Sometimes the police would simply remove the child by force. Sometimes subterfuge was used. Sometimes the mother would be persuaded to sign a document of which she had little understanding, and certainly no concept that she was allowing her child to be entirely separated from her for many years.

Why "Generations"?

Because authorities began removing Aboriginal children early in the nineteenth century, and the practice went on into the 1970s.

How many children were taken?

The best estimates are between 45 000 and 55 000 children, mainly between 1910 and 1970.

What proportion of children were taken?

At the peak in the 1920s and again in the 1950s the numbers were close to one child in three. By this time, in southern Australia, almost all Aboriginal children were of part-descent. In northern Australia the authorities mainly targeted the part-Aboriginal children.

Why were the children taken away?

Since Britain’s colonisation of Australia began in 1788, the story of the Aboriginal people has been one of dispossession, massacre and disease, to the point where it was widely assumed that they would die out. But the number of people of mixed Aboriginal and white race grew steadily; and since they were usually born of white fathers and Aboriginal mothers, most of them grew up in Aboriginal communities.

This alarmed the white authorities, who looked on Aboriginal culture as worthless. In their view, if they denied these children access to Aboriginal culture, the children would turn naturally to Western culture, and Australia would soon become a wholly Western country. So, from the late 1800s, the authorities adopted a practice of removing the children from their Aboriginal families and placing them with white foster parents or in white institutions, often run by churches.

What was the effect of the separation on the children?

Experiences varied widely, depending on the situation to which the children were taken, and amount of the love and attention they received. Some coped with the trauma of losing their families, and flourished. They have still had to cope with the emptiness resulting from the silence about their birth families, and the denial of their Indigenous heritage. But their situation is far better than those who were placed with unsatisfactory foster parents or in institutions. Many of these children never overcome their traumatic loss, and their lives have become an anguished story of social malformation. At least one academic study has found that, after removal from their families, the children’s scholastic achievement deteriorated markedly.

The worst places were normally the institutions. The staff included many caring people. But they were unable to give the children the attention they needed, and many children grew up starved of affection. There were also staff who were wholly unsuitable, as the evidence of abuse, physical and sexual, makes clear. Some institutions were seriously under-resourced, and their living conditions were deplorable, even by the standards of the time.

Above all, however, the institutions were given an impossible task – to prepare part-Aboriginal children to take their place in a society which treated non-white people as second-class. In many institutions the children were taught to stay away from Aboriginal people. They learned to be ashamed that they were black. Most girls were trained with the expectation that they would become domestic servants, and boys were expected to become stockmen, or learn a simple trade.

Many who adopted or fostered these children tried to ignore the social attitudes to non-white people, reasoning that if they treated the child as an equal, the rest of society would too. Normally this did not happen. As the children reached twelve or thirteen they found their white friends dropping away. It became harder to get a friend of the opposite sex. Unwanted and alienated, the children couldn’t withdraw into Aboriginal company like their cousins back home.

Though their experiences were different, both the children from the institutions and those in foster homes shared the same problems. Not accepted by the whites, too ashamed to join the blacks, all too often the stolen generations were left in the middle.

What was the effect on the Aboriginal Community?

Almost everyone was affected – those taken away, and the parents, sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts, left behind. Widely throughout the country, Aboriginal families lived, year after year, with the fear that their children would be snatched from them. When a Government patrol officer appeared, the children would scatter into the bush. Some families fled to isolated places or kept moving ahead of the authorities. This caused constant disruption to many Aboriginal communities, destroying any chance of the stability on which advances in health, education and economic development depend.

Was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights violated by these policies?

Australia appears to have been in clear violation of the 1949 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that:

4. No one shall be held in servitude.

9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence…

16(3). The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and state.

26(3). Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

What was the Bringing Them Home Report?

In the early 1990s the Federal Government became alarmed at the rate at which Aboriginal people were committing suicide in prison. They established a Royal Commission which investigated 100 Aboriginal people who had died in prison. They discovered that 43 of them had been removed from their families as children, as a result of the separation and juvenile justice policies of the time. Clearly this factor needed further investigation.

