Bringing Them Home

Bringing Them Home is the informal name of the 1997 Australian government document officially titled The Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. The report marked a pivotal moment in the controversy that has come to be known as the Stolen Generations.

The inquiry was established by the federal Attorney-General, Michael Lavarch, on 11 May 1995, in response to efforts made by key Indigenous agencies and communities concerned that the general public's ignorance of the history of forcible removal was hindering the recognition of the needs of its victims and their families and the provision of services. The 680-page report was tabled in Federal Parliament on 26 May 1997.

Aboriginal organisations pushed for a national inquiry as early as 1990. The Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) resolved at its national conference in 1992 to demand a national inquiry. Other state Aboriginal organisations were also active during this period.^{[citation needed]}

In 1992 then Prime Minister Paul Keating made his famous Redfern Park Speech in Redfern, Sydney, in which for the first time, acknowledgement was made that children were taken away from their mothers.

In 1994, the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia began soliciting statements from Aboriginal people who had been removed from their families as children or who were parents of removed children. The service interviewed over 600 people during this time and produced a report titled Telling our Story.

The inquiry was primarily conducted by Sir Ronald Wilson, President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, and Mick Dodson, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner.

Indigenous women, appointed as co-commissioners, provided support to the people who gave evidence in each region the inquiry visited. The co-commissioners were: Annette Peardon, Marjorie Thorpe, Maryanne Bin Salik, Sadie Canning, Olive Knight, Kathy Mills, Anne Louis, Laurel Williams, Jackie Huggins, Josephine Ptero-David and Marcia Langton. The co-commissioners also assisted in the development of the report and its recommendations.

The inquiry also appointed an Indigenous Advisory Council made up of members from all the major regions of Australia. Members of the council were: Annette Peardon, Brian Butler, Yami Lester, Irene Stainton, Floyd Chermside, Barbara Cummings, Grant Dradge, Carol Kendall, Lola McNaughton, Isabel Coe, Peter Rotimah, Nigel D'Souza, Maureen Abbott, Margaret Ah Kee, Bill Lowah, Matilda House, and Jim Wright.