When Paul, who was taken from his mother at five-and-a-half months, sat down with the welfare department he was handed a pile of birthday cards.
He was then 18, a victim of the Stolen Generation who had been sent one every birthday but the cards from his mother never made it.
Labor leader Bill Shorten recounted Paul's story from the Bringing Them Home report while marking the 10th anniversary of the national apology by Kevin Rudd.
He told how the young boy was taken to St Gabriel's Babies' Home in Balwyn, in Melbourne's east, after he fell ill while his mother was in hospital and he was made a ward of the state.
"When his mum came to visit him she found only an empty cot," Mr Shorten told a breakfast event in Parliament House on Tuesday.
His first adoption in 1967 when he was three only lasted seven months after his adoptive mother complained he was "dull, unresponsive and an embarrassment at coffee parties".
After turning 18, Paul sat down with the welfare department and discovered information about his birth mother, father, three brothers and a sister.
"He was given a file full of letters, photos, 18 birthday cards from his mother," Mr Shorten said.
Paul later found his mother working in a hostel for Aboriginal children. She died six years later when she was just 45.
As a parent, Mr Shorten said he could not imagine going to a cot and finding it empty.
"I do not know how I would carry on. I don't know if I could even have written the 18 years of birthday cards and unanswered letters and dealing with cruel, indifferent bureaucracy," he said.
Mr Shorten paid tribute to Mr Rudd.
"Ten years ago you did a great thing for this nation," he said.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion, representing Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, again acknowledged the impact the removal had on indigenous Australians.
"We acknowledge the ongoing and lasting impact that this had on you," he said.
"We acknowledge the impact on your culture, your connection to country."
Mr Rudd said Australia had made a lot of progress and tens of thousands of lives had changed but there was still a long way to go.
"For many of us, 10 years may seem like an eternity, for our long-suffering Indigenous brothers and sisters, it is not," he told the gathering.
His apology on February 13, 2008 sparked tears in Canberra and across the country.
A concert making the 10th anniversary of the apology will be held on the lawn of Parliament House at 6pm.
