Cecil Cook and AO Neville

Although no consensus has been reached as to the exact extent of the removal of children, and the reasoning behind their removal, many had understood that following the colonisation and eventual settlement of Europeans in the country, the Australian Government was determined to abolish the dark-skinned natives, and that mixed-descent children were not wanted or welcome in some Aboriginal groups and communities.

Some historical documents indicated that the policy may have emerged from the belief that the civilisation of northern Europeans was superior to that of Aborigines, whose children were feared to be a threat to the nature and stability of the prevailing civilisation.

Many Aboriginal children were handed to white families from 1915 to 1969. They were brought up by white people in an attempt by the government to assimilate the white and Aboriginal populations.

In the 1930s, the Northern Territory Protector of Natives, Dr. Cecil Cook, perceived the continuing rise in numbers of "half-caste" children as a problem and proposed that:“Generally by the fifth and invariably by the sixth generation, all native characteristics of the Australian Aborigine are eradicated. The problem of our half-castes will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race, and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white.”

Similarly, the Chief Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia, AO Neville, wrote in an article for The West Australian in 1930:“Eliminate the full-blood and permit the white admixture to half-castes and eventually the race will become white.”