2003

1. The Ministerial Council for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs (MCATSIA) commissions and releases an independent evaluation of government and non-government responses to the Bringing Them Home Report.

2. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner publicly criticises the failure of governments to provide financial and social reparations for members of the Stolen Generation, a national apology, or the appropriate mechanisms for individuals that were forcibly removed to reconnect with their culture.

2002

1. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) releases Restoring Identity - the follow-up report to the Moving Forward Conference. The report presents a proposal for a reparations tribunal.

2. The Sorry Day Committee releases the Parliamentary Seminar Report: Are We Bringing Them Home? The Report surveys the progress in the implementation of the Bringing them home recommendations.

3. National Library of Australia publishes an Oral History Project, Many Voices: Reflections on Experience of Indigenous Child Separation.

4. The first member of the Stolen Generations is awarded compensation in the NSW Victims Compensation Tribunal for the sexual assault and injuries she suffered after authorities removed her from her family. Valerie Linow was 16 when she was working as a domestic servant for a family and suffering sexual assault and violence. Mrs Linow was awarded $35,000 in compensation. She said "It's not the money that's important to me. It is the knowledge and recognition that this happened to Aboriginal people. No one could pay any amount for what happened to us because we lost a lot."
   

   I'm the only one out of thousands of members of the stolen generations who got through and was believed that these things did happen. This is the most important thing - the believing.

   — Valerie Linow, member of the Stolen Generations The Age, 18/10/2002

5. As part of the Victorian Government's response to the Bringing Them Home Report, Victoria establishes a Stolen Generations taskforce.

6. The first member of the Stolen Generations is awarded compensation in the NSW Victims Compensation Tribunal for the sexual assault and injuries she suffered after authorities removed her from her family.

2001

1. November

   Pope John Paul II issues a formal apology on behalf of the Vatican to the affected Aboriginal families for the actions of any and all Catholic authorities or organisations in connection with the Stolen Generations.

2. July

   The British Concise Oxford Dictionary includes the phrase 'stolen generation' in its latest edition. The term is defined as: "Noun. Australian. The aboriginal people forcibly removed from their families as children between the 1900s and the 1960s, to be brought up by white foster families or in institutions."

3. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission & PIAC (Public Interest Advocacy Centre) hold the Moving Forward Conference. The conference aims to explore ways of providing reparations to Indigenous people forcibly removed from their families.
   

   For 18 years the State of Victoria referred to me as State Ward No 54321.

   — Paul, personal story in the Bringing Them Home Report

2000

1. 4 April

   The government denies that a 'Stolen Generation' exists in a submission to the Senate inquiry on compensation for children forcibly removed. It stated: "The government is concerned that there is no reliable basis for what appears to be a generally accepted conclusion as to the supposed dimensions of the 'stolen generation'. [...] At most, it might be inferred that up to 10% of children were separated for a variety of reasons, both protective and otherwise, some forcibly and some not. This does not constitute a 'generation' of 'stolen' children. The phrase 'stolen generation' is rhetorical." ^[1]

2. March

   Australia appears before the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The committee criticises the government’s inadequate response to recommendations from the Bringing Them Home Report.

3. Australia appears before the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The Committee criticises the Commonwealth Government's inadequate response to recommendations of the Bringing Them Home Report: "While noting the efforts by the State party to address the tragedies resulting from the previous policy of removing indigenous children from their families, the Committee remains concerned about the continuing effects of this policy. The Committee recommends that the State party intensify these efforts so that the victims themselves and their families will consider that they have been afforded a proper remedy."

4. Inquiry into the federal government's implementation of the recommendations made by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in Bringing Them Home undertaken by the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee results in the Healing: A Legacy of Generations Report.

1999

1. 26 August

   Federal Parliament issues a statement of deep and sincere regret over the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families.

2. Federal parliament issues a statement of sincere regret over the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families.

1998

1. 26 May

   One year after the Bringing Them Home report the first Sorry Day is marked by hundreds of activities around the country. The Australian federal government does not take part in ‘Sorry Day’, saying people who removed Aboriginal children thought they were doing the right thing and people now should not have to say sorry for what people did in the past. Over 1 million signatures in thousands of Sorry Books speak a different language.

2. 26 May

   HREOC releases the Social Justice Report 1998, which includes a summary of responses from the churches, and non-Indigenous community to the inquiry's recommendations plus an Implementation Progress Report.

3. 26 January

   Australians for Native Title (ANT) launches the Sorry Books campaign, an opportunity for everyday Australians to give a "people’s apology" for past wrongs to Aboriginal people in lieu of the federal government's refusal to make a formal apology to the Stolen Generations. ANT circulated about 1,000 books over four months in libraries, museums, churches, shops, art galleries and schools.

   The UNESCO added the collection of Sorry Books to its Memory of the World Register on 10 August 2004, in recognition of their historical and social significance.

   

   

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References