Eighteen years after the National Apology, the systematic removal and racial targeting of Aboriginal children is worse than ever.
The promise of 13 February 2008 – that our children would be safe, families respected, and past harms acknowledged – did not interrupt the colonial machinery of child removal. It authorised it.
On that day, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stood before Parliament and apologised to Stolen Generations survivors and their families for the forced removal of thousands of Aboriginal children throughout the 20th century. Applause erupted. For many, the apology symbolised a new beginning: restorative justice for political violence and child abuse, and a future where the threat of child protection departments ritualistically removing children would be a distant memory.
It wasn't. The removal intensified.
For perspective: the Bringing Them Home report recorded 2419 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care (OOHC) in 1993. By the time of the Apology in 2008, the number had more than tripled to 9070. In 2024, it more than doubled again to 19,987 First Nations children, not including the 3000-odd on guardianship orders.
This reality was foreshadowed through the Apology Day speeches given by the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader. Both leaders spouted rhetoric of othering Aboriginal people and mutualising blame for past and present injustices, that signalled the lack of genuine accountability.
Rudd reduced genocide to a "blemished chapter" and "stain" to be removed "from the nation's soul". He promised "new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed ... in a true spirit of reconciliation", focusing on a better future through mutual responsibility, reconciliation, and distancing the state from its enduring Human Rights violations.
Dr Brendan Nelson's response was more explicit: paternalistic white saviourism presented removal as protection, assimilation as superior, and benevolence as care. He argued that "rescuing" children was motivated by "kindness", and "saving" children from "squalor" was and is a "necessary part of public policy in the protection of children", thus absolving state culpability under a guise of good intentions while positioning poverty as a justified reason for forcibly removing Aboriginal children.
This framing matters. It constructs a moral universe where governments can claim to protect Aboriginal children while continuing to remove them through policies underpinned by racial bias and colonial logics.
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In about 2012, jurisdictions across Australia adopted Structured Decision Making (SDM) tools. These are risk assessment instruments imported from the United States to investigate and substantiate allegations of child abuse and neglect. These tools, sold as objective, are now proven racist. They disproportionately classify Aboriginal families as high-risk and routinise removal under bureaucratic box‑ticking. The danger of SDM is so widely recognised that Queensland and New South Wales have suspended their use, with other jurisdictions considering the same. If thousands of children were removed based on racially biased tools, logic would demand immediate restoration. Instead, once removed, children are trapped in systems designed to keep them from going home.
This is the continued legacy of previous governments responsible for the Stolen Generations. Nowhere is this more visible than in Closing the Gap Target 12: to reduce the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in OOHC by 45% by 2031. It is failing because governments refuse to stop removals and refuse to restore children held captive in care.
If, in 2008, governments were truly committed to not repeating the past, they would have gazed inward to confront the ongoing colonial operations and motivations that enable removal. They would have critically examined contemporary policies and practices. Instead, the Apology ignored the mass removal happening at that time, thus absolving government of any responsibility for the reason Aboriginal children are removed.
Just the previous year, the Howard government launched the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER), suspending the Racial Discrimination Act to target remote Aboriginal communities under the pretext of suspected child sexual abuse. Nelson framed the NTER as a victory, and proof that the government can "save" Aboriginal children, challenging Rudd to do the same.
This narrative continues today. Governments still fail to recognise genuine accountability for their role in instigating Aboriginal child abductions, instead hiding behind illusions of reform, unachievable targets, and the lie of protecting children.
The Apology ignored the mass removal happening at that time, thus absolving government of any responsibility for the reason Aboriginal children are removed.
Over 200 years of evidence shows that state control harms children. The government's priority has never been Aboriginal self-determination; it has been to complete the colonial project at the expense of Aboriginal Human Rights.
The Apology could have catalysed truth-telling about contemporary child protection practice and a commitment to reunification. Instead, it was only a symbolic gesture – one that powerfully enabled the youngest Aboriginal generations to be abducted and disconnected from family and culture.
If we heed Rudd's call, "that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again", then the measure is simple: governments must stop removing Aboriginal children and restore those currently in OOHC to their families.
This requires child and family welfare that is grounded in Aboriginal sovereignty, rights-based practice, and anti-colonial, anti-carceral logics. It means government humility to stand to the side while Aboriginal families and communities reclaim and exert authority to care for their own children without the fear of legal abduction.
No more empty promises. No more ingenuine apologies. Restoration is not optional – it is the only evidence that 'sorry' meant anything at all.
Want to know more about how the intent of the National Apology has failed Aboriginal communities? 'Sorry, Not Sorry: 18 Days of Recognising 18 Years Since the National Apology to the Stolen Generations' is live on LinkedIn. Each day I share a post on the ongoing systematic removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
BJ Newton is a proud Wiradjuri woman and Associate Professor at UNSW Sydney. She leads the 'Bring Them Home, Keep Them Home' research. In partnership with Aboriginal organisations, her research drives sector-wide impact through truth-telling, generating new evidence, community-led initiatives, and advocacy.
This op-ed was originally published in the National Indigenous Times and is reproduced here with permission.
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