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Established the Northern Territory Aboriginals Department with responsibility for the control and welfare of Aborigines and `to provide where possible for the custody, maintenance and education of the children of aboriginals'.

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 same way as children born within a marriage.

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 child welfare legislation and continues into the present.

neglected child - a child found begging, wandering about or frequenting any thoroughfare or tavern, sleeping in the open air and who has no settled place of abode or means of subsistence; residing in any brothel or associating or dwelling with any person, known or reputed to be a thief, prostitute or drunkard or a person convicted of vagrancy; a child having committed an offence and who, in the opinion of the Justices, ought to be sent to an industrial school; an inmate of an immigrants' home or a child whose parent cannot control him/her and want him/her to be placed in an industrial school.

DVD activity sheet PDF or Word (note that DVD needs to be ordered separately from the Commission’s publications area, Ph: (02) 9284 9600, or online at: www.humanrights.gov.au/publications)

Every morning our people would crush charcoal and mix that with animal fat and smother that all over us, so that when the police came they could only see black children in the distance. We were told always to be on the alert and, if white people came, to run into the bush or run and stand behind the trees as stiff as a poker, or else hide behind logs or run into culverts and hide. Often the white people - we didn't know who they were - would come into our camps. And if the Aboriginal group was taken unawares, they would stuff us into flour bags and pretend we weren't there.

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 Children lost to city ways

This report is a tribute to the strength and struggles of many thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people affected by forcible removal. We acknowledge the hardships they endured and the sacrifices they made. We remember and lament all the children who will never come home.

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 without any court order or other official approval.

The Protector of Aborigines made the legal guardian of every `aboriginal and half-caste child' whose parents are dead or unknown, or one of whom agrees, until the age of 21. Any two Justices, with the consent of the Governor and one of the parents, may apprentice `any half-caste or other aboriginal child having obtained a suitable age' until the age of 21 provided that `due and reasonable provision is made for the maintenance, clothing and humane treatment of any apprentice.'

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.

Where a child under the age of 19 is convicted, court may assign care and custody of the child to such persons as make application where the court is satisfied it is for the benefit of the child.

Established Aborigines Protection Board. Its functions include submitting proposals to the Governor relating to the care custody or education of the children of `Aboriginals' and exercising a general supervision and care over all matters affecting the interests and welfare of the `Aboriginals'.

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.

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.

Following the founding of the Swan River Colony in 1829 relations between the British settlers and local Indigenous peoples in Western Australia became characterised by conflict. As a result of fierce fighting,

For the `better protection and care of the aboriginal and half-caste inhabitants of the colony' and `for restricting the sale and distribution of opium'. Established positions of regional Protectors and later Chief Protector.

‘This painting is the story of us children coming home’, Chris Mason, 2007 ‘Our totem is the goanna and is culturally significant with the black and white in the centre representing assimilation and how we have learnt to live within the framework of white society. The different shades of colour in the middle show no matter the colour of our skin we are one and do belong. The border represents Link-up who made this story possible and helped bring us home. The red represents our Aboriginal bloodline that links us together.