The (Wrong) Policy

The Indigenous Australians, or Aborigines as they are sometimes called, are the first Australians on the nation. The “Stolen Generation”, coined by historian Professor Peter Read of the Australian National University, became a term used to describe these children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were forcibly and systematically removed from their families by the Australian and State government agencies and church missions, denying the rights of parents and children by making Aboriginal children wards of the state, between approximately 1869 and 1969.

Children taken to such places were frequently punished if caught speaking local indigenous languages, and the intention was specifically to prevent them being socialised in Aboriginal cultures, and raise the boys as agricultural labourers and the girls as domestic servants.