The National Apology to the Stolen Generations delivered by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in the Federal Parliament on February 13, 2008, was a watershed moment for reconciliation and truth-telling in Australia.
It is estimated that as many as one in three Indigenous children were taken from their families between 1910 and the 1970s as part of formal government assimilationist policies.
The policy affected most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia as their children were removed into institutions, adopted, or fostered out to non-Indigenous families, and the trauma continues to impact First Nations communities today.
Prime Minister Rudd’s Apology joined Prime Minister Paul Keating’s famous 1992 Redfern Speech in finally acknowledging the trauma and grief suffered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people caused by past colonial and more recent government policies, including the removal of children.
