2008/10: Should the federal government pay compensation to the Stolen Generations?<BR>

2007-2008 Echo Issue Outline ... to return to the page you "clicked" from, simply close this window

Dictionary: Double-click on any word in the text to bring up a dictionary definition of that word in a new window (IE only).

Analysing the language of the news media: Click here to read a useful document on media language analysis

Age, Herald-Sun and Australian items: Click this icon ...

... to search the Echo newspaper index and enter the following word(s), with just a space in between them.
aboriginal
stolen

Sydney Morning Herald index: Click here to use the State Library of NSW's online index to the Sydney Morning Herald

Search for listed newspaper items online - see end of this page

2008/10: Should the federal government pay compensation to the Stolen Generations?<BR>

2008/10: Should the federal government pay compensation to the Stolen Generations?

What they said ...
'An apology without any attempt at atonement is a meanly given thing. Damaged lives and destroyed families ... can draw little solace from an apology alone'
Andrew Lynch, the director of the Terrorism and the Law project at the Gilbert and Tobin Centre of Public Law, University of New South Wales

'The most important thing is the sorry. The most important thing is the national emotional response. I don't believe that these separations or that sadness will ever be settled in a monetary sense'
Paul Keating, former Australian Prime Minister

The issue at a glance
On February 13, 2008, the day after the first sitting of the new parliament, the new federal Government lead by Kevin Rudd, issued a formal apology to the estimated 13,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly removed from their parents as part of a policy of assimilation followed by successive governments up to the 1970s.
The federal Government, however, specifically stated it did not intend to establish a national compensation plan to go with the apology. Instead the Government has pledged to develop practical policies to improve Aboriginal wellbeing in the areas of health, housing and education. These policies will, it is claimed, place a special focus on children.
However, there remain those who believe that this is insufficient and that an apology loses value if it is not accompanied by a compensation scheme for those affected by being removed from their families.

Background
Compensation to the Stolen Generations
On 5 April 1997, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission delivered the report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families.
The report was titled, The Bringing Them Home Report.
One of the Report's 54 recommendations concerned the need to make 'reparations' including 'monetary compensation' to those forcibly removed from their families.
The report recommended the establishment of a national compensation fund for people affected by the forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
The aim of the fund would be to offer reparation to those affected and avoid the courts having to deal with costly individual litigation.

The Howard Government's response to the Bringing Them Home Report
On 16 December 1997, Senator Herron, the then Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, released the Commonwealth Government's response to the Report, indicating it would deliver '$63 million in practical assistance over the next four years' in designated areas.
Among its initiatives, the Commonwealth promised improved access to archives, family support and link-up programmes and to provide counsellors in an expanded range of regional centres.
However, regarding the payment of monetary compensation, the then government asserted that 'there is no practical or appropriate way to address this recommendation.'

The Howard Government's refusal to offer a full, formal apology
The Howard Government also refused to give a full, formal apology to the Stolen Generations. One of the reasons given for this was concern that such an apology would leave the Commonwealth Government liable to compensation claims from those affected by forcible removal policies.
The states, however, adopted a different view and between 1997 and 2001 each of the Australian states and territories formally apologised.

The states and compensation
Western Australia has indicated it will set up a fund for those abused in state care, including stolen generations members. Victoria currently does not have such a fund and appears unlikely to change its position. Queensland and New South Wales have rejected the idea.
Tasmania has set aside $5 million for surviving stolen generations members and the children of those who have died. It is the only state to have done so. Tasmania has capped payments at $53,333 each for its small number of claimants, with the possibility of larger payments for those who can establish exceptional injury.
South Australia may examine a wider scheme following the South Australian Supreme Court's decision to award Mr Bruce Trevorrow $525,000 compensation in Australia's first successful stolen generation court claim.
In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court found that Bruce Trevorrow was treated unlawfully and falsely imprisoned when he was removed from his mother's care and handed over to a white family in 1957.
However, on February 28, 2008, the South Australian Government announced that it would challenge the legal precedent created by the nation's first compensation payout to a Stolen Generations member.
The state will seek to overturn the central elements of the historic judgment that compensated Mr Bruce Trevorrow for being illegally taken from his parents 51 years ago. The move has the potential to delay for years a statutory compensation fund for Stolen Generations victims pledged immediately after the Trevorrow decision in August, 2007.