In May 1995 the Federal Government directed the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission to investigate the past and present separation of Aboriginal children from their parents and communities, the need for any changes in current laws and practices, and principles relating to compensation.

The Inquiry travelled widely throughout the country, taking evidence or receiving submissions from 777 people or organisations. By the time it finished, the Labor Government had been replaced by a Coalition Government, and it was to this Government that the President of the Commission, Sir Ronald Wilson, presented the report, Bringing Them Home, in April 1997. Its findings were a feature of vigorous debate in the media from then on, and media specialists say that this was the biggest story to go from Australia to the world in 1997.

What were the findings of "Bringing Them Home"?

The report is 689 pages long. It concluded: ‘Indigenous children have been forcibly removed from their families and communities since the very first days of the European occupation of Australia. In that time, not one Indigenous family has escaped the effects.’

It also concluded that forcible removal was an act of genocide contrary to the Convention on Genocide ratified by Australia in 1949. This Convention specifically includes ‘forcibly transferring children of (a) group to another group with the intention of destroying the group.’

To overcome the continuing harmful consequences of these policies, the report made 54 recommendations. These included apologies by State and Federal authorities, and measures for restitution, rehabilitation and monetary compensation. It proposed the establishment of centres for the study and preservation of Indigenous languages, culture and history, and for family tracing/reunion services and the protection of records. Rehabilitation measures included counselling services, and steps towards giving Indigenous communities responsibility for the welfare of their children. It also recommended that the Commonwealth legislate to implement the Genocide Convention and establish national Indigenous child placement principles.

What was the response of State Governments to the Bringing Them Home Report?

All State and Territory Parliaments have formally apologised to the stolen generations for past policies. . Representatives of the stolen generations have been invited to address their State Parliaments. Their speeches, and the speeches of Government and Opposition members in reply, have been heartfelt. This has done much to restore dignity to those whose dignity was trampled on by the removal policies.

Several Indigenous leaders have said that, since these apologies, there has been a noticeably greater understanding of, and concern for, the problems which their people face in areas such as health and employment.

Many of Bringing Them Home’s recommendations apply to State Government policy, and whereas some States have begun to implement these recommendations, there is still a long way to go.

What was the response of other institutions to the Bringing Them Home Report?

Many Australian churches have formally apologised for their role in the harm caused by the forced removal policies, as have the police services in two States, and other institutions which played a role in the policies. More recently the Chief Magistrates in two States have apologised to the Aboriginal community for insensitive conduct towards them. These have all played an important role in bringing the communities together.

What was the response of the Federal (national) Government to the Bringing Them Home Report?

In its formal response to "Bringing Them Home" in December 1997, Senator John Herron, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, presented a package of $63 million in "practical assistance". This included provision for the Australian Archives to copy and preserve files, the taped recording of life histories, development of family support programs, a national network of Link-Up services, the employment of new counsellors and the expansion of regional counselling centres.

The Government refused to apologise on behalf of the Australian people, and refused to consider other aspects of the recommendations of the report, notably compensation. By May 2000, only $13 million of the promised $63 million had been spent.

When the Government responded (in March 2000) to a Senate Inquiry into the implementation of Bringing Them Home, their submission suggested that the stolen generations had exaggerated their plight. ‘There never was a stolen generation of Aboriginal people,’ it stated, arguing that because only 10% of Aboriginal people were removed, and some of these for normal welfare reasons, it was wrong to speak of a ‘stolen generation’. A number of historians have said that the figure of 10% is too low. But most of the Australian media argued that even if it were only 10%, this would still be a matter of the utmost seriousness.

This lack of enthusiasm is consistent with the Prime Minister’s earlier attacks on a "black armband" approach to Australian history. But it has not pleased all Liberals. The previous Liberal Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, told a media conference in Melbourne on 4 May this year: ‘The removal of Aboriginal children from their families was one of the most painful acts in Australia's history.’ He went on: ‘We need a much greater national determination to address past wrongs and, symbolically, the most important element may be to address past wrongs in relation to the stolen generation.....A full apology is very significant.... An apology does not imply guilt. It implies a recognition that an injustice occurred. It implies we have a will and a determination to try to do something about the many people who have suffered as a result of that injustice.’

