Add Category
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton has apologised to Indigenous communities across the state for the police's role in the Stolen Generations.
At an event in Melbourne's north attended by leaders of the Indigenous community, Chief Commissioner Patton apologised on behalf of the force and pledged to do better.
"It's vital for Victoria Police to face up to and accept responsibility for the widespread harm caused to Aboriginal people by the role police played in forcibly removing children from their families," he said.
"I am deeply sorry for the harm which this has caused and the harm which continues to be felt now."
Chief Commissioner Patton said Victoria Police was committed to a truth-telling process, and called the apology "long overdue".
"I do want to acknowledge the extraordinary resilience, the diversity, the strength and the cultural survival of Aboriginal people in the face of historical harms and the legacy that persists to this day," he said.
"While we cannot change history, we can accept the harsh truth of it and learn from it, so these harms are never repeated."
From 1964 until 1992, Victoria Police was one of several agencies with the power to forcibly remove so-called "neglected children" from communities and families.
Aborigines Advancement League chief executive Aunty Esme Bamblett likened the day to when former prime minister Kevin Rudd offered a formal apology to Australia's Indigenous people's in 2008.
"We had the prime minister of Australia apologise, and I remember that day very, very well," Aunty Esme said.
"There were mob here then who listened to the apology and cried and laughed and loved."
Aunty Esme said she respected the Victoria Police commissioner for coming forward to engage with the community.
"Shane [Patton], I want to thank you and your mob for even having the guts to come and apologise," she said.
"I want to let you know that I respect you personally.
"Today hopefully we will all put our arms around each other and remember it was a terrible time."
The apology was hosted at the Aborigines Advancement League building in Thornbury in Melbourne's north, first established in 1957 by Sir Pastor Doug Nicholls, Doris Blackburn, Stan Davey and Gordon Bryant.
Ian Hamm, a member of the Stolen Generations himself, told the gathered audience about the importance of the Aborigines Advancement League in his own life.
"One of the most critical important moments happened in this building in the hall downstairs in 1983, where I first met one of my cousins. And I will never forget it," he said.
Mr Hamm said it was a "momentous" day that he could not believe he had lived to see.
"That perhaps the institution which has most — fairly or unfairly — seen as the symbol of the actual removing of children would say sorry for its part in that," he said.
"I never thought that day would come."