Internet information
The ABC has a comprehensive section of its Internet site given over to treating the federal Government's apology to the Stolen Generations. The site includes texts of opinion pieces and broadcasts of interviews with many of the stakeholders, including representatives of the Stolen Generations.
This index can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/apology/

On February 13, 2008, The Los Angeles Times published a news report outlining the Rudd Government's proposed apology. The article gives background information on the treatment of the supposed Stolen Generations and also looks at claims for reparation.
It can be read at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-australia13feb13,1,5658259.story?track=rss&ctrack=2&cset=true

The full text of Kevin Rudd's speech of apology can be found at http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/kevin-rudds-sorry-speech/2008/02/13/1202760379056.html

Many callers to talkback radio programs and those posting comments on Internet sites appear to have objected to elements of Kevin Rudd's apology. An article giving and overview of their criticisms was published in the Sydney Morning Herald on February 14, 2008.
The full text of this article can be found at http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/radio-callers-outraged-im-disgusted-says-one/2008/02/13/1202760398974.html

On January 22, 2008, during Radio National's PM program there was a discussion of the compensation fund the Tasmanian Government has established to recompense members of the Stolen Generation.
The full text of this program can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2007/s2144194.htm

On Febraury 2, 2008, during Radio National's AM program Kevin Rudd explained his Government's opposition to a national compensation fund. The Prime Minister's views were criticised by an number of others of those interviewed, including former Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser.
The full text of this program can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2008/s2152790.htm

A podcast of Aboriginal activist, Michael Mansell's views on the need for compensation for the Stolen Generations can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2008/2159228.htm
He interview was given to Fran Kelly during her Breakfast program broadcast on Radion National on February 11, 2008.

Andrew Bartlett of the Australian Democrats is promoting a Stolen Generations Compensation Bill 2008. His arguments in support of this Bill can be found on his Internet site at http://andrewbartlett.com/hansard.php?id=389

Hugh Macken, president of the Law Society of New South Wales, has argued that the federal Government's apology will not lead to a flood of compensation claims. This position can be found outlined in an article published in the Lawyers Weekly Online. It can be read at http://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/articles/Apology-won-8217-t-open-legal-floodgates-Macken_z144499.htm

The radical Socialist alliance has published an opinion piece criticising any apology to the Stolen Generations without compensation. The full text of the opinion piece can be found at http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=286

Similarly Green Left Online has published an opinion piece arguing that an apology without compensation has little value. The full text of this article can be found at http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/739/38263

Arguments in favour of the federal government paying compensation to the stolen generations
1. The federal apology without compensation is an empty gesture
There are those who have claimed that to make an apology to the Stolen Generations without offering them financial compensation for the wrongs they have suffered makes the apology a hollow gesture.
This point has been put by historian Keith Windschuttle, who has argued, 'There is no doubt that the majority of Aboriginal people today believe the Stolen Generations story is true. If parliament agrees with them, but fails to offer compensation, it will reduce next week's apology to a politically expedient piece of insincerity that yet again humiliates Aborigines by showing we do not take their most deeply-felt grievances seriously.'
A similar point has been made by Noel Pearson, the director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership. Pearson has stated, 'If this issue [of reconciliation with Aboriginal Australia] is of such importance to the majority of Australians, then surely an appropriate fraction of the $30 billion tax cuts could be committed to compensation.
It is not possible to say there are no legal grounds for compensation, because the Trevorrow case established that the wrongs done against Stolen Generations member Bruce Trevorrow gave rise to a legal entitlement to compensation. It may be argued that the liability falls on the states rather than the commonwealth, but if the commonwealth is tomorrow assuming moral responsibility on behalf of the country [via the federal apology], why not assume the responsibility for redress?'
Andrew Lynch, the director of the Terrorism and the Law project at the Gilbert and Tobin Centre of Public Law, University of New South Wales, has stated, 'An apology without any attempt at atonement is a meanly given thing.
Damaged lives and destroyed families denied even the prospect of a remedy, however belated, can draw little solace from an apology alone. The minister's argument that instead of compensation it would be "far more productive to really put that money into addressing the very serious levels of disadvantage that still exist in indigenous communities" ignores that this is already an obligation upon the Government.
Closing the gap between Indigenous peoples and the rest of us is obviously vital - but let's not pretend that the provision of decent services, opportunities and the right to be protected from violence and abuse squares off any obligation the nation has to those individuals who were previously taken away from their families and cut off from their culture purely on the basis of their race.'

