A man who was abused at a notorious care home for Stolen Generations Children is "overjoyed" after receiving an apology from the Federal Government after it had initially refused to give one.
The man was born in the 1950s at the Retta Dixon Home, where the royal commission found dozens of cases of sexual and physical abuse were perpetrated by staff from the 1940s to the 1980s.
"It means recognition," the man said.
"It means everything to me.
The apology came after the legal firm representing the man, Maurice Blackburn, wrote a letter of complaint to the department.
In the complaint, the firm said it was "reprehensible" that its client had not been granted an apology.
In a statement on Thursday afternoon, a spokesperson from the office of the Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt said the man had been granted a personal response on behalf of the department.
"In response to the plaintiff's request for an apology, a direct personal response has been sent to the plaintiff by the National Indigenous Australians Agency," the statement said.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sexually abused and thrown into a sewerage pool as a child at the Retta Dixon Home.
He said he could not go near swimming pools to this day because of the psychological trauma he had suffered.
"It was terrible. Even now it makes me feel sick", the man said.
In its recommendations, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse said organisations should apologise to victims if it was requested.
Retta Dixon was run by the Australian Indigenous Ministries (AIM), but the NT was being administered by the Commonwealth at the time, effectively making the children wards of the state.
The current head of AIM, Reverend Trevor Leggott, apologised to Retta Dixon abuse survivors during the royal commission.
But Maurice Blackburn had argued the Commonwealth should also say sorry to victims, because it funded the home.
Many of the Retta Dixon children were part of the Stolen Generations, who were forcibly removed from their parents.
Mr Wyatt's office said because the matter was before the courts, it could not comment further.
