The State of Victoria’s Aboriginal Protection Act 1869 included the earliest legislation authorising the removal of children from Aboriginal parents. Other states and territories soon followed suit.
These rather odd, by today’s standards, Acts were motivated by various things including a desire to protect children from neglect and abuse, a belief that Aboriginal people would die out given a significant decline in their numbers post contact with white people and the belief that full-blooded Aboriginal people resented miscegenation and the mixed-race children fathered and abandoned by white men. Continue reading “‘Sorry’ – A Parliamentary Apology”
The Rambling Wombat 