2. The federal apology lays the groundwork for compensation
There are those who claim the logic of the federal Government's formal apology to the Stolen Generations now demands an apology. That is, once a grievance of these dimensions has been acknowledged some financial recompense must be offered to those who have suffered.
In February, 2008, historian Keith Windschuttle, claimed, 'If the Rudd Government apologises to the Stolen Generations it should not stop at mere words. It should pay a substantial sum in compensation.
This was the central recommendation of the Human Rights Commission's Bringing Them Home report in 1997.
The charge that justified this, the report said, was genocide. This allegedly took place from the 1910s until the late '60s right across Australia. In some parts of the commonwealth it was still going on in the '80s.
None of the politicians who plan to apologise next Wednesday can avoid the term genocide. It is embedded in the very meaning of the phrase "Stolen Generations".
Bringing Them Home found indigenous children were forcibly removed from their homes so they could be raised separately from and ignorant of their culture and people. The ultimate purpose, it claimed, was to end the existence of the Aborigines as a distinct people.
Bringing Them Home claimed "not one indigenous family has escaped the effects of forcible removal". Hence it recommended that virtually every person in Australia who claimed to be an Aborigine was entitled to a substantial cash handout.'

3. The Stolen Generations suffered serious harm
The Bringing Them Home report notes that from 1910 until the 1970s, about 100,000 children were taken from their parents under state and federal laws based on the premise that Aborigines were dying out and that resettling the children was desirable.
It has been hotly debated whether the intent of such policies and practices was to benefit the children or simply hasten the disappearance of their race. Either way, it is demonstrable that the effect of these policies was to seriously harm many thousands of Aboriginal children and their families.
The 1997 Bringing Them Home report found that the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and communities has had life-long and profoundly disabling consequences for those taken and has negatively affected the Indigenous community.
For many of the children, removal meant that they lost all connection to family, traditional land, culture and language. One of those children removed from his family whose adult evidence was cited in the Bringing Them Home Report stated, 'It never goes away. Just 'cause we're not walking around on crutches or with bandages or plasters on our legs and arms, doesn't mean we're not hurting. Just 'cause you can't see it doesn't mean ... I suspect I'll carry these sorts of wounds 'til I the day I die. I'd just like it to be not quite as intense, that's all.'
As Kevin Rudd noted in his apology, this policy of removal is not something from the distant past. Children were being inappropriately removed from their families by Australian authorities until the 1970s. Many people affected by the tragedy of the stolen generations are still alive today and living with its effects.
Michael Mansell, the Legal Director of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, has stated, 'To allow us all to move beyond dealing with the Stolen Generations ... we have to deal with the consequences that the victims had to suffer and I think the only way to do that is to pay compensation.'

4. Other injured groups or individuals are given compensation
It has been noted that other members of the community such as victims of crime or asbestos victims who have been harmed are eligible to draw on a compensation fund. Members of the Stolen Generations should have the same option open to them.
Stolen Generations Victoria believes a federal compensation fund is needed. The Chair of Stolen Generations Victoria, Lyn Austin, has called on victims to consider suing the government if it failed to establish a compensation fund.
'You are looking at the gross violation and the act of genocide and all the inhumane things that have happened to our people,' Ms Austin said. 'We are actually thinking that ourselves, myself and another five siblings that were adopted into a family, are considering a class action.'
Ms Austin went on to say, 'I do believe the stolen generations people should be compensated and it's the people's choice if they want to do a class action or an individual case ... there should be a compensation fund set up ...
People get compensation as victims of crimes, prisoners get compensation for some unjust treatment in the prison system or I could walk out in the street and fall over and I could sue the council for injuries ... why not the stolen generations for the past injustices that were done?'

