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Stolen generation compo 'not expensive'

16 April 2008 - Compensating the stolen generations would not cost the federal government "billions of US dollars" and was preferable to forcing Aboriginal people through the courts, a Senate committee has been told.

Tearful members of the stolen generations have appeared before the committee's Sydney hearings to detail the impact on Aboriginal children who were removed from their families under government policy.

The Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee is taking public submissions on a private member's bill drafted by Democrat Senator Andrew Bartlett.

The Stolen Generations Compensation Bill 2008 includes a model of paying affected Aboriginal people, or their descendants, ex gratia payments of $20,000, with an additional $3,000 for each year of institutionalisation.

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission director Darren Dick told the inquiry a government-led compensation system would help to reunite broken families, was affordable, and was better than leaving Aboriginal people to pursue compensation through the courts.

"You're not talking about billions of US dollars here, you're talking 0.001 per cent of GDP," Mr Dick said.

"The simple reality for many people is that the evidence doesn't exist, the people have died, the records are not held by governments and so they are unable to pursue the litigations."

The committee also heard that the Rudd government's apology in federal parliament had not exposed it to further legal liability.

Andrea Durbach, Associate Professor with the University of NSW Australian Human Rights Centre also said it would not "trigger a floodgate of litigation at all".

Cecil Bowden, 68, was Wednesday flanked by other elderly Aboriginal people who, as children, were targeted under the integration policies of former Australian governments.

"I was taken away as a baby - I was 18 months old - while my father was fighting during the Second World War," Mr Bowden said.

"I was six years of age when the war finished, I can remember him coming back to the home where we were put, hoping to take us.

"He finished two world wars fighting for freedom for his country but he couldn't have his kids."

Mr Bowden said his father had fought in World War I and then again in World War II but, unlike other returning Australian soldiers, he was not given a house and land grant.

"The Aboriginal soldiers were told to get back on the reserves," he said.

Marie Melito-Russell, 72, said she was removed from her mother without permission soon after her birth in Sydney's now closed Crown Street Women's Hospital.

"I was adopted to a non-indigenous family, my father abused me and another girl that was fostered by them, sexually and physically," she said.

"I found out a month ago when one of his relatives contacted me that the whole family knew and nobody did anything about it.

"We went through the most horrid cruelties ... and it is wrong, it is just wrong."

The Senate committee is due to report in June, with its finding expected to place pressure on the Rudd government, which has publicly ruled out monetary compensation for the stolen generations.

Source : AAP

Further information: stolen generations issues page - includes news index and external links