This report describes the outcomes of a symposium considering urgent priorities for addressing the ongoing structural, administrative, legal, and financial barriers that continue to prevent Stolen Generations survivors and their descendants from accessing both historical and contemporary records. Action to address these barriers is urgent leading towards the 30th anniversary of the 1997 report Bringing them home. Timely and culturally safe access to historical and contemporary records was a critical element of the suite of Bringing them home recommendations. Records play a crucial role in supporting family tracing and reunification with family, community, and Country, helping survivors and their descendants (re)claim their identity.

The symposium highlighted a failure to implement nearly half of the recommendations, including to establish the Records Taskforce and fund Indigenous traineeships and scholarships for archivists, genealogists, historical researchers and counsellors and regional Indigenous language, cultural and history centres. The symposium recommends urgent action because Stolen Generations survivors are ageing and many are passing away without the opportunity to find their family history information, creating lasting impacts for their descendants and undermining the collective responsibility to truth, justice, and reconciliation.