Almost 30 years after a landmark report first comprehensively documented the experiences of members of the Stolen Generations, only six per cent of its recommendations have been fully implemented.
It is a damning statistic which has prompted the Healing Foundation, an organisation amplifying the voices of Stolen Generations survivors and their families, to release Sorry to Action: A Plan to Act on Bringing Them Home (2026-2028), aimed at holding government departments and ministers accountable for implementing key recommendations and supporting survivors.
Released in 1997, the 680-page Bringing Them Home report traced the laws and policies that led to the forced removal of Aboriginal children, finding that between one in three and one in 10 Indigenous children were taken from their families and communities between 1910 and 1970.
It made 83 recommendations to support healing and reconciliation for the Stolen Generations, their families and the broader Australian community.
However, 29 years on, only five have been fully implemented.
It's a statistic, Healing Foundation CEO Shannan Dodson says, that leaves many survivors feeling sad, frustrated, invalidated and undervalued.
"This is not the responsibility of one or of [the] current government. It's also the responsibility of successive governments and past governments that haven't acted in the last 30 years," she said.
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Action needed, not just words
Ms Dodson, whose father, Mick Dodson, co-chaired the Bringing Them Home report, says "Sorry to action" highlights that whilst the apology to the Stolen Generation survivors in 2008 by Kevin Rudd was of great significance and importance to survivors, it has to be backed up with action and change.
"I think the starkness of having such little action, but still commemorating these apologies and the sorrys, I think, is just that heaviness of knowing that 'but what next?'" she said. "How do we actually move the needle?"
Survivors experience "significantly poorer outcomes" than other First Nations people over several metrics, including health, wellbeing, and socio-economic measures. Despite this, they have "not been consistently or explicitly recognised within national policy priorities".
"Survivors and descendants comprise a large percentage of the adult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population," Healing Foundation chair Steve Larkin said in the action plan. "Targeted action could accelerate whole-of-community gains."
Launched in Canberra on National Sorry Day on Tuesday, the plan calls for "decisive action" between now and May 2028 and "establishes the priorities for improving the lives of survivors and their descendants with a framework to shift the systems that have failed survivors for decades".
Speaking to National Indigenous Times ahead of the launch, Ms Dodson said the aim of the action plan was not to address all 83 recommendations, but to "focus down on some of the urgent and contemporary issues to see some movement for survivors".
One of the most critical areas for reform, she argues, is aged care.
"We know that most survivors now eligible for aged care and are aging, and there's some real risk of re-traumatisation through the aged care system, as well as what that sort of holistic support looks like in terms of social-emotional well-being and health," she said.
Ms Dodson said that with many survivors growing older, "unfortunately, we're at a point now where we have to really accelerate [the reforms]".
"There's a really time-critical nature here where we don't have a lot of time to actually put some of these things into place."
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Other priorities outlined in the plan include long-standing calls for Queensland to establish a redress scheme for survivors — the only state yet to do so — greater education about the Stolen Generations across the country, and improved access to records that support family reunification, family history, and reconnection to Country and culture.
"It's much more than just a record, it's someone's livelihood," Ms Dodson said.
She said government departments had responded positively to some of the systemic issues raised in the action plan, noting there was a "definite openness and willingness to look at some of these things".
"We understand that it's going to take some time and resourcing and collective thinking around how we can problem solve these things, but I do feel confident that there is a willingness to do so."
In a statement to National Indigenous Times, Minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, said the government recently received the action plan and will "consider" the report.
"On Sorry Day, we reflect on the pain and harm caused by past policies of forced removal," she said.
"The Healing Foundation continues to play a critical role in supporting Stolen Generations survivors and their families. The Albanese Government provides ongoing funding to the Foundation to support its important work."