Why is the Federal Government reluctant to apologise?

Senator John Herron, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, stated in 1998:
‘The government does not support an official national apology. Such an apology could imply that present generations are in some way responsible and accountable for the actions of earlier generations, actions that were sanctioned by laws of the time, and that were believed to be in the best interests of the children concerned.’

What is Sorry Day?

The Bringing Them Home report received immense media coverage. It has sold far more copies than any comparable report, and has stirred many to think about their own experience of Aboriginal people. Why were the Aboriginals in the back row of the classroom so silent, and kept to themselves? Why is a quarter of our jail population Aboriginal, when they make up 2% of the population? Many began to understand aspects of our past which had passed them by, and wanted to express their pain. Over half a million people signed Sorry Books, and the messages are deeply moving.

A Sorry Day was launched. On 26 May 1988, Australians of all ethnicities came together in thousands of events in cities, towns and rural centres across the country, to express their sorrow, and offer their apologies, for the harm done to Aboriginal people. Schools, churches, local councils, organised events at which Sorry Books were handed to Indigenous leaders. In Melbourne thousands attended a service at the Anglican Cathedral, then walked to the City Hall, where the Lord Mayor handed the keys of the city to representatives of the stolen generations. In Queensland, every prison held a minute’s silence.

What is the Journey of Healing?

What is the "Sea of Hands"?

Other bodies grew, in response to community concern. Australians for Reconciliation and Native Title (ANTaR) initiated the Sea of Hands. Everyone who supports ANTaR’s aims can sign a statement, and their name is then attached to a plastic outline of a hand. 150,000 people have done so, and the resulting multicoloured Sea of Hands has travelled all over Australia. At crucial moments in the national debate, it has been set up in front of Parliament House, on Bondi Beach, at Uluru, or wherever it can draw attention, as a demonstration of the support in the community for reconciliation based on justice in native title issues. ANTaR is also pursuing this objective in many other ways – see www.antar.org.au

And the future?

Many who were removed as children are now trying to find their families. This is no easy task, as records have often been lost or destroyed. Organisations such as Link-Up, which is bringing together separated children with their families, have only a handful of workers in each State, and are overwhelmed by the demand for their services. In NSW alone, 1,500 people have asked their help.

Even when the family is found, rebuilding a relationship is a long and painful process. But overwhelmingly, those who have taken this step are grateful that they now know where they belong.

However, many of the Stolen Generations feel that the Federal Government has turned its back on them. As a consequence, some of them are seeking redress through the courts. The Government’s response has been to try and discredit them. The most recent case, in which two members of the stolen generations sued the Government for wrongful treatment, lasted 107 days, costing over $10 million. In his judgement, in August 2000, Justice O’Loughlin found the two had not proved that, under the laws of the time, they were unjustly removed. Crucial documents could not be found, and witnesses had died. However, the case exposed the shameful way in which they were treated in the institutions to which they were removed. It is becoming clear that the legal system cannot resolve this situation, and the calls are growing for an alternative to confronting the Stolen Generations in the courts.

There is a better way. The Government could offer the Stolen Generations the chance to help work out how the problems they face can be overcome. Other countries such as New Zealand have learnt to negotiate solutions to the grievances of their Indigenous people. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre and the National Sorry Day Committee have both proposed models for such a negotiation.

Conclusion

Reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is vital to Australia’s future.

Not one Aboriginal family has escaped the effects of the Removal policies. A new and inclusive initiative on this issue could alter the climate of relations, with immense benefit to the whole reconciliation process.

Reconciliation is a challenge both at community level and at Government level. It can be achieved. At present, Aboriginal Australians die 20 years younger than non-Aboriginal Australians. It will call for sustained initiatives both at community level and at Government level. A poll in April 2005, conducted by Newspoll, found that over 80% of Australians believe that reconciliation is ‘important’ or ‘very important’. This suggests that the community is ready for bold Government leadership on the matter.

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