Stolen Wages

In every state, there was an arrangement of some sort to ensure Aboriginal earnings were kept in trust. Many half-castes from settlements, schools or missions were required to leave and start working at 13 or 14, as domestics, farm hands or in ‘apprenticeships’.

A (federal government) senate committee inquired into the nature and extent of trust fund or other payments which had not been given to the people who earned them. 

The final report, Unfinished business: Indigenous stolen wages was released in December 2006. It contains an exhaustive outline of the arrangements under various state Protection Acts, and responses from state governments with their estimates of numbers of people, amounts, lost records and so on.

Before the report was released, the New South Wales government had already established an Aboriginal Trust Fund Repayment Scheme. Payments under this scheme were expected to be finalised in 2010.

The Queensland Government later established a stolen wages and savings (reparations scheme); this has been criticised as mean and inadequate, especially compared to the NSW scheme.

Remaining states and the Federal Government (who administered the Northern Territory from 1912) have been dragging their feet.

Sometimes an apology simply isn’t good enough.