5. Tasmania has established a compensation scheme for the Stolen Generations
Those who support the establishment of a national compensation fund for members of the Stolen Generations note that such a fund has already been established by the Tasmanian Government.
During the 2006 State Election campaign, the Premier Paul Lennon committed a re-elected Labor Government to working with the Tasmanian Aboriginal community to address the painful legacy of the Stolen Generations.
In November 2006, both Houses of Tasmania's Parliament unanimously passed into law the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal Children Act 2006.
Tasmania is the first jurisdiction in Australia to commit to providing monetary compensation to members of the Stolen Generations.
Under the provisions of the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal Children Act, a $5 million fund was established from which ex-gratia payments could be made to Aborigines who were forcibly removed from their families as children.
Applications under the Act closed on 15 July 2007. A total of 151 applications were received, including 32 from interstate and one from overseas.
Former Premier, the Hon Ray Groom, was appointed as the Stolen Generations Assessor in December 2007 to review applications. The Assessor found 84 people who were removed from their families as children eligible for payments. A further 22 applications were approved for children of Stolen Generations victims.
Of the $5 million in the fund made available by the State Government, $100,000 was allocated to children of members of the Stolen Generations. The remainder of the pool is being split equally among the successful applicants.
The Tasmanian premier, Paul Lennon is keen for the federal Government to establish a scheme similar to Tasmania's. Mr Lennon has stated, 'Ultimately, it's a matter for Kevin [Rudd] to decide what the national response should be, but I hope that he looks at Tasmania, and sees what we've been able to achieve here.'

6. The cost of such a compensation scheme would not be prohibitive
It has been indicated that a properly administered compensation fund would not be prohibitively expensive.
Michael Mansell, the Legal Director of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, has stated that a billion dollars should be sufficient to fund such a compensation scheme.
In August 2001, at the 'Moving forward: achieving reparations for the stolen generations conference in Sydney', former South African Truth and Reconciliation commissioner, Mr Dumisa Ntsebeza, warned that the stolen generations issue will be 'like toxic waste' to the Government unless it changes its policies and allowed compensation. Mr Philip Ruddock, the then Federal Minister for Immigration and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, told the conference that a reparations tribunal was neither practical nor feasible and that it would cost $3.9 billion.
However at the last election the federal Government committed to $30 billion in tax cuts, while by January 2005 the Howard Government had pledged $1 billion in foreign aid toward tsunami relief. In this context, it has been argued, the sum of one billion dollars or even $3.9 billion appears affordable.
The scheme could have similar safeguards to that which operates within Tasmania. Payments per applicant could be capped at a particular level and there could be a timeframe set within which applications for compensation would have to be made.
Mr Dodson, the former chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, said anyone treated badly under the law deserved to pursue recompense.
Mr Dodson has claimed, 'There is an exaggerated anxiety that there will be an avalanche of demands for monetary compensation.
Even if the courts said there was a case for compensation would the scale cripple our economic future?
Any group of people who have been treated badly under laws made legitimately by the crown deserve to pursue compensation judicially, legally or politically and they deserve our support...
But let us do it in a considered and negotiated manner as part of a careful constructed process aimed at building an Australian nation that recognises and respects Aboriginal history, culture, language and society.'
It has further been noted that such a negotiated compensation fund is likely to prove less expensive than defending large numbers of individual suits brought by individual members of the Stolen Generations.
By the end of 2000 it had cost the federal Government some $12 million to successfully fight the Cubillo-Gunner stolen generations test case. Maurie Ryan-Japarte, of the Stolen Generations Corporation stressed this and then went to note that there were still some 650 litigants to go. Supporters of a compensation fund claim that it would be cheaper to establish and run than successfully contesting claimants' suits in court.

