2.2 Bringing Them Home Report

The Bringing Them Home Report, tabled in the Australian Parliament on 26 May 1997, was the result of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s (HREOC) ‘National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families’ that ran between August 1995 and 1997. 76

The Healing Foundation summarised the purpose of the HREOC inquiry:77

  • To examine the past laws, practices and policies of forcible separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and their effects.
  • To identify what should be done in response, including any changes in current laws, practices and policies with a focus on locating and reunifying families.
  • To examine the justification for any compensation for those affected by the forcible separations.
  • To look at then current laws, policies and practices affecting the placement and care of Indigenous children

The Inquiry took evidence orally or in writing from 535 Indigenous people throughout Australia concerning their experiences of the removal policies. In addition, individual agencies also took testimonies and provided them to the Inquiry.78 The Bringing Them Home Report compiled this evidence alongside submissions collected from various government and non-government agencies and proposed 54 recommendations. It was the first national report on Stolen Generations.79

The Healing Foundation summarised the report’s 54 recommendations as follows:80

  • Acknowledgment and formal apology with all parliaments, police forces and churches to acknowledge, apologise and make reparation for past wrongs.
  • Reparation for people who were forcibly removed including monetary compensation through a national compensation fund.
  • Records, family tracing and reunion, including funding community-based Link-Up services to help families reconnect, and the establishment of records task forces
  • Rehabilitation for survivors of forcible removal, including local healing and well-being approaches.
  • Education and training, including a National Sorry Day and the inclusion of compulsory modules on the Stolen Generations in school curricula.
  • Guarantees against repetition, including the implementation of self-determination approaches to the well-being of Indigenous children and young people.
  • Addressing contemporary separation, with national standards legislation to ensure compliance with the Indigenous Child Placement Principle.
  • A national process for coordination and monitoring the implementation of the recommendations.

Reparations was defined in the Bringing Them Home Report as ‘Reparations shall render justice by removing or redressing the consequences of the wrongful acts and by preventing and deterring violations’.81 Recommendation three of the report provides five overarching components of what reparations for Stolen Generations should include, stating ‘Reparations should be material, in-kind and non-material and should include, but not be confined to, monetary compensation’. The five components of Reparations are as follows:82

  1. Acknowledgment and apology - Under this component, the Bringing Them Home Report further details recommendations relating to formal apologies from governments, police, and churches and acknowledging Stolen Generations through various forms of commemoration
  2. Guarantees against repetition - Under this component, the Bringing Them Home Report further details recommendations relating to the child protection system and education programs for child protection staff and the general public.
  3. Measures of restitution - Under this component, the Bringing Them Home Report further details recommendations relating to access to records, assistance for returning to Country, family tracing and family reunions, language, cultural and history centres.
  4. Measures of rehabilitation - Under this component, the Bringing Them Home Report further details recommendations relating to services provisions in the fields of mental health, health, parent and family well-being, corrective services, juvenile justice, and inter-generational trauma.
  5. Monetary compensation - Under this component, the Bringing Them Home Report further details recommendations relating to a national compensation scheme for Stolen Generations.

The outcomes of the Bringing Them Home recommendations are outlined in further detail below, however, it is important to note although many of the recommendations were targeted at the Commonwealth Government, most have since been individually responded to instead at a state level. Although it has been 24 years since the report, many recommendations remain incomplete or only partially complete and there have been a number of subsequent reviews reporting on this. This report will outline three significant reviews of the Bringing Them Home Report with a focus on Reparations as follows.

In 1999 the Senate requested the Legal and Constitutional References Committee complete an inquiry into the implementation of recommendations made in the Bringing Them Home Report. This Committee ran a consultation process between 1999 and 2000 and finalised the ‘Healing: A Legacy of Generations’ Report in 2000.83 This report made ten recommendations that reinforced the original Bringing Them Home recommendations and that the Public Interest and Advocacy Centre (PIAC) put forward a Reparations Tribunal model for Stolen Generations.84

PIAC fulfilled this recommendation after the Moving Forward consultation project and published the ‘Restoring Identity: Final Report of the Moving Forward consultation project’ in 2002 and a revised edition in 2009. The report included 12 detailed recommendations based on consultation between 2001 and 2002. Again these recommendations reiterated the importance of the Bringing them Home recommendations and included a proposal for a reparations tribunal to achieve full and just reparations for Stolen Generations.85 The types of reparations that Moving Forward consultation participants noted would be a beneficial to Stolen Generations were Culture and history centres, healing centres, including funding for land or premises, community education programs about the history of removals, community genealogy projects for Indigenous communities, monetary payments, access to appropriate counselling services, access to language and Culture training, and memorials.86

In 2017 the Healing Foundation published a report titled ‘Bringing Them Home 20 years on’ and in it stated: ‘Two decades on and the majority of the Bringing Them Home recommendations have not yet been implemented. For many Stolen Generations members, this has created additional trauma and distress.’ 87 This report made three recommendations and outline a detailed action plan for fulfilling these:88

  • A comprehensive assessment of the contemporary and emerging needs of Stolen Generations members, including needs-based funding and a financial reparations scheme.
  • A national study into inter-generational trauma to ensure that there is real change for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the future.
  • An appropriate policy response that is based on the principles underlying the 1997 Bringing Them Home Report.

The Steering Committee has considered the Bringing Them Home Report’s original recommendations and they will be further referenced alongside the recommendations in this report to ensure that the voices of past Stolen Generations continue to be heard.

End notes

76 Healing Foundation, 2017, Bringing Them Home Report – 20 Years On

77 Healing Foundation, 2017, Bringing Them Home Report – 20 Years On

78 Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997, Bringing Them Home Report

79 Healing Foundation, 2017, Bringing Them Home Report – 20 Years On

80 Healing Foundation, 2017, Bringing Them Home Report – 20 Years On

81 Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997, Bringing Them Home Report

82 Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997, Bringing Them Home Report

83 Parliament of Australia, 30 November 2000, Legal and Constitutional References Committee, Healing: A Legacy of Generations

84 Parliament of Australia, 30 November 2000, Legal and Constitutional References Committee, Healing: A Legacy of Generations

85 Public Interest Advocacy Centre Ltd, June 2009, Restoring Identity: Final Report of the Moving Forward consultation project

86 Public Interest Advocacy Centre Ltd, June 2009, Restoring Identity: Final Report of the Moving Forward consultation project

87 Healing Foundation, 2017, Bringing Them Home Report – 20 Years On

88 Healing Foundation, 2017, Bringing Them Home Report – 20 Years On

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