The Stolen Generations were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals of those referred to as "half-caste" children were conducted in the period between approximately 1905 and 1967, although in some places mixed-race children were still being taken into the 1970s.
Sir Ronald Darling Wilson, was a distinguished Australian lawyer, judge and social activist serving on the High Court of Australia between 1979 and 1989 and as the President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission between 1990 and 1997.
Lowitja O'Donoghue, also known as Lois O'Donoghue and Lois Smart, was an Australian public administrator and Indigenous rights advocate. She was the inaugural chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) from 1990 to 1996. She is known for her work in improving the health and welfare of Indigenous Australians, and also for the part she played in the drafting of the Native Title Act 1993, which established native title in Australia.
National Sorry Day, officially the National Day of Healing, is an event held annually in Australia on 26 May commemorating the Stolen Generations. It is part of the ongoing efforts towards reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
Reconciliation Australia is a non-government, not-for-profit foundation established in January 2001 to promote a continuing national focus for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. It was established by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, which was established to create a framework for furthering a government policy of reconciliation in Australia.
A truth commission, also known as a truth and reconciliation commission or truth and justice commission, is an official body tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government, in the hope of resolving conflict left over from the past. Truth commissions are, under various names, occasionally set up by states emerging from periods of internal unrest, civil war, or dictatorship marked by human rights abuses. In both their truth-seeking and reconciling functions, truth commissions have political implications: they "constantly make choices when they define such basic objectives as truth, reconciliation, justice, memory, reparation, and recognition, and decide how these objectives should be met and whose needs should be served".
In Kruger v Commonwealth, decided in 1997, also known as the Stolen Generation Case, the High Court of Australia rejected a challenge to the validity of legislation applying in the Northern Territory between 1918 and 1957 which authorised the removal of Aboriginal children from their families. The majority of the bench found that the Aboriginals Ordinance 1918 was beneficial in intent and had neither the purpose of genocide nor that of restricting the practice of religion. The High Court unanimously held there was no separate action for a breach of any constitutional right.
The Redfern Park Speech, also known as the Redfern speech or Redfern address, was made on 10 December 1992 by the then Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, at Redfern Park, which is in Redfern, New South Wales, an inner city suburb of Sydney. The speech dealt with the challenges faced by Indigenous Australians, both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It is still remembered as one of the most powerful speeches in Australian history, both for its rhetorical eloquence and for its ground-breaking admission of the negative impact of white settlement in Australia on its Indigenous peoples, culture and society, in the first acknowledgement by the Australian Government of the dispossession of its First Peoples. It has been described as "a defining moment in the nation's reconciliation with its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people".
Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, and/or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of present day Australia prior to British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups, which includes many ethnic groups: the Aboriginal Australians of the mainland and many islands, including Tasmania, and the Torres Strait Islanders of the seas between Queensland and Papua New Guinea, located in Melanesia. The term Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples or the person's specific cultural group, is often preferred, though the terms First Nations of Australia, First Peoples of Australia and First Australians are also increasingly common; 812,728 people self-identified as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin in the 2021 Australian Census, representing 3.2% of the total population of Australia. Of these Indigenous Australians, 91.4% identified as Aboriginal; 4.2% identified as Torres Strait Islander; while 4.4% identified with both groups. Since 1995, the Australian Aboriginal flag and the Torres Strait Islander flag have been official flags of Australia.
The Motion of Reconciliation was a motion to the Australian Parliament introduced and passed on 26 August 1999. Drafted by Prime Minister John Howard in consultation with Aboriginal Senator Aden Ridgeway, it dedicated the Parliament to the "cause of reconciliation" and recognised historic maltreatment of Indigenous Australians as the "most blemished chapter" in Australian history. While falling short of an apology, the motion included a statement of regret for past injustices suffered by Indigenous Australians.
Forgotten Australians or care leavers are terms referring to the estimated 500,000 children who experienced care in institutions or outside a home setting in Australia during the 20th century. The Australian Senate committee used the term in the title of its report which resulted from its 2003–2004 "Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care", which looked primarily at those affected children who were not covered by the 1997 Bringing Them Home report, which focused on Aboriginal children, and the 2001 report Lost Innocents: Righting the Record which reported on an inquiry into child migrants.
Matilda Williams House was born in 1945 on the Erambie Aboriginal Reserve at Cowra, New South Wales (NSW), and raised in her grandfather’s house at Hollywood Aboriginal Reserve in Yass, NSW. When she was 12, House spent a year in Parramatta Girls' Home. House was one of ten children.
Tanya Hosch is an Indigenous Australian social activist and business executive. She has held leadership roles in sport, the arts, social justice and public policy. She was joint campaign manager of the "Recognise" campaign run by Reconciliation Australia from 2012 to 2016. At her appointment as social inclusion manager to the Australian Football League (AFL) in June 2016, she became the first Indigenous person and the second woman appointed to an executive position in the AFL.
Thomas Edwin Calma,, is an Aboriginal Australian human rights and social justice campaigner, and 2023 senior Australian of the Year. He was the sixth chancellor of the University of Canberra (2014-2023), after two years as deputy chancellor. Calma was the second Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person to hold the position of chancellor of any Australian university.
The Closing the Gap framework is a strategy by the Commonwealth and state and territory governments of Australia that aims to reduce disparity between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous Australians on key health, education and economic opportunity targets. The strategy was launched in 2008 in response to the Close the Gap social justice movement, and revised in 2020 with additional targets and a refreshed strategy.
Lola Edwards and was a founding member of Link-up (NSW). Edwards was a strong advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were forcibly removed from their families, later dubbed the Stolen Generations.
On 13 February 2008, the Parliament of Australia issued a formal apology to Indigenous Australians for forced removals of Australian Indigenous children from their families by Australian federal and state government agencies. The apology was delivered by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and is also referred to as the National Apology, or simply The Apology.
Close the Gap (CTG) is a social justice campaign focused on Indigenous Australians' health, in which peak Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous health bodies, NGOs and human rights organisations work together to achieve health equality in Australia. The Campaign was launched in April 2007. National Close the Gap Day (NCTGD) has been held annually since 2009.
Reconciliation in Australia is a process which officially began in 1991, focused on the improvement of relations between the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia and the rest of the population. The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR), created by the government for a term of ten years, laid the foundations for the process, and created the peak body for implementation of reconciliation as a government policy, Reconciliation Australia, in 2001.
Melissa Brickell is an Indigenous Australian welfare worker based in Melbourne, Australia. She served as Director of Reconciliation Victoria and was the Chairperson for the Stolen Generations Sorry Day Committee and the Stolen Generations Alliance. She also served on the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission.