Arguments against the federal government paying compensation to the stolen generations
1. The federal apology has symbolic value without compensation being paid
It has been claimed that the apology is significant in its own right, without having to serve as a precursor to financial compensation.
Tom Calma, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, has stated, 'What many people have failed to understand over the past decade has been the emotional harm that has been caused by the refusal to say sorry. On the face of it - a simple act - described in denigrating terms by some as a merely "symbolic" action relating to events in our distant past.
For many of the stolen generations, it is so much more than this. The refusal to apologise has amounted to a denial of the life experiences of many of the stolen generations.
This has been reflected in vicious debates about whether children were stolen or saved; in debates about whether an 'X' on a page amounts to "consent" to removal and therefore invalidates a person's claim to be forcibly removed.'
Paul Keating, who as prime minister commissioned the Bringing Them Home report in 1995, has said that words were more important than money. Mr Keating stated, 'The most important thing is the sorry. The most important thing is the national emotional response. I don't believe that these separations or that sadness will ever be settled in a monetary sense.'
Michael Mansell, the Legal Director of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, has stressed that although he wants compensation for victims of the Stolen Generations, the apology in its own right is significant. Mr Mansell has stated, 'To allow us all to move beyond dealing with the Stolen Generations ...[these people] need someone at the highest level to officially explain why it was they were taken ... what did I do that allowed officials to remove me from my family and my community and destroy my life forever...
The importance of the apology ... [is that] as long the Prime Minister gives a true and honest account of why these children were taken that will provide some form of closure for those children.'
Numerous less prominent Aboriginal Australians reacted positively to Kevin Rudd's national apology. Torres Straits Islander, Lydia George, from Erub Island, said, 'The first speech was very symbolic ... I was thinking of my granddaughter and her future is now, not tomorrow. She'll face a new future that will be bright. The healing process has begun.'
Another Aboriginal Australian, Ray Finn, from Oodnadatta, South Australia also said, 'My family had been affected directly and I felt like the chain had finally broke from us. There's still racism to deal with but hopefully from this day we'll go forward together.'

2. The federal apology involves no legal obligation for compensation
A number of legal authorities have stated that the federal apology to the Stolen Generations implies no legal obligation to offer them financial compensation.
Hugh Macken, the president of the Law Society of New South Wales, has stated, 'There has been a lot of conjecture. I'd like to set the record straight concerning, in particular, the issue of compensation. Simply put, the facts speak for themselves. A formal apology to the Stolen Generations today will not open the floodgates to compensation...
Irrespective of this apology, indigenous Australians have always had a right to make compensation claims, just like any other Australian, for past wrongs. The success of each case is determined by evidence, not by an acknowledgement or an apology by the Commonwealth Parliament. The legal landscape has not changed one dot as a result of the most welcome apology made by the Commonwealth.
I think the issue of compensation needs to be addressed separately. So far only a few [indigenous Australians] have made claims. Irrespective of our view of the impact of this, for whatever reason, the victims of the stolen generation have not in the past brought their own claims for compensation and that's probably unlikely to change greatly in the future.'
Mr Macken indicated there had been less than a handful of claims brought since the states apologised more than a decade ago.

3. Those who believe themselves damaged by child resettlement already have legal avenues available to them
It has been repeatedly stated that a federal compensation fund for members of the Stolen Generations is not necessary as those who believed they have been harmed can take action against the state or territory governments through the courts.
As recently as January 29, 2008, the Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, stated, 'Since the Stolen Generation report came out years and years ago, it has been open for any individual, Aboriginal person affected by that to engage their own legal actions through the courts of their State or Territory. That's fine.'
Some individuals, such as Bruce Trevorrow from South Australia, who was the first to win such a case in August 2007, have managed to prosecute state governments for compensation.
Mr Neville Austin is about to launch Victoria's first stolen generations claim. This is also the first claim to have been foreshadowed since the federal Government's formal apology. It has been suggested the suit could trigger legal action by indigenous people around Australia.

Mr Austin has said he was taken from his mother in 1964, when he was just five months old, after he was admitted to the Royal Children's Hospital with a chest infection. He lived in foster homes and orphanages, where he was ostracised for the colour of his skin, the newspaper said.
Mr Austin's solicitors have briefed barrister Jack Rush, QC, who was part of the legal team that won a $4 billion payout from James Hardie Industries for former workers exposed to lethal doses of asbestos.

