Sydney on Australia Day 2008, three weeks prior to the national apology to the Stolen Generations

On 13 February 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology to Australia’s Indigenous peoples, particularly to the Stolen Generations whose lives had been blighted by past government policies of forced child removal and Indigenous assimilation.

The journey to national apology began with the Bringing Them Home report — the findings of an inquiry instigated by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in 1995.