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This timeline focuses on one particular aspect of the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples - the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families. This material identifies some significant laws and practices that made removal lawful and includes writing and artwork from members of the Stolen Generations and their families which illustrate their experiences of these policies. This section uses as its primary resource Bringing them home, the report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families.

On 3 June 1992 the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in Mabo v Queensland (No.2) (1992) 175 CLR 1. This decision constitutes the first recognition of indigenous property rights at common law in Australia. The Court rejected the previously existing view that Australia was terra nullius (or land belonging to no-one) upon settlement by Europeans in 1788.

An entrenched pattern of disadvantage and dispossession continues to wreak havoc and destruction in Indigenous families and communities. This situation has been described in the preceding chapters of this Part. State and Territory legislation, policy and practice in the areas of child welfare, care and protection, adoption and juvenile justice do not comply with the evaluation criteria established by the Inquiry (see Chapter 15).

Paul Blackmore’s photographs illustrate this report. They depict an inspired local initiative. Five years ago the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody drew attention to the appalling conditions in police lock-ups in rural Australia. The cells in Murgon, three hours north-west of Brisbane, were typical - dirty, disgusting, depressing. Detective Sergeant Ryan and Senior Sergeant McReight got together in 1991, put chalkboards in the cells and started what has become the Murgon Watch-house Art Project. The results have been excellent. Vandalism has almost disappeared.

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 their own and partly because of the stigma of illegitimacy which typically attached to adopted children.

Staff in the Social Policy and Advocacy Research Centre, and the Youth Studies Flagship at the Australian Catholic University welcome the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's initiative in establishing an inquiry into children in Australia's immigration detention centres.

The most distressing aspect about the level of juvenile justice intrusion in the lives of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is the fact that entry into the system is usually the start of a long career of incarceration for many (SNAICC submission 309 page 28).

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 within the Aboriginal community.

Overview This appendix reviews the following key developments in native title over the reporting period from 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013 (Reporting Period): native title determinations and agreements the proposed Native Title Amendment Bill 2012 (Cth) other legislative amendments including the Tax Laws Amendment (2012 Measures No 6) Act 2012 (Cth) and the Courts and Tribunals Amendment ...

In the period 1910 to 1970 between 1 in 3 and 1 in 10 Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families. The effects of such removal were, for most victims, negative, multiple and profoundly disabling. The policies and practices underlying the removal of Aboriginal children from their families were discriminatory and genocidal in intent. Further, the treatment of many removed children after their removal involved breaches of fiduciary duty and duty of care, as well as criminal actions.

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)

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 of Indigenous children in long-term foster care live with non-Indigenous carers.

The issue of Indigenous people and racism is among the most complex and divisive in Australia today. The source of this complexity and division is to be found in the history of race relations in Australia, which commenced with the illegitimate acquisition of sovereignty in 1788 under the auspices of the doctrine of terra nullius. Over successive generations policies and practices have aimed to eliminate Indigenous people, to 'smooth the pillow' of what was seen as a dying race, and later to assimilate Indigenous people within the white culture.