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1936 it was. I would have been five. We went visiting Ernabella the day the police came. Our great-uncle Sid was leasing Ernabella from the government at that time so we went there.

I was born in May 1964. My Mother and I lived together within an inner suburb of Melbourne. At the age of five and a half months, both my Mother and I became ill. My Mother took me to the Royal Children's Hospital, where I was admitted.

State and Territory legislation, programs and policies in the areas of child welfare, adoption and juvenile justice are intended to provide a non-discriminatory framework for the administration of services. In many cases, programs are designed with the objective of reducing the extent of contemporary removals of Indigenous children and young people. In spite of this, the over-representation of…

My grandmother was taken from up Tennant Creek. What gave them the right to just go and take them? They brought her down to The Bungalow [at Alice Springs]. Then she had Uncle Billy and my Mum to an Aboriginal Protection Officer. She had no say in that from what I can gather. And then from there they sent her out to Hermannsburg - because you know, she was only 14 when she had Uncle Billy, 15…

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…

The Government has to explain why it happened. What was the intention? I have to know why I was taken. I have to know why I was given the life I was given and why I'm scarred today. Why was my Mum meant to suffer? Why was I made to suffer with no Aboriginality and no identity, no culture? Why did they think that the life they gave me was better than the one my Mum would give me?

I am a part Aboriginal woman, who was adopted out at birth. I was adopted by a white Australian family and came to live in New Zealand at the age of 6 months. I grew up not knowing about my natural Mother and Father. The only information my adoptive parents had about my birth, was the surname of my birth Mother.

Indigenous Inquiry Commissioners Annette Peardon, Marjorie Thorpe, Dr Maryanne Bin Salik, Sadie Canning, Olive Knight, Kathy Mills, Anne Louis, Laurel Williams, Jackie Huggins, Josephine Ptero-David and Professor Marcia Langton and Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commissioner John Briton assisted with hearings and in the development of the report and its recommendations. They provided strong…

1. That the Council of Australian Governments ensure the adequate funding of appropriate Indigenous agencies to record, preserve and administer access to the testimonies of Indigenous people affected by the forcible removal policies who wish to provide their histories in audio, audio-visual or written form.

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…

Indigenous mental health is finally on the national agenda. As participants in the National Mental Health Strategy, States and Territories acknowledge the importance of the issue. Some of the effects of removal including loss and grief, reduced parenting skills, child and youth behavioural problems and youth suicide are increasingly recognised.

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…

That's why I wanted the files brought down, so I could actually read it and find out why I was taken away and why these three here [siblings] were taken by [our] auntie ... Why didn't she take the lot of us instead of leaving two there? ... I'd like to get the files there and see why did these ones here go to the auntie and the other ones were fostered. Confidential evidence 161, Victoria.

Carol's grandmother was removed to Beagle Bay at the age of 10. She and her husband had 10 children. When her husband was transferred to the Derby leprosarium, all ten children were placed in the Beagle Bay dormitories. Carol's mother was 8 years old when she was removed. Carol was born in Broome in the mid-1950s. When she was three, her mother died leaving four children. Although her grandmother…

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Anglican Church Social Responsibilities Commission Anonymous Australian Association for Infant Mental Health Inc.

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