4. Many of the Stolen Generations were offered opportunities and often saved from neglect or abuse
It has been argued that a number of the fundamental claims made about the supposed Stolen Generations are inaccurate. According to this argument, many of those taken from their Aboriginal families were removed in order to protect them from neglect and abuse, while the largest category of those removed were actually taken into apprenticeships. These claims have been made by historian Keith Windschuttle who has challenged the work of historian Peter Read, upon whose research, Windschuttle claims, the Bringing Them Home report is primarily based.
Windschuttle has noted, 'I ... found that, although popular songs and the Bringing Them Home report gave the distinct impression that most children were removed when they were babies or toddlers, there were hardly any in this category. The archive files on which Read relied show that between 1907 and 1932, the NSW authorities removed only seven babies aged less than 12 months, and another 18 aged less than two years. Fewer than one-third of the children removed in this period were aged less than 12 years. Almost all were welfare cases, orphans, neglected children (some severely malnourished), and children who were abandoned, deserted and homeless.
The other two-thirds were teenagers, 13 to 17 years old. The reason they were removed was to send them off to be employed as apprentices. In reality, the NSW Labor governments were not stealing children but offering youths the opportunity to get on-the-job training, just like their white peers in the same age groups.
Read knew these Aboriginal youths were being apprenticed, though he never admitted they constituted the great majority of those removed. He claimed the authorities regarded them as stupid and consigned them to degrading jobs: the boys to agricultural work and the girls to domestic service. But at the time, this is where most white Australians were also employed. These were the two biggest single employment categories for men and women. The government was not asking Aborigines to take occupations any more onerous or demeaning than those of hundreds of thousands of their white countrymen.
Moreover, these teenagers were not removed permanently, as the charge of genocide infers. The majority of them returned home to their families when they turned 18 and their apprenticeship was complete. The archival records show this clearly, and Read found the same when in the '80s he recorded a little-publicised oral history of the Wiradjuri people.'
According to findings such as Windschuttle's the policy of resettlement of Aboriginal young people was often not forced and generally done for the apparent benefit of those concerned. Those who believe as Keith Windschuttle does would claim that such policies are not grounds for compensation.

5. Aboriginal welfare can be advanced more effectively through means other than paying compensation
The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and other key members of the Labor Government, have stated that aboriginal welfare can be advanced more effectively through directing government money toward improvements in Aboriginal health and education. It has been claimed that this is likely to benefit Aboriginal people more than paying compensation to victims of the Stolen Generation.
The Indigenous Affairs Minister, Jenny Macklin, has stated that the Government thought it was better to use federal funds to tackle indigenous disadvantage than set up a compensation scheme. Macklin has claimed, 'We have to decide where we will put the necessary federal government money and we think the best place to be is in addressing the terrible levels of disadvantage in housing, in health, in education.'
Similarly, the Prime Minister has indicated that the apology is not intended to act as a justification for compensation. However, in his apology speech, Mr Rudd pledged the following, 'within a decade to halve the widening gap in literacy, numeracy and employment outcomes and opportunities for indigenous Australians, within a decade to halve the appalling gap in infant mortality rates between indigenous and non-indigenous children and, within a generation, to close the equally appalling 17-year life gap between indigenous and non-indigenous in overall life expectancy ...'
The Prime Minister gave detailed indications in his speech of how his government would assist Aboriginal Australians. He stated, 'Let us resolve over the next five years to have every indigenous four-year-old in a remote Aboriginal community enrolled in and attending a proper early childhood education centre ... engaged in proper pre-literacy and pre-numeracy programs.
Let us resolve to build new educational opportunities for these little ones, year by year, step by step, following the completion of their crucial pre-school year.
Let us resolve to use this systematic approach to build future educational opportunities for indigenous children to provide proper primary and preventive health care for the same children, to begin the task of rolling back the obscenity that we find today in infant mortality rates in remote indigenous communities up to four times higher than in other communities.'

6. The cost of compensation would be prohibitive
It has been claimed that the fact of the federal apology to the Stolen Generations is likely to prompt a rash of claims and that the cost of meeting such claims is likely to be more than the federal government could meet.
As an example of the possible number of claims to be met, up to 40 indigenous Australians are preparing compensation claims against the Victorian Government following the federal government's official apology.
A Victorian man, Neville Austin, 44, is planning to launch Victoria's first stolen generation claim. His solicitors have briefed barrister Jack Rush QC, who was part of the legal team that won a $4 billion payout from James Hardie Industries for former workers exposed to lethal doses of asbestos.
In 2000 Maurie Ryan-Japarte, of the Stolen Generations Corporation estimated there were then some 650 litigants prepared to sue the federal Government for wrongs suffered as part of the Stolen Generations.
An even larger potential group of claimants has been suggested by historian Keith Windschuttle
Windschuttle has noted, 'Bringing Them Home claimed not one indigenous family has escaped the effects of forcible removal". Hence it recommended that virtually every person in Australia who claimed to be an Aborigine was entitled to a substantial cash handout. The Bruce Trevorrow case in South Australia provided a benchmark for what that sum should be a minimum of $500,000.
The Aboriginal population today numbers almost 500,000, living in about 100,000 families. Those who are serious about an apology should back it with a lump sum payment of $500,000 to each family, a total of $50 billion. Only an amount on this scale can legitimately compensate for such a crime and satisfy the grievances of activists such as Lowitja O'Donohue and Michael Mansell.'

