Monday 13 February is the 15th anniversary of the Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples . Given by then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the Apology was a watershed moment for reconciliation in Australia.
First apologies
The Western Australian Government was the first state government to act, issuing its apology on 27 May 1997. By 2001 all state and territory governments had issued apologies. Only the Australian Government, under John Howard, demurred.
' In 2008, then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised on behalf of the Australian Government to the Stolen Generations – the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly removed from their families and communities by successive colonial and Australian governments.
In 2007, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd began consulting with Indigenous Australians about what form a national apology should take. On 13 February 2008, he offered a formal apology to members of the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Australian parliament.
At 9:30am on 13 February 2008, Rudd presented the apology to Indigenous Australians as a motion to be voted on by the house. It has since been referred to as the National Apology, or simply The Apology.
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.
Prime Minister John Howard refused to issue an apology, stating that he "did not subscribe to the black armband view of history".
Five years after the United Nations' General Assembly proclaimed the International Year for the World's Indigenous People and launched in Australia by former Prime Minister Paul Keating with the 1992 Redfern Speech.
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.
The man wrongly identified as the abductor of Carnarvon toddler Cleo Smith by 7 News says he was deeply distressed by the monumental mistake. Terry Flowers also known by his mother's name, Kelly, had his photo plastered all over social media yesterday in connection with the case of four-year-old Cleo Smith.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
Aboriginal peoples
Genetic studies appear to support an arrival date of 50–70,000 years ago. The earliest anatomically modern human remains found in Australia (and outside of Africa) are those of Mungo Man; they have been dated at 42,000 years old.
In NSW, under the Aborigines Protection Act 1909, the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board had wide ranging control over the lives of Aboriginal people, including the power to remove Aboriginal children from their families under 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.
The Stolen Generations refers to a period in Australia's history where Aboriginal children were removed from their families through government policies. This happened from the mid-1800s to the 1970s.
The Aboriginal flag and the Torres Strait Islander flag are often seen on National Sorry Day. The Aboriginal flag is horizontally divided into two equal halves of black (top) and red (bottom) with a yellow circle in the centre. The black symbolizes Australia's Aboriginal people and the yellow circle represents the Sun.
Stolen generations refer to Indigenous Australians who were forcibly removed from their families and communities. The first National Sorry Day was held on May 26, 1998, which was one year after the tabling of a report about the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.
The five-petal Native Cotton, Desert Rose, or Native Hibiscus as we know it, was chosen by the Kimberley Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation (KSGAC) members to symbolise the scattering of the Stolen Generations and their resilience to the eugenic policies of Australia.
John Curtin: was the only prime minister to have been in jail (as an anti-conscriptionist in 1916) was one of only two prime ministers from Western Australia (Bob Hawke was the other), although it was the birthplace of neither. held no ministerial posts before taking office.
On 11 November, the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr decided the only way to break this deadlock was to use his reserve powers and dismiss Mr Whitlam and his government.
Harold Edward Holt CH (5 August 1908 – 17 December 1967) was an Australian politician and lawyer who served as the 17th prime minister of Australia, from 1966 until his disappearance and presumed death in 1967, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.
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 'Stolen Generations' are the generations of Aboriginal children taken away from their families by governments, churches and welfare bodies to be brought up in institutions or fostered out to white families. Removing children from their families was official government policy in Australia until 1969.
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.
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.