Why do our governments and public institutions defame Australia by embracing an embellished 'Stolen Generations' narrative?

Every nation has a skeleton or three in its history cupboard.  Australia is no different, except that in recent decades we have not only proclaimed our culpability to the world but have also exaggerated our crimes.

I have vivid recollections of visiting relatives from overseas being gobsmacked, when they learnt that Australian Governments in the past had "committed genocide" by forcibly removing tens of thousands of Indigenous children from their grieving parents in the name of assimilation.  This information had come from a visit to our National Museum, and later from ABC and SBS broadcasts.

There is no doubt that our native peoples were badly treated during the colonial era and its aftermath, as were conquered peoples throughout generations of history.  British colonialism itself could be brutal, even in its own backyard.  (The clearance of the Scottish Highlands is a well-known example.)

In Australia Indigenous people were widely dispossessed of their lands, commonly removed to reserves, and often routinely treated as second-class citizens.

All that said, there is evidence that many commentators and public institutions "gild the lily" on such matters, perhaps due to "colonial guilt" or a desire to highlight their own virtue.  In Australia, the choice of appointees to government enquiries has greatly influenced the historical narrative contained in official reports and subsequently in popular belief.

All of this has led to so-called "history wars".  Essentially, conservative historians and researchers have for some time been claiming that a lot of popularly and officially accepted revisionist history is based on unchecked claims, which often collapse when tested.

The Bringing Them Home report by the Human Rights Commission estimated that between 1910 and 1970 ten per cent of Indigenous children (50000 to 100,000) were removed from their families under state-sanctioned policies.  A message that Australian governments sponsored genocidal stolen generation policies is now taught to our school children.  A similar message is promoted to visitors to the National Museum, and by public broadcasters and much of the media.  High profile movies such as "Australia" similarly promote the hackneyed stereotype of Aboriginal children hiding to avoid unjustified removal by welfare officers.

The narrative effectively achieved official approval with the Rudd Apology for "mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations".  Rudd apologised"especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children", which (according to the National Museum and other organs of officialdom) was driven by" past government policies of forced child removal and Indigenous assimilation."

There have been a range of challenges to the official narrative.

Andrew Bolt has highlighted that a number of prominent Aboriginal people, claimed to have been stolen, were in fact given up.  "Charles Perkins was the son of an Alice Springs woman who was deserted by her husband after giving birth to her 11th child, and who begged a priest to at least give her brightest boy an education.  Lois O'Donoghue was sent with her siblings to South Australia's Colebrook Home by her white father, when he'd decided he no longer wanted them or his Aboriginal wife".

Keith Windschuttle and other conservative historians argue that the records show that Aboriginal children "were never removed from their families in order to put an end to Aboriginality or, indeed, to serve any improper government policy or program".  He further argues that "until the term stolen generations first appeared in 1981, there had been no popular tradition among Aboriginal people that employed either the term or the concept".

Windschuttle from his archival research for The Fabrication of Aboriginal History (Vol 3) puts the national total of child removals from 1880 to 1970 at only 8250 or a mere 92 per year for all reasons.  This includes orphaning, neglect, jeopardy and consensual transfers for fostering and education (those dominate the NSW data).  Windschuttle's research therefore is hugely at odds with the officially promoted narrative.

To determine which version of history is correct, what is needed is an objective assessment of the facts.  Such assessment has already been conducted by a trustworthy authority, namely the highest courts in the land.

Conservative historians have been substantially vindicated because court action on behalf of members of the "Stolen Generations" has nearly always been unsuccessful, even though the test cases presented were those that plaintiff lawyers thought most likely to succeed.

In Kruger v Commonwealth, the High Court found that the (NT) Aboriginals Ordinance 1918 was beneficial in intent and had neither the purpose of genocide nor that of restricting the practice of religion.  It instead found that the Ordinance required action to be taken in the best interests of the Aboriginal people.  The Court also unanimously held there was no separate action for a breach of any constitutional right.

Only one such compensation court case has ever succeeded, involving an Adelaide welfare officer who separated infant Bruce Trevorrow from his family.

In 1957 the plaintiff, an Aboriginal child of 13 months, was sent by his parents to hospital with stomach problems.  Two weeks later the plaintiff was removed from hospital and placed in the care of a foster family by an officer of the Aborigines Department.  The plaintiff continued to live with his foster family until the age of 10, in spite of frequent requests by his natural mother that he be returned. The plaintiff was then returned to live with his Aboriginal family.

