My guess is that the apology was made for equality reasons. One of Kevin Rudd's first actions on being elected was to apolgise to Aboriginals for the forced relocation of some of their children in the past. The media had been very vocal about these relocations for a long time prior to that, dubbing them "The Stolen Generation". Of course racism was usually cited. Whenever it was pointed out that the same treatment had been applied to UK children it seemed to be disregarded.   
However appalling this treatment seems to us today it was apparently well intentioned, aiming to give the children a "better" future.

At least there was a TV drama series aired on ABC a year or two back - made by BBC I think.