Table 1. Historical and present-day policies and their impacts on Indigenous communities and Stolen Generations survivors.

Domain	Historical policy impact	Current policy developments	Relevance	Holistic policy implications
Healthcare	Denial of culturally appropriate care and forced removals and trauma21	Closing the Gap,97 Link-Up46 and Healing Foundation42	High rates of chronic disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, limited access and mistrust of health services7	Co-designed, trauma-informed, expanding digital and culturally safe mental health services outreach in rural areas62 78
Social support	Loss of family/community connection and institutional abuse17	Healing Foundation42 and compensation payments36	Social exclusion, identity loss and poor emotional well-being17	Culturally grounded healing services and permanent support for survivors43
Economic	Denied employment and land rights and forced dependency85	The National Redress Scheme,63 NSW Stolen Generations Reparations Scheme,64 The Healing Foundation employment support,42 Indigenous Skills and Employment Programme65	Intergenerational poverty and high unemployment27	Economic empowerment via community-led programmes, job creation and reparations44 62
Education	Denied access to quality education; unnecessary suspensions and exclusions30	Indigenous Education Strategies,70 Indigenous Education71 and Education of First Nations people72 Ngarrngga Project. A transdisciplinary education programme embedding Indigenous knowledge systems into school curricula73 and curriculum changes74	Low literacy, poor school retention and mistrust in institutions28 29	Incorporate Indigenous history in education, community-led learning68 and empowerment via truth-telling and storytelling98
Safety	Institutional abuse and systemic racism61	Child safety programmes,38 Family Participation Programme39 and inquiries into police violence40	Over-representation in child protection and policing8	Adopt systemic racism in policing and trauma-informed training81
Child Protection	Stolen Generations removals and foster/institutional abuse9	High rates of current removals,13 socioeconomic outcome area16 and Culture and Empowering Communities82	Ongoing removals and ‘another Stolen Generation’ concerns14	Advocates culturally appropriate kinship care and community-led family supports
Justice	Criminalisation of Indigenous people and systemic bias55	Justice reinvestment pilots,89 Maranguka,90 National Justice Reinvestment Programme,89 Royal Commission,99 Australian Human Rights Commission91 and Parliamentary Business92	Overincarceration and intergenerational trauma17	Implement restorative justice, dismantle power structures to reflect decolonising processes within the justice/legal system and restoring relationships25 31
Housing	Displacement from land and community86	Housing circumstances of First Nations people,49 First Nations Housing Crisis,50 Australian Bureau of Statistics,51 Aboriginal housing,52 support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities53 and Ngwala Willumbong Aboriginal Corporation54	Overcrowding, homelessness and housing insecurity47	Safe, affordable and culturally connected housing programmes48