What was the Stolen Generations removal policy?

The Stolen Generations removal policy was the federal, state, and territory practice of removing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and placing them in missions, institutions, or non-Aboriginal foster families. The practice operated between about 1910 and 1970, although specific cases continued later in some jurisdictions and the broader Aboriginal experience of child removal continues today in modified forms.

The 1997 Bringing Them Home report estimated that between one in three and one in ten Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were removed from their families during the period, with the precise figure varying by region and decade. The total number of children removed is estimated at between 50,000 and 100,000 across the country. Removals happened under specific state and territory legislation (including the Aborigines Protection Act 1909 in NSW, the Aboriginals Ordinance 1918 in the NT, and equivalents in other jurisdictions) that gave Protectors of Aborigines, missions, and state child welfare authorities broad discretion to remove children.

The reasons given for removal varied. Children were taken supposedly for their welfare (in cases of neglect or abandonment, though sometimes with little evidence), for their education (in missions and institutions), or to be assimilated into white Australian society. Lighter-skinned children of mixed Aboriginal and European descent were particularly targeted under the explicit policy of biological absorption: the idea that they could be 'bred out' of Aboriginal identity within a few generations. A. O. Neville, Western Australia's long-serving Chief Protector from 1915 to 1936, was particularly explicit about this approach.

The consequences for Aboriginal communities and for the individuals removed were devastating. Children lost contact with families, country, language, and culture. Many suffered physical, sexual, and emotional abuse in the institutions and foster homes where they were placed. Mental health, substance abuse, incarceration, and intergenerational trauma all continue at high rates among the survivors and their descendants. The Bringing Them Home report of 1997, the Stolen Generations Compensation Tribunal in some states, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's National Apology of 13 February 2008, the Healing Foundation established in 2009, and various state-based reparation schemes have produced partial acknowledgement and redress, but campaigners continue to call for fuller compensation and ongoing support for Stolen Generations survivors and their descendants. National Sorry Day on 26 May commemorates the removed children each year.