The Federal Government has initiated discussions with mothers and children affected by harmful adoption practices, offering to include them in an apology with the Forgotten Australians later this year.

This comes ten years after a NSW inquiry found adoption practices between the 1950s and 1970s, were unethical and unlawful.

But adoption support group Origins has rejected the offer of an apology, saying a national inquiry needs to come first.

Origins is concerned an apology without a national inquiry would be used to sweep the issue under the rug.

In Victoria, a 1984 Review into the Adoption Act has been cited as the reason why a state inquiry is unnecessary. Yet at the time the state’s adoption records were not open.

And while inquiries have taken place in NSW and Tasmania ten years ago, there was no formal apology made at the time.

2SER's Biwa Kwan reports.