good speech by the governor general, page-3

banjar the apology is being made because around 50,000 ATSI children were removed from their families simply because the state decided that should happen based only on their colour.
The child's welfare usually had nothing to do with these decisions, it was simply government policy at that time to move ATSI people around and break up their families.
This produced many different consequences, good, bad and indifferent but that is not what the apology is about.
The present government is apologizing for what were the very hurtful racist policies and actions of most previous governments. Nothing else comes into it.

Some recent governments tried to make amends by throwing money at the problems of many ATSI people but the spending was often misguided and made the problems worse.

I hope that by finally openly recognizing past wrongs the air can be cleared and some positive things can start happening.
Dave R.