CYKIAE Season 007 Part 08. The Stolen Generations Myth. The Federal Court – Peter Gunner and Lorna Cubillo – Were They Forcibly Taken?

In the previous part of this programme I told you that Justice O’Loughlin who, before he was appointed to the bench, had done a lot of work as counsel appearing for Aboriginals, had heard the leading two test Stolen Generations cases of Cubillo and Gunner v The Commonwealth. He found that they hadn’t been wrongfully taken from their parents. In fact after this case no Stolen Generation cases have ever again been brought before the Courts. Why? Because after the six judges of the High Court who heard the case of Kruger v The Commonwealth found there was no genocide policy behind the removal of Aboriginal children, and this case (which found that in the carrying out of the welfare policies of the government towards Aboriginal children there was no genocide), and then its unsuccessful appeal from Justice O’Loughin’s judgment to the Full Federal Court and then the failure of Cubillo and Gunner to get leave to appeal to the High Court (heard by Chief Justice Gleeson and Justice McHugh) from the Full Court judgment (heard by Justices Sackville, Weinberg and Hely), the unanimous rejection of the claims of the Stolen Generations by 8 High Court judges and 4 Federal Court judges, and the judicial precedents then in place, after the utter failure of the cases brought, and the overwhelming evidence brought against those cases, has meant that there have been no further cases brought by anyone alleging that they were members of the Stolen Generations. Any such claim is utterly untenable. 

This claim that there ever was a genocidal policy of the Stolen Generations in Australia now only lives on in political and academic circles which choose to ignore the reality of the court findings in these two cases where, unlike the Bring Them Home Report with witnesses were from only one side, who were heard not a standard required in a Court of law.

Sadly Australia’s name remains smeared internationally because of the Bring Them Home Report and the on-going political/academic agitation which ignores the reality of the fatal impact on those claims as a result of these Court findings.

In my last programme I was up to the part about Peter Gunner and the circumstances of how he came to be taken into care. Remember that immediately after he was born his mother had put him on top of an ant’s nest in an attempt to kill him. Her aunty had rescued the baby. He was seven years old when he was taken to the Retta Davis Home – why was he taken?

Tag words: Cubillo v The Commonwealth; Gunner v The Commonwealth; Lorna Cubillo; Peter Gunner; Stolen Generations; Aboriginals; High Court of Australia; Kruger v The Commonwealth; genocide; Aboriginal children; Federal Court; Full Federal Court; Chief Justice Gleeson; Justice McHugh; Justice Sackville; Justice Weinberg; Justice Hely; Bring Them Home Report; Mrs McLeod; Utopia Station; Ivan Leonard (Ray) Vincent; Retta Dixon Home; St Mary’s; Topsy; Sir Ronald Wilson;Mick Dodson; Mr Lovegrove; The Rabbit Proof Fence;