The Children’s Protection Act 1892 [30/1892 (55 Vic. No.30)] was a broad-ranging Act that regulated the care of infants and children. It was a response to fears about ‘baby-farming’ and the sale of unwanted children. It made it an offence to charge a premium for arranging adoptions or to fail to report a stillbirth or…
The Infant Convicts Adoption Act 1901 (15/1901) was ‘An Act to consolidate the enactments providing for the care and education of infants who may be convicted of felony or misdemeanour’. It provided for any ‘infant’, aged below nineteen years and convicted of a felony or misdemeanour, to be assigned by the Court to the care…
The State Children Relief Act of 1881 [24/1881 (44 Vic. No.24)] created the State Children’s Relief Board [SCRB], a body of nine members that reported to the Colonial Secretary. Its task was to remove children from state-funded institutions and board them out, or foster them, with working class families. This Act enabled the SCRB to…
The Reformatory Schools Act 1866 (30 Victoria, Act No. 4, 1866) came into operation in 1869. Under the Act, any child under the age of sixteen who had been convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to fourteen or more days imprisonment could be sent to a reformatory for one to five years. There were…
The Destitute Children Act [2/1866 (30 Vic. No.2)], also known as the Industrial Schools Act, enabled justices to send vagrant and destitute children under the age of eighteen to work as apprentices or be sent to industrial or reformatory schools. The Act was amended in 1870 to enable boys under the age of six to…
Child Endowment was a non-means tested, universal allowance introduced by the Commonwealth government in 1941. The Child Endowment Act 1941 provided that a sum of 5 shillings per week, for each child after the first under the age of 16 years, be paid directly to the mother. Under the original legislation, child endowment could not…
On 22 October 2018, the Prime Minister, the Hon Scott Morrison MP, apologised to victims and survivors of institutional child sexual abuse on behalf of the Australian Government, and all Australians. The Prime Minister apologised for the appalling endured by survivors of institutional child sexual abuse, and acknowledged the longlasting effects of this abuse. The…
The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) was created in 2007 (formerly, it was known as the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs). FaHCSIA was the government department responsible for the Apology to Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants in November 2009. It also administered the Find and Connect…
The Freedom of Information Act 1982 is Commonwealth legislation giving the Australian community rights of access to information held by the Government of the Commonwealth (or the Government of Norfolk Island). The FOI Act regulates regulates access to documents created by the Federal Government (not by state or territory government agencies).
The Department of Social Services (DSS) came into being in September 2013. Previously, it was called the Department for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (or FaHCSIA). Within DSS’s programs and services are the Find and Connect services for Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual…
Dec 18, 2024
Nov 15, 2024
