Once again, Australia is stealing its indigenous children

She and others with long experience I have interviewed have echoed the Bringing them Home report, which described an official "attitude” in Australia that regarded all Aboriginal people as “morally deficient”. A Department of Families and Community Services spokesman said that the majority of removed indigenous children in New South Wales were placed with indigenous carers. According to indigenous support networks, this is a smokescreen; it does not mean families and is control by divisiveness that is the bureaucracy’s real achievement.

I met a group of Aboriginal grandmothers, all survivors of the first stolen generation, all now with stolen grandchildren. “We live in a state of fear, again,” they said.  David Shoebridge, a State Greens MP told me, “The truth is, there is a market among whites for these kids, especially babies.”

The New South Wales parliament is soon to debate legislation that introduces forced adoption and “guardianship”. Children under two will be liable – without the mother’s consent – if “removed” for more than six months. For many Aboriginal mothers like Pat, it can take six months merely to make contact with their children. “It’s setting up Aboriginal families to fail,” said Shoebridge.

I asked Josie Crawshaw why. “The wilful ignorance in Australia about its first people has now become the kind of intolerance that gets to the point where you can smash an entire group of humanity and there is no fuss.”