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Within months of the `First Fleet' arrival at Sydney Cove in 1788 there was `open animosity' as Indigenous people protested against `the Europeans cutting down trees, taking their food and game, and driving them back into others' territories'. Bitter conflict followed as Aboriginal people engaged in `guerilla warfare - plundering crops, burning huts, and driving away stock' to be met by `punitive…

From 1835, when the European occupation of Victoria commenced, until the 1880s government policy was one of segregation of Indigenous people on reserves. These were mainly controlled by missions.

The colony of Moreton Bay was established as a penal outpost of New South Wales in 1825. Extreme violence accompanied the rapid expansion of European settlers, particularly in the north. This violence and the spread of introduced diseases resulted in a rapid decrease in the Indigenous population. Kidnapping Indigenous women and children for economic and sexual exploitation was common.

The forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families occurred during two periods in Tasmania. The first commenced with the European occupation of Van Dieman's Land (as Tasmania was called until 1856) in 1803 and lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century. The second commenced in the 1930s with the forcible removal of Indigenous children from Cape Barren Island under general…

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Report Bringing them Home Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ºÚÁÏÇ鱨վ from Their Families April 1997 back to content page / previous chapter / next chapter Part 2 Tracing the History Chapter 2: National Overview Chapter 3: New South Wales and the ACT Chapter 4: Victoria Chapter 5:…

The general opinion of station people is that it is a mistake to take these children out of the bush. They say that the aboriginal mothers are fond of their children and in their own way look after them and provide for them and that when they grow up they are more easily absorbed and employed than those who have been taken out of their natural environment and removed to towns.

In 1863 the area now known as the Northern Territory came under the control of South Australia. By 1903 the whole area was leased to non-Indigenous people. As there were few non-Indigenous women, relationships between the Indigenous women and non-Indigenous men were relatively common. The consequence was a growing population of children of mixed descent who were usually cared for by their mothers…

ºÚÁÏÇ鱨վ's experiences following their removal contributed to the effects of the removal upon them at the time and in later life. In this chapter we briefly survey the evidence to the Inquiry concerning those experiences which have had the most significant impacts on well-being and development.

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Report Bringing them Home Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ºÚÁÏÇ鱨վ from Their Families April 1997 back to content page / previous chapter / next chapter Part 3 Consequences of Removal Chapter 10: ºÚÁÏÇ鱨վs Experiences Chapter 11: The EffectsThe effects of separation from the primary…

Just as there are many homes, there are many journeys home. Each one of us will have a different journey from anyone else. The journey home is mostly ongoing and in some ways never completed. It is a process of discovery and recovery, it is a process of (re)building relationships which have been disrupted, or broken or never allowed to begin because of separation (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186).

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Report Bringing them Home Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ºÚÁÏÇ鱨վ from Their Families April 1997 back to content page / previous chapter / next chapter Part 4 Reparation Chapter 13 Grounds for Reparation Chapter 14 Making Reparation Kooris Come in All Colours I know I'm a Koori I've…

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Report Bringing them Home Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ºÚÁÏÇ鱨վ from Their Families April 1997 back to content page / previous chapter / next chapter Part 4 Reparation Chapter 13 Grounds for Reparation Chapter 14 Making Reparation Chapter 14 Making Reparation Acknowledgment and…

Nunga baby taken away `Where's my mama' hear him say `You takin' me to Goonyaland?' Carried and fed by white man's hand Growing up different Never knowing Aunts and uncles, cousins growing Mama cries - Government pays ºÚÁÏÇ鱨վ lost to city ways

That's why I wanted the files brought down, so I could actually read it and find out why I was taken away and why these three here [siblings] were taken by [our] auntie ... Why didn't she take the lot of us instead of leaving two there? ... I'd like to get the files there and see why did these ones here go to the auntie and the other ones were fostered. Confidential evidence 161, Victoria.

Indigenous mental health is finally on the national agenda. As participants in the National Mental Health Strategy, States and Territories acknowledge the importance of the issue. Some of the effects of removal including loss and grief, reduced parenting skills, child and youth behavioural problems and youth suicide are increasingly recognised.

In most cases of forcible removal government officials and agents were responsible for the removal under legislation or regulations. However, there were early cases of removal of children by missionaries without the consent of the parents. In Victoria the absence of government oversight of welfare services enabled churches and other non-government agencies to remove children from their families…

There were a lot of families on the outside who were saying my daughter hasn't come home, my son hasn't come home. You had a lot of families still fighting and then you had the bloody welfare saying to these families, `We're not doing what was done in the sixties'. Bomaderry Home was left open as a big secret by the government and the welfare. And it must have been one of the best kept secrets…

Indigenous children throughout Australia remain very significantly over-represented `in care' and in contact with welfare authorities. Their over-representation increases as the intervention becomes more coercive, with the greatest over-representation being in out-of-home care. Indigenous children appear to be particularly over-represented in long-term foster care arrangements. A high percentage…

Adoption is the transfer, generally by order of a court, of all parental rights and obligations from the natural parent(s) to the adoptive parent(s). In Australia, legal adoption is relatively recent. It was first introduced in 1928 in Victoria, for example. Until very recently adoption involved near-total secrecy, partly in deference to the desire of adoptive parents to present the child as…

Family law plays a role in the `placement and care' of Indigenous children when parenting disputes come before the Family Court of Australia (except in WA where the State Family Court deals with all family law matters) or those lower courts, presided over by magistrates, which have power to deal with them. The parents do not have to be married: children born outside marriage are treated in the…