Australia’s lost generation, is also known as the stolen generation; aka Australia’s dirty little secret. According to a revolutionary study published in the year 1997 titled, “Bringing Them Home”; roughly 100,000 children who were of the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin, were taken from their families between the years of 1910 and 1970 by the Australian Federal and State government agencies.

The Aboriginal people came to Australia roughly 50,000 years ago. They were traveling hunters living primal lifestyles. They were able to adapt to their environment and had their own customs and way of life. They were roughly 300,000 in number and communicated through 500 different languages. They were driven off the fertile coast lands and sent to the harsh upcountry regions of the Australian outback, upon the arrival of the Europeans.

The motives behind the removal of their children and the magnitude of such are disputed. However, documented proof, such as newspaper articles and reports to legislative agencies, propose a variety of motivations. Distinct rationales involve child protection, theories of given their disastrous population drop following white contact that the black people would become extinct, and fear of mixed racial reproduction by full-blooded Aboriginal people.

The word ‘stolen’ was used in the perspective of taking children from their families. A member of the Legislature of New South Wales, by the name of Hon P. McGarry, protested the Aborigines Protection Amending Act. This allowed the Protection Board to take the Aboriginal children from their parents lacking evidence of neglect or mistreatment. Stealing the child away from its parents, is how McGarry defined this policy.

Native Australians in the majority of districts were protected efficiently, given that they were dependents of the State. The protection was executed through each jurisdictions Aboriginal Protection Board, both in Victoria and Western Australia. These boards were also liable for utilizing what were identified as Half-Castle Acts.

In the year of 1981, a man by the name of Peter Read published, “The Stolen Generations: The Removal of Aboriginal Children in New Wales 1883 to 1969”. Then the publication of, “Bringing Them Home- Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families”, in the year 1997 brought wide-ranging recognition of the Stolen or Lost Generations.

The approval of the words, stolen and lost within Australia was demonstrated in the form of an official apology to the Stolen and Lost Generations on February 13, 2008. This was indicated by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and passed both houses of the Legislature of Australia. Former apologies were presented by the State of Territory administrations through the years of 1997-2001. Although there were those who contested the apology; Islander Affairs, John Herron in the year 2000 and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Peter Howson in the years 1971 and 1972.

The history behind Australia’s Lost Generation is a very tragic, yet an eye-opening one indeed. The victims exist within two worlds, yet it appears that a gist of differential worlds is a dominant premise within Australia’s history.

Australia’s history is full of migrants, and each come from diverse origins, which may clash with the conventional culture. Generations prior to the lost generation, were the earliest to try and sustain balance, while laboring within the incomers culture.

Maintaining the balance is necessary, and today the Aboriginals have Land Council in every one of Australia’s states. They have also been permitted the rights to specific vicinities, and amongst them is Ayers Rock, which they believe to be sacred.

Despite endeavors by both the Aboriginal people and the Australian government, the unemployment rate amongst the Aboriginals is substantial. They have the least family income in the country.