This paper is my invited contribution to a book of essays about the Stolen Generations edited by Robert Manne, to be published later in 2009. In the first half of my paper I review some of the controversy about putting a figure on the Stolen Generations, and I describe the unpublished research of Mark Copland on Queensland. Clearly, it is unlikely that we will ever have a precise quantitative account of the Stolen Generations. However, do we need one? This question raises issues of demography and of public policy that I will discuss in the second half of my paper.

Tim Rowse is a Professorial Fellow in Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy, University of Western Sydney.