Further implications
The Law Commission of Canada specifies the following as necessary elements of a meaningful apology:
acknowledgement of the wrong done;
accepting responsibility for the wrong that was done;
the expression of sincere regret or remorse;
assurance that the wrong will not recur; and,
reparation through concrete measures.
According to this set of criteria the Rudd Government's apology was appropriate on all levels except the final 'reparation through concrete measures'. The Rudd Government appears to see its pledge to enact a series of positive measures to redress Aboriginal disadvantage as a substitute for specific reparation for surviving members of the Stolen Generation and their children.
The difficulty with such a stance is that supplying vital services to all Aboriginal people is not a replacement for whatever compensation members of the Stolen Generations might be entitled to as a result of their removal from their families.
It is arguable that the Government has a responsibility to assist any section of the Australian community to achieve decent standards of education, health and housing. The obligation that relevant governments have to compensate members of the Stolen Generations grows specifically out of the mistreatment they have received. In the same way that compensation is offered to those who are injured at work or who are victims of crime.
No one would argue that the fact that other Australians have access to appropriate housing, schools and health services means they are ineligible for any form of compensation.
With regard to whether a compensation fund should be set up it has been noted that in the interests of equity this may be appropriate. Many Aboriginal people are likely to be intimidated by the legal system and so would be reluctant to sue the relevant state or territory government to establish their right to compensation. They may also fear that should they lose their case they would have to meet their legal costs.
A tribunal system with a compensation fund would greatly facilitate the largest number of eligible people being able to access compensation.
A number of Aboriginal spokespeople, including Michael Mansell and Pat Dodson, appear to believe that, despite its statement that it will not establish a compensation fund, the Rudd Government will ultimately make direct financial reparations to those harmed. It remains to be seen whether this confidence will prove to be misplaced.

Newspaper items used in the compilation of this outline
AGE, February 9, page 3, news item (ref to Professor Peter Read) by Tony Wright, `Compensation must follow apology: historian'
AGE, February 9, page 3, analysis by Andrew West, `A man with good intentions looks back in anger at stolen generations'.
H/SUN, February 8, page 34, comment by Andrew Bolt, `Truth is what was stolen'.
AGE, February 8, page 13, comment by Edward Alfred Lovett, `An apology will not wash away the suffering'.
AUST, February 9, page 2, news item by Imre Salusinszky, `"Genocide" claim denied'.
AUST, February 9, page 21, comment, `Don't let facts spoil the day'.
AUST, February 9, page 2, news item by Maiden and Jackson, `Mr Howard regrets he's unable to attend sorry day'.
AUST, February 12, page 11, comment by Noel Pearson, `When words aren't enough'.
AUST, February 12, page 1, news item by Matthew Franklin, `Rudd gags legal advice on apology'.
AGE, February 12, page 11, comment (ref to other countries' indigenous peoples) by Mark Baker, `Saying sorry is not enough without rectifying the wrongs'.
AGE, February 13, page 21, comment by Mick Dodson, `Hands across the nation'.
AUST, February 13, page 4, comment by Chris Merritt, `PM's words will not expose the Commonwealth to liability'.
H/SUN, February 13, page 18, editorial, `Saying "sorry" is just a start'.
H/SUN, February 13, page 18, comment by Andrew Bolt, `Baby "stolen" from under PM's nose'.

Using google to find newspaper items still available on the Web
Use your mouse to copy a newspaper headline (just the headline, not the entire entry as it appears in the sources) and paste it into the google search box below. Click search to see if the item is still accessible.