2016

1. 23 June

   Members of the NSW Parliament offer apologies for past government policies after the state government tabled a report which makes 35 recommendations for reparations. Among these is a financial reparation scheme, similar to those in place in Tasmania and South Australia.

   We are sorry, we are very, very sorry for the past.

   — Jan Barham, Greens MLC and committee chair ^[1]

2. 2 December

   NSW Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Leslie Williams, announces a reparations package worth more than $73 million to Stolen Generations survivors. It includes a $59.5 million administrative scheme offering one-off financial payments of $75,000 to survivors and a $5 million healing fund. He also promised to establish a Stolen Generations advisory committee.

   The NSW Government officially acknowledges the real and heartbreaking trauma caused by historic government policies and practices of removing Aboriginal children from their kin and country.

   — Leslie Williams, NSW Minister for Aboriginal Affairs ^[2]

2018

1. 15 August

   A report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the Healing Foundation reveals for the first time the direct link between the forced removal of tens of thousands of Aboriginal children from their families and the real-life symptoms of intergenerational trauma. It finds that Stolen Generations members are almost twice as likely as other Aboriginal people to rely on welfare payments and experience violence.^[3]
   

2. 22 November

   The government passes the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Amendment Bill, granting the Children’s Court the power to decide whether a child who has stayed with foster parents for up to two years should be restored to their family or be adopted by the foster parents. Aboriginal people worry the new law leads to a new generation of stolen Aboriginal children.

1887

1. 7 April

   The Parramatta Girls Home opens (also known as the Industrial School for Girls, Girls Training School and Girls Training Home). Closing in 1974, it became Australia’s longest operating state-controlled child welfare institution, located in Parramatta, NSW. The population of the girls home includes many Aboriginal girls, mostly those who belong to the Stolen Generations.

1908

1. The United Aborigines Mission establishes the Bomaderry Aboriginal Children's Home in Nowra, NSW, after several orphaned children come into the care of the mission. The home is often referred to as the 'birthplace' of the Stolen Generations in New South Wales. Up to 47 children live at the home. It closes in 1988.

1911

1. The Aborigines Protection Board establishes the Cootamundra Girls' Home (also known as Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls) in a former hospital. It is maintained by the Aborigines Welfare Board until 1968 and closed in 1974.

1923

1. The Aborigines Protection Board builds the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys' Training Home, near Kempsey, to train in farm labouring older Aboriginal boys who had been removed from their families. Later it becomes a home for school-aged boys who had also been removed. There were between 30 and 50 boys at the home at any given time. It closed in 1970.

2019

1. 29 October

   An independent review into Aboriginal out-of-home care in NSW presents its final report. It finds that child protection workers regularly gave "misleading" evidence to the children’s court, often took the most traumatic option by removing Aboriginal children from their families, and operated in a "closed system" that lacked transparency, had no effective regulator and was run with little or no genuine consultation with the Aboriginal community. The review also found "widespread noncompliance" with law and policy by family and community services workers.

2020

1. 18 March

   Victorian Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gavin Jennings announces a new $10 million Stolen Generations Redress Scheme to support counselling services, a funeral or memorial fund and redress payments for survivors.

1905

1. 23 December

   The Western Australian government passes the Aborigines Act 1905 which commences in April 1906. It is designed to better protect and care of the Aboriginal people of Western Australia but in reality ruled over all aspects of Aboriginal lives for nearly 60 years. The Act created the position of Chief Protector of Aborigines who became the legal guardian of every Aboriginal child to the age of 16 years, and permitted authorities to remove Aboriginal children from their families. It establishes reserves and sets the rules governing Aboriginal employment.

2021

1. 5 August

   The Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory promise to compensate survivors of the Stolen Generations with up to $75,000 each for the suffering inflicted on them by forcibly removing them from their families, after the federal government no longer opposes a compensation scheme.
   

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References