The plaintiff suffered a range of emotional and physical problems, and only remained with his family for 14 months. He spent the remainder of his childhood life in and out of state institutions.  Trevorrow ended up being awarded $775,000 in damages, a decision confirmed on appeal.

In Collard vState ofWestern Australia (2013) WASC 455, the test case for families affected by the "Stolen Generations" policies in Western Australia, the action was dismissed entirely.  The court found that the children were not removed pursuant to a policy of assimilation.  Instead, the judgment suggested that the Collards were neglectful parents who had their vulnerable children taken by a government only seeking to protect the children.

In NSW only one "Stolen Generations" child has gone to court.  In the Joy Williams case, it too failed after the court found she'd been willingly given up by her troubled mother.

In the Northern Territory the courts have consistently found against all "Stolen Generations" claims.  In Cubillo and Gunner v Commonwealth, Counsel for the applicants had submitted that the Northern Territory in the 1940s and 1950s had a policy called “the removal policy” and “the half-caste policy”.  The Court however rejected all the applicants’ claims against the Commonwealth, while acknowledging the continuing trauma and suffering that resulted from their removal and detention.

Overall, when tested before the courts, the narrative of the "Stolen Generations" does not stand up.  Despite this, many states have introduced reparations schemes (many ex-gratia).  The Morrison government is in the course of delivering $378.6 million in compensation for living "Stolen Generations" members in the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory.

In my opinion, the use of the term "Stolen" is inappropriate in the case of Indigenous children who generally might be better described as "institutionalised".  "Generations" similarly seems to be an overstatement of the numbers affected.

That said, being placed in an institution is amongst the worst possible outcomes for a child.  Where the State breached its duty of care in operating such facilities, there is a case for proper compensation.  A problem, however, arises in paying compensation (with few questions asked) for being allegedly "stolen", when in fact most (contrary to the official narrative) were found to have been either given up by a parent or had been in danger.

I believe that the case of the "Stolen Generations" narrative has elements in common with the Bruce Pascoe saga.

Bruce Pascoe in his book Dark Emu (which won the NSW Premier's Award for Literature) disputed earlier accepted history that Aboriginal people were nomadic hunter-gatherers.  He instead claimed that groups of up to 1000 Aboriginal people had lived permanently in solid dwellings in townships across Australia.  He also claimed they grew their own food, which was stored in granaries and underground storehouses.

There now seems to be a consensus that Pascoe's work was poorly researched, not fully sourced, and selective in its choice and emphasis of the facts.  Pascoe's own claim to be descended from several Aboriginal clans now also seems to be dubious.  Despite all this, there has been little official reversal of recognition for his version of history, and he remains a Professor of Indigenous Agriculture at the University of Melbourne.

So why do Australians so easily accept what appears to have been a false or exaggerated narratives?

My theory is that there are several reasons.

The biggest reason seems to be "colonial guilt".  Now don't get me wrong.  I do think that Australia (given its past) has an obligation to give special assistance to its Indigenous peoples.  A problem, however, arises, if we misunderstand or exaggerate past wrongs.

I don't think we can underestimate the effects of embellished narratives, that have received formal endorsement from officialdom.  In the case of the "Stolen Generations" a questionable report by the (woke) Human Rights Commission started the ball rolling, and the narrative was subsequently validated by the Rudd government's Apology.  Similarly, Pascoe's work received official awards and was endorsed by a number of organisations, such as the ABC, the University of Melbourne and some state governments.

Finally, the so-called moral high ground is always the easiest position to take on controversial issues, and questioning a victim narrative can easily come across as uncaring.  I think that people actually want to be seen as believing the victim.

Contrast the acclaim given to Rudd's Apology with protestors turning their backs on former PM Howard's more limited acknowledgment of past wrongs against Indigenous people.  Howard stated that he believes the Bringing Them Home report was wrong in its conclusion that genocide had been practised against Indigenous Australians.  Howard, when asked about his refusal to offer a formal apology to the stolen generations said that “I did apologise in a sense; I delivered a statement of regret to the parliament.”

I think that time may yield a more understanding reaction to Howard's position on this matter.

I also get the impression that neither the Turnbull nor Morrison governments displayed much appetite for courting controversy by in any way challenging the "stolen generations" narrative.  Challenging a narrative that so many people want to believe is likely to be politically unrewarding.