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Stolen generations’ compensation vital
By George Williams
NSW and Victoria recently announced their support for compensation for the victims of child sexual abuse. If a national scheme is established, these states will contribute millions of dollars to cover the shortfall from the institutions responsible for the harm. This support is welcome, and follows the recommendation of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that such a scheme is needed. Victims should not be left to pursue compensation through the courts. In many cases, time limits will have expired, and abuse will be impossible to prove, because of the death or absence of witnesses. Court processes are also likely to increase the trauma suffered by victims. They were treated as outsiders and second-class citizens in their own lands. However, the terms of reference of the royal commission mean any compensation scheme will be limited. Many people hurt by other forms of state-sanctioned abuse will be left out in the cold. Indeed, the debate has exposed the reluctance of governments to provide redress to others deserving of compensation. One such group is the stolen generations of Aboriginal people. As prime minister Paul Keating acknowledged in his 1992 Redfern speech, "we took the children from their mothers". This often occurred due to laws and government policies that enabled the systematic removal of children. In 2008, prime minister Kevin Rudd issued a heartfelt and powerful national apology in which he said sorry for the "laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians". These were grand words, but as yet, these wrongs have not been righted. The victims of these practices have yet to receive redress. Like the royal commission, the Australian Human Rights Commission recognised that existing systems could not provide fair compensation. It recommended the Council of Australian Governments establish a joint national compensation fund. An Indigenous person removed from their family during childhood by compulsion, duress or undue influence, except where the removal was in the child's best interests, would be entitled to a minimum lump sum payment. Many years have passed and no national fund has been established. Only two states have created their own schemes: Tasmania in 2006, and South Australia two weeks ago. It is a national shame that more has not been done for the stolen generations in the nearly two decades since the report of the Australian Human Rights Commission. Our leaders have recognised the wrongs done, and apologised for it, but as a community, we have not compensated the victims for the harm done. The response to our removal of their children echoes the treatment of the first Australians from earlier times. In past eras, Aboriginal people have been denied the vote, prevented from marrying, told where they could live and had their wages confiscated. They were treated as outsiders and second-class citizens in their own lands. Sadly, such thinking persists today. It is a double standard that we can so readily recognise the need for compensation for some people, but not the Aboriginal people who have also suffered at the hands of institutions and government policies.
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