I am also guessing some children were removed for what were looked on then as humanitarian reasons, to remove them from dysfunctional family life. Misguided perhaps but not every case was done with the wrong motives. I do realise the way to hell is paved with good intentions.
Guessing, when it comes to events like the Stolen Generation, is probably not a good idea - it leads to all kinds of misconceptions. There probably were children removed from dysfunctional families and given a better life but that was not the reason they were removed. They were removed in compliance with a stated government policy to take "half caste" children from their families and, as far as possible expunge all traces of Aboriginality from their make up.
It was called assimilation, but once it had been accomplished - and of course it was only really possible with the very light skinned children - these 'orphans' were sent out into Australian society as second class citzens, explicitly trained to work as servants for their 'betters,'
And while all this was going on, there would almost certainly have been some full -blood children also living in dysfunctional families, but nobody ever sought to 'rescue' them.
