Truth telling Victoria: Great grandson of Alfred Deakin apologises

The great-grandson of Australia’s second Prime Minister has apologised to Aboriginal Australians for the harm inflicted by his ancestor. 

Peter Sharp, a descendant of Alfred Deakin, believes the role his great-grandfather played in enabling the devastating Stolen Generations has been downplayed.

The revelation was heard at Victoria’s Yoorrook Justice Commission which is investigating claims of ill treatment of Aboriginal people since colonisation.

Mr Sharp said he had grown up believing his famous ancestor was a ‘wonderful man’, ‘a storyteller’ and a ‘playful’ person but had discovered the truth in 2017. 

‘To all those viewing, who themselves have been and still are being impacted by the introduction of laws and policies in which a member of my family played such a significant role, I say that I am personally and profoundly sorry,’ he said. 

‘It came as a shock to learn that the attempted elimination [of First Nations peoples] continued after frontier violence diminished and I say ‘diminished’ because it really probably hasn’t ended. 

‘It was a greater shock when I stumbled on the evidence that indicated that a member of my own family had enabled the attempted elimination to be put into law.’

Peter Sharp, a descendant of Alfred Deakin, believes the role his great-grandfather played in enabling the devastating Stolen Generations has been downplayed

Mr Deakin was a young minister in the Victorian government that passed the Aborigines Protection Act 1886.

Commonly known as the Half-Caste Act, it sought to remove children of mixed Aboriginal and European heritage from indigenous communities to be raised by the state.

The Victorian law was matched in various forms by the English colonies that then existed across Australia prior to federation in 1901. 

 The practice of removing children from Aboriginal communities has been termed the Stolen Generation, and many studies have testified to the impact upon Aboriginal families then and into the future. 

Mr Sharp said Deakin had played a pivotal role in ‘the beginning of the Stolen Generations’ after he helped pass The Aborigines Protection Act 1886

Mr Sharp believes Mr Deakin, then Victoria’s chief secretary, had intentionally destroyed the state’s Aboriginal population in order to create a ‘White Australia’. 

‘I believe that now after nearly 140 years, the evidence shows that Deakin played a key role in ensuring that the critical element of the 1886 Act was to categorically deny any Aboriginal people of mixed heritage the right to be recognised as Aboriginal and, furthermore, to forcibly deny them contact with those deemed Aboriginal, thereby destroying their culture, kinship and language,’ he said. 

‘I believe that the evidence shows that he intended it never to be known and disguised his hand in every way he could. Suddenly I realised he actually meant this. This was deliberate.’

The Yoorrook Justice Commission is due to deliver a report to the state government by June 2025 that will make recommendations for reforms. 

It comes as Australia’s first treaty negotiations between the Victorian government and The First Peoples’ Assembly are on track to begin in November. 

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander crisis support line 13YARN on 13 92 76