The Guardian 8 November, 2006
Heat on to follow Tasmania’s lead
Mainland States have begun to feel the heat from calls for them to follow Tasmania’s lead in its plans to compensate members of the Stolen Generations.
Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon last week released an exposure draft of legislation encompassing a $5-million compensation package.
On Friday, Stolen Generations Victoria said the Victorian Government should also act now, and acknowledge the pain and suffering experienced by the Victorian Stolen Generations.
"We are hopeful that in light of the leadership shown by the Tasmanian Government, Victoria will move to acknowledge the devastating impact of forced removal on Aboriginal individuals, families and communities," said the organisation’s co-chairman Mick Edwards.
"We want a commitment from this Government to assist and support healing and that includes a formal apology and compensation."
However, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gavin Jennings was quick to reject the suggestion, saying that the Government had instead spent $4.1 million to establish Stolen Generations Victoria as part of its response to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission report Bringing Them Home.
He said the group was a "community-based organisation to help people reconnected with their relatives and families and to begin the process of healing".
Aboriginal leader Bob Weatherall has called on Queensland Premier Peter Beattie to avoid putting Aboriginal people through the trauma of adversarial proceedings and back his 1999 apology for "what has gone wrong in the past" with practical compensation.
"They have suffered enough," said Mr Weatherall of the Stolen Generations. "It is time to put this behind us by paying compensation."
Mr Weatherall, who is the chairman of the Centre for Indigenous Cultural Policy, said he has sought a meeting with Premier Beattie.
Queensland academic John Williams-Mozley says he would like to think that the Tasmanian Government’s actions were positive proof for other States and Territory Governments being able to move past the "specious arguments" of the Prime Minister John Howard concerning the Stolen Generations.
"I just hope that not too many more members of the Stolen Generations die before some justice comes into their lives", he said.
The lobby group Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) said the Tasmanian apology and compensation package is potentially a model for other States and the Federal Government.
However, ANTaR national director Gary Highland said the leadership shown by Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon was still lacking at the Federal level.
"In contrast to Premier Lennon, Prime Minister John Howard has refused to apologise to people affected by the policies of child removal and his Government has even sought to deny the existence of the Stolen Generations", Mr Highland said.
The Tasmanian compensation scheme comes at a time when a Federal Senate inquiry is looking at the unresolved issue of stolen wages from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Mr Highland said the unresolved issues of the Stolen Generations and the stolen wages remained among the nation’s greatest barriers to reconciliation and justice for Indigenous people.
"Many of the workers whose wages were taken faced a double injustice because they were also members of the Stolen Generations. They were removed from their families and culture and then had their wages and entitlements removed from them", he said.
"The twin practices of child removal and stolen wages took many Indigenous people into a form of cultural and economic exile, denied a place in Indigenous society and then prevented from gaining the economic stake so essential to enabling decent life in the mainstream".
Koori Mail, Abridged