‘Truly sorry’: Top cop’s historic apology

Illegible, incomplete and poor records mean Victoria Police will never truly know how many times their officers forcibly removed an Aboriginal child.

The state’s Chief Commissioner of police made a formal apology to the Stolen Generations on Friday, acknowledging Victoria Police’s more-than-100-year role in removing Indigenous kids.

“It’s vital for Victoria Police to face up to, and accept responsibility for the widespread harm caused to Aboriginal people by the role police played in forcibly removing children from their families, and the deep impact this had on severing their connection with family, community, country, language, culture and identity,” Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said.

“This apology is long overdue. I am truly sorry.”

Between the 1860s and the 1970s, governments, churches and welfare bodies forcibly removed many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.

The policies were rooted in white supremacy, with the goal of breeding out Indigeneity.

These children became known as the Stolen Generations.

On Friday, Chief Commissioner Patton repeatedly referred to the multiple government agencies which had a hand in the Stolen Generations.

Victoria Police was one of several agencies “with legislative responsibilities” for the management and movement of Aboriginal Victorians, Chief Commissioner Patton said, and from 1864 to 1992 police had the power to remove what were deemed to be neglected children.

“Each removal of a child affected a great number of Aboriginal people, inflicting hurt and sorrow across generations,” the Chief Commissioner said.

Recording practices meant forcibly removed children were treated as if they had a criminal record.

Police were often unwilling or unable to help Aboriginal people access records to reconnect with family.

Poor, inadequate, fragmented and illegible records made counting the Stolen Generations impossible.

“We sadly may never know the number of Aboriginal children removed from their families through actions involving Victoria Police.”

The poor records compound the pain of survivors and their families, Chief Commissioner Patton said.

Aboriginal Advancement League chief executive Aunty Esme Bamblett said the apology took courage.

“Shane I want to thank you and your mob, for even having the guts to come and apologise.

“With deep respect, I want to let you know that I respect you personally for that.”

Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency chief executive, Aunty Muriel Bamblett, said between 1910 and 1979, 100,000 Aboriginal children, most under the age of five, were forcibly taken from the family and put into institutions.

In the ‘protection’ period of the early to mid-1900s, police policed moral and social standards, and dictated much of Aboriginal people’s day to day lives including their movement and working rights, she said.

“Colonisation quite brutally interrupted the transmission from generation to generation of many of our Aboriginal cultural practices, including our language, particularly in this part of Australia,” Ms Bamblett said.

“Many (Stolen Generations) however could not go home and only have gravesite visits with their loved ones. Many were not to see or meet their loved ones, ever. And were never given the opportunity to connect and so could never really go home truly.

“I do want to honour and thank the Stolen Generations for holding us all to account to do better, to never actually let what happened to our children happen again.”

A law change in 1915 meant authorities could take Aboriginal children without parental consent, in which police played a central role, she said.

In the ‘protection’ period of the early to mid-1900s, police controlled moral and social standards, and dictated much of Aboriginal people’s day to day lives including their movement and working rights, she said.

The rule of law was not fairly applied to Aboriginal people, and in that sense police legitimacy did not exist in Aboriginal communities.

“Perhaps for our children, and your children, they will experience a country built on a national story of shared rights and responsibilities, mutual respect and mutual treasuring of our diverse traditions,” Ms Bamblett said.

“I’m looking forward to telling my children, and my grandchildren one day that we had an apology that has actually changed the lives of our people.”

Stolen Generations survivor Eva Jo Edwards said many people like her did not remember anything before being taken.

“For many survivors, our earliest memories are police coming into our homes, removing us, taking us to the nearest police station and then off to institutions we were to go,” Ms Edwards said.

Victoria is also in the midst of an ongoing Indigenous truth-telling inquiry, the Yoorrook Justice Commission.

Earlier this month Chief Commissioner Patton announced police would complete 79 reforms by the end of 2025 in response to the commission.

The Stolen Generations apology is one of those 79 reforms.

The commission begun hearings in 2021, and is due to hand in its final report in 2025.

In February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offered a formal apology to Australia’s Indigenous peoples, particularly the Stolen Generations, on behalf of the nation at Australian Parliament House.

The Prime Minister acknowledged “the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments had resulted in the forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians”.