It's estimated that as many as 1 in 3 Indigenous children were taken between 1910 and the 1970s, affecting most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia.
The impacts of this are still being felt today. There are currently more than 17,000 Stolen Generations survivors in Australia. Over one third of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are their descendants.
The Bringing Them Home report (produced by the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families in 1987), says that "at least 100,000" children were removed from their parents.
between one in three and one in ten Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities in the period from approximately 1910 until 1970.
Eligible Stolen Generations Survivors can choose to receive the Funeral Assistance payment at the same time as their reparations payment or to defer the payment and nominate a person to receive the payment at the point it is required. Applications must be submitted before 30 June 2023.
Taking into account the $300 million allocated for Indigenous housing and the $177 million underspend in 2021–22, the October 2022–23 Budget provides $1.1 billion more than the March 2022–23 Budget for Indigenous Australians-related matters, averaging $4.2 billion per year over the forward estimates.
Many Aboriginal people who worked for white people did not receive their wages directly. Their bosses only gave them 'pocket money' while from 1897 to the late 1970s their wages were 'administered' for them by government or police authorities. In Western Australia wages were under "total government control" until 1968.
The Aborigines Protection Act (Vic) establishes an Aborigines Protection Board in Victoria to manage the interests of Aborigines. The Governor can order the removal of any child from their family to a reformatory or industrial school.
Between 11,000 and 14,000 Aboriginal people died, compared with only 399 to 440 colonisers. The tallies of the dead are not the only measure of what took place, according to Dr Bill Pascoe, a digital humanities specialist and key researcher on the project.
Children experienced neglect, abuse and they were more likely to suffer from depression, mental illness and low self-esteem. They were also more vulnerable to physical, psychological and sexual abuse in state care, at work, or while living with non-Indigenous families.
Why were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children taken from their families? The forcible removal of First Nations children from their families was based on assimilation policies, which claimed that the lives of First Nations people would be improved if they became part of white society.
Another review prepared for the Australian federal police in 2021 found that at least 25.6% of children under 12 and 18% of those aged between 13 and 17 who go missing while in care are Indigenous, despite First Nations children making up just 5.9% of the total population under 18.
The Stolen Generations refers to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were removed from their families between 1910 and 1970. This was done by Australian federal and state government agencies and church missions, through a policy of assimilation.
The islands were settled by different seafaring Melanesian cultures such as the Torres Strait Islanders over 2500 years ago, and cultural interactions continued via this route with the Aboriginal people of northeast Australia.
These children were forcibly removed from their families and communities through race-based policies set up by both State and Federal Governments. They were either put in to homes, adopted or fostered out to non-Indigenous families.
Since colonisation, numerous government laws, policies and practices resulted in the forced removal of generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and communities across Australia.
The research project, currently in its eighth year and led by University of Newcastle historian Emeritus Professor Lyndall Ryan, now estimates more than 10,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lives were lost in more than 400 massacres, up from a previous estimate of 8,400 in 302 massacres.
Attempts at the mass killing of Aboriginal people were still being made as recently as 1981, according to a historian who has spent the past four years researching colonial violence in the Northern Territory.
In his new book, The Story of Australia's People, Geoffrey Blainey writes that one of the reasons aboriginal tribes didn't effectively resist European settlement was that they were militarily weak. Indigenous tribes often fought with each other rather than launch coordinated attacks against settlers.
Aboriginal people are known to have occupied mainland Australia for at least 65,000 years. It is widely accepted that this predates the modern human settlement of Europe and the Americas.
Based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) projections, the number of Indigenous Australians in 2021 was estimated to be 881,600. The Indigenous Australian population is projected to reach about 1.1 million people by 2031 (ABS 2019b).
Cultural. Loss of cultural affiliation. Since they were often denied any traditional knowledge, many Stolen Generations members find it difficult to take a role in the cultural and spiritual life of their Aboriginal communities.
Median gross individual income for Indigenous people was $278 per week, or 59% of the median income of non-Indigenous people ($473). In 2001, the median individual income for Indigenous people was also 59% of the median for non-Indigenous people.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and Indigenous holding entities don't need to pay income tax or capital gains tax on native title payments or benefits.