I think most posters have highlighted the point I wanted to make, let me highlight how I feel read
Paul Keiting Redfern speech.
But do not lightly let the truth get away from us while all the quoted things are dreadful and wrong, some in those days truly thought taking the kids away was the right thing to do!
My Childhood was haunted by the sound of landlords footsteps up the front path ten people in one home.
And far worse the child welfare officers thudding boots.
While kids of poor family's can tell you of that fear.
Laugh about it, but for a short time in a street I lived in an Irish Catholic LABOR family, dobbed in every poor family's kids!
Welfare came to us all time and again till my dad returned us to the bush to avoid them.
Laugh with me but those ruddy kids from that family of dobbers all went to prison! hope Mrs Bucket understood the irony.
I walked the Sydney Harbor bridge would do it again every day of my life to gain Aboriginal equality, but tell me why separatism? why is their pain different than those raped bashed forced migrant children?
Let us say sorry, let us say no more, from this day we will not expect such suffering, and not use the deeds of the past to keep us separate
To every child who ever suffered I am sorry.
To those who knew they did wrong to them, I am sorry there is no hell.
Maybe I should have waited till Rudd speaks, he may just have an answer we can all live with let us truly hope.

Some say it's better for a thousand innocent people to go to prison than for a single guilty person to go free.

It seems that in this debate, one example of a feel-good story outweighs many personal tragedies.

I think it comes back to the real motivation behind it all.

Was it intended to "save children" or was it part of the cultural genocide of assimilation that was intended earlier on?

The word 'evil' should be used with care. 'Evil' in this context suggests deliberately removing children knowing that they would be harmed, knowing that they would be worse off. Was that the intention? Is it possible that there are occasions when a child, any child, is better off being removed from their natural parents? Quite possibly yes.
Too often what is being considered is not the best interests of the child or the rights of the child but the 'rights' (so-called) of the parent. Merely being the biological parent does not necessarily make an individual fit to be a parent.
By no means all aboriginal children were removed from their families. Many of those who were removed were children who were at serious risk of harm. They often had a 'white' parent and they were not accepted by either group. They were often born out of wedlock and, quite wrongly, held to be at fault by archaic thinking.
The notion that thousands of children were forcibly removed for no good cause is a myth that needs to be dispelled. Even the report on the 'Stolen Generation' does not fully dispel that myth. It was too busy concentrating on the 'wrong' done. 'Evil' is not an appropriate word. It is being (ab)used for political purposes.

Yesterday I read a story that said Aboriginal elders demanded that ONE BILLION DOLLARS WAS NOT ENOUGH it called for reparations of at least 3 billion!
Communicat is not far from wrong ,most of those lids but not all of them had to be removed.
That is true of the white children taken away too.
Here I go again, insisting whites too have been victims of a welfare system that was wrong.
Proven wrong by todays standards.
It is far too easy to judge by todays views Do not get me wrong, I truly think an element of barbed wire fence took place.
Some just suffered too much and yes we need to understand that.
Do we need to pay for it?
To pay only some who suffered? is that what it takes to fix it?
If we pay to build schools hospitals and homes for Aboriginals, to give real jobs with a real future ok by me.
Just maybe separatism is hurting these folk as much as the stolen generation ever did.

I will never apologies for things which did not occur. From day one of settlement the Aboriginals were nurtured, cared for and engaged. They were given food and clothes, they were naked, had no homes slept in the bush, had no tools, no shoes, not even a bow and arrow. They say look at 30,000 years of our culture? Well lets just look at the last 1,000 years where no art occurred anywhere, no metal as metal is found in the bottom of fires and they had no fires until after settlement or if they lived near Maccassans and coastal areas where sailors dropped in and left them supplies and fires burning, where they would "carry the hot coals from place to place”, until it rained, then it was wait for the next ship. Bare foot, bare arsed, 2,000 plus languages, 10,000 tribes, not one people, just co inhabitants of the earth, no ownership at all, the earth was their mother.

All the clothes, and civilized conveniences like harvesting food, shelter etc came from the first days of settlement when a home for Aboriginal women and children was built in Rouse Hill in 1789. We constantly cared for and nurtured Aboriginals, they were the most primitive people on the planet, even "pre stone age" as they had no fire, no beasts of burden, "not even a wheel”, as that invention relied on fire, to harvest metal to shape wood and have bows and arrows and wheels which did not occur.

They did not have returning boomerangs until after European settlement, they did not have didgeridoos, that was an invention of the Maccassans and only occurred in a tiny part of the Kimberlies and NT. If you disagree you would be reading from modern post 1960 myths and lies which are found all over the net and have been included in compulsory Aboriginal Studies in Uni, this is simply “fabrication of Australian History”. If you want the truth, go to the original diaries of the settlers and Crown Employees, read their notes on micro fiche

uninformed

Uninformed and brain-dead.