Decades-long abuse of Aboriginal children at a remote NSW children's home will be subject of a national inquiry in Sydney.
At the hearing on Wednesday the child sexual abuse royal commission will investigate allegations of sexual and physical abuse at the Bethcar Children's Home in Brewarrina, in the state's northwest.
Bethcar was a state-funded foster home for disadvantaged Aboriginal children, run in the 70s and 80s by a husband and wife team, Burt and Edith Gordon.
The public hearing will inquire into the NSW government and police response to complaints made by children.
Fifteen former residents started civil proceedings against the state government in 2008 and the commission will look at how that case, which ran for six year, was handled.
Media reports from 2011 say the children at Bethcar suffered unspeakable cruelty, were subject to sexual abuse and beatings if they did not comply with the wishes of the man the state was paying to care for them.
NSW Hansard records from 1978 show that at first the home was funded by the federal government but because of dwindling commonwealth funds, NSW increased its contribution.
The special Aboriginal service was allocated $22,880 by NSW in 1977 "to ensure the continuation of this scheme, which cares for 24 disadvantaged aboriginal children".
When NSW defended the civil claim it argued the home was funded by a number of agencies.
The case is part of The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse intensified focus on the fate of Aboriginal children taken from their parents and put into care.
At the opening of a hearing into the Retta Dixon home for Aboriginal and mixed-race children in Darwin recently commission chair Peter McClellan said about one in ten of those who have given private evidence to the commission are Aboriginal.
The commission has heard from more that 800 Aboriginal people - this equates to 18 per cent of all people who have made contact since the commission began public engagement in April 2013.
Just three per cent of Australia's 23 million citizens identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
The commission is also meeting with Aboriginal inmates in prisons across Australia and will hold sessions for people from the Tiwi Islands in May 2015.
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