Many child-savers saw poverty, destitution and the illegal activities of the lower classes as signs of biologically determined character defects. In the 1970s the expectation that governments provide greater social equality and the recognition that inequalities underlie social problems gained currency. These understandings provoked a shift within welfare departments from protection to prevention and assistance. We have seen that Indigenous families were historically characterised by their Aboriginality as morally deficient. There is evidence that this attitude persists.
Indigenous families face both race and class prejudice among many welfare officers.
Indigenous efforts to retain their children Indigenous communities have fought consistently to keep control over their children. Resistance to separations has taken various forms. There are no studies solely devoted to opposition by Aboriginal people to the removal of their children. It is a history that demands to be written, one that would provide a fascinating and tragic account of a struggle that has been at the core of the battle for survival of Aboriginal people. It is a subject that would highlight the role of Aboriginal women - and men in the protection of the only guarantee for their survival when they had little or no material possessions and negligible civil rights.