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Aborigines 'insulted' by lost wages compensation plan

Transcript

13 June 2002 - KERRY O'BRIEN: Developing Australia's frontiers was often a back-breaking task that helped forge our national identity.

Yet the thousands of indigenous workers who did their bit building the infrastructure and working the land were rarely paid the same as their white workmates.

In Queensland, to add insult to injury, for almost 80 years Aboriginal workers' wages and savings were controlled by the State
Government.

Unfortunately, that didn't mean their money was safe. It was a common story that their savings were sadly depleted by
the time they tried to collect them.

Faced with legal action, the Beattie Government has now offered compensation, capped at a maximum of $4000 per person, which many have branded an insult.

Scott Bevan reports from Brisbane.

SCOTT BEVAN: Through her painting, Gloria Beckett can take her imagination wherever she wants these days.

But 40 years ago, her life and work were much more constrained.

GLORIA BECKETT, ARTIST: I started work at 15 years old and I was sent to Mirraborough as a domestic worker.

This is my workers agreement that allows me go out to work.

SCOTT BEVAN: The Queensland Government dictated the employment and until 1972, controlled the wages and savings of
Aboriginal workers.

According to her papers, Gloria Beckett was to earn 3 pounds 10 shillings a week.

One pound 10 was for so-called pocket money, the rest was to be saved for her, but when Miss Beckett was about to be married and went to collect her savings from five years work, she was told she had the sum total of 3 pounds, 15 shillings in her account.

GLORIA BECKETT: That's all I had.

SCOTT BEVAN: After five years work?

GLORIA BECKETT: Yes.

I was amazed.

SCOTT BEVAN: Where was the rest?

GLORIA BECKETT: I don't know.

SCOTT BEVAN: For almost a century, thousands of Aboriginal workers left with little to show for their toil, have been seeking the
answer to that same question.

BILL CHAPMAN: I've asked that many times and I've asked government departments about it many times, but you don't get
any answers.

SCOTT BEVAN: Bill Chapman worked as a stockman.

He asserts he never got the money supposedly saved for him and he wonders what happens to the earnings of a generation before him as well.

BILL CHAPMAN: My father, his money.

My uncle's money, what happened to that these days?

SCOTT BEVAN: The current Queensland Government wants to offer not so much answers, but compensation and closure to the
issue.

Premier Peter Beattie has put on the table a $55.4 million deal with more than 16,000 indigenous Queenslanders to receive, as well as an apology, up to $4,000 each.

PETER BEATTIE, QLD PREMIER: So this offer is made in the spirit of reconciliation as a demonstration of our genuine desire to
heal the past so we can move on.

SCOTT BEVAN: ATSIC [Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission] Commissioner, Ray Robinson, who participated in
negotiations on behalf of claimants has praised the offer as fair and generous, but Gloria Beckett and Bill Chapman are insulted by it.

GLORIA BECKETT: It's lousy.

It's poor.

It's unjust and unfair.

BILL CHAPMAN: What they're offering stinks.

It's too little too late.

ALFRED LACEY, Aboriginal CO-ORDINATING COUNCIL: To say to Aboriginal people to settle on $4,000 and $2,000, I'm sorry,
we're not that cheap these days.

JUDY SPENCE, QLD MINISTER Aboriginal AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER POLICY: This is not going to be a compensation offer that will make up for all their perceived and real injustices.

This is trying to resolve one issue around wages and savings.

SCOTT BEVAN: But Dr Rosalind Kidd says it's not a good deal for the potential recipients.

The historian has researched and written about the administration of Queensland's Aboriginal communities until 1988.

She says on the issue of underpayment and non-payment alone, the $55 million figure is but a fraction of what is really owed.

DR ROSALIND KIDD, HISTORIAN: If we equate it just to say a minimum wage which was due, you're talking over a billion dollars.

SCOTT BEVAN: Then Dr Kidd says there's the question of what happened to the money that was paid into accounts controlled by
successive governments and how those funds were used on state projects.

DR ROSALIND KIDD: I found it hard when I was doing the research to believe what I was reading.

It was like something out of George Orwell where you take the money from the most impoverished sector of the population and
you commit it to expansion projects.

SCOTT BEVAN: This is the Redcliffe Hospital, just north of Brisbane.

Forty years ago the Queensland Government gave 10,000 pounds, which is about $1.7 million in today's mone, for construction work to take place.

That money was from Aboriginal earnings.

JUDY SPENCE: They did borrow from the fund to build the Redcliffe Hospital, but treasury repaid that money and with interest.

So when the Government or treasury borrowed from the fund, it was always repaid.

SCOTT BEVAN: Judy Spence asserts the Government was in effect operating a bank, but the Aboriginal Coordinating Council's Alfred Lacey argues that doesn't explain the inconsistency between how much was in the account and what so many workers claim they were owed.

ALFRED LACEY: People's personal savings.

If this happened in the middle-class white community all hell would break loose.

JUDY SPENCE: Their advice is that there was no maladministration of the accounts.

All the accounts were acquitted and people were paid back the amount of money that they had in their individual savings accounts.

SCOTT BEVAN: It's not just the past that concerns the deal's opponents.

It's also the near future with Premier Beattie setting a deadline of August 9 for the offer to be accepted.

PETER BEATTIE: If people slam the door in the face of the Government, then that is their decision.

This is a democracy.

People have the right to choose, but if they choose to go down the legal course, it will waste millions of dollars and many people will never see this money.

They will die before the matter is resolved in the courts.

ALFRED LACEY: It takes us back to the days of the early '50s, '60s and '70s.

They want to control us and ring the bell and tell us when to line up for ration and things like that.

SCOTT BEVAN: The Aboriginal Coordinating Council has recommended to the elders of the 15 communities it represents to refuse access to negotiating teams until the Government offers in Mr Lacey' words, 'a more just and fairer settlement'.

But Judy Spence believes many will gladly accept the offer.

JUDY SPENCE: I think the silent majority out there want to see the issue revolved and want compensation.

SCOTT BEVAN: Bill Chapman is adamant he won't be one of them.

BILL CHAPMAN: If you work for 20 years and you got $4,000, would you work for that?

SCOTT BEVAN: Wouldn't you prefer $4,000 to nothing?

BILL CHAPMAN: I'd sooner have nothing because I've got a clear conscience.

DR ROSALIND KIDD: This state has got rich on Aboriginal poverty.

There is absolutely no doubt about it.

JUDY SPENCE: This is for them, I guess, the last time probably a Queensland Government will attempt to negotiate rather than to see the matters go to court.

SCOTT BEVAN: To Gloria Beckett, money can't take away the pain of the past.

GLORIA BECKETT: Trained as slaves for wealthy people, abused and used and then not given back our rightfully earnt money that we earned.

I think we've been robbed.

Source:ABC TV: The 7:30 Report

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