Editors --- "Inquiry into Stolen Wages - Digest" [2007] AUIndigLawRw 21; (2007) 11(1) Australian Indigenous Law Review 129

• Inquiry into Stolen Wages

Inquiry into Stolen Wages

Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee

Completed 7 December 2006

This inquiry was made with regard to Indigenous workers whose paid labour was controlled by Government. Its terms of reference were to report on:

• the approximate number of Indigenous workers in each state and territory whose paid labour was controlled by government; what measures were taken to safeguard them from physical, sexual and employment abuses and in response to reported abuses;
• all financial arrangements regarding their wages, including amounts withheld under government control, access by workers to their savings and evidence provided to workers of transactions on their accounts; evidence of fraud or negligence on Indigenous monies and measures implemented to secure them; imposition of levies and taxes in addition to federal income tax;
• what trust funds were established from Indigenous earnings, entitlements and enterprise; government transactions on these funds and how were they secured from fraud, negligence or misappropriation;
• all controls, disbursement and security of federal benefits including maternity allowances, child endowment and pensions, and entitlements such as workers compensation and inheritances;
• previous investigations by states and territories into official management of Indigenous monies;
• current measures to disclose evidence of historical financial controls to affected Indigenous families; the extent of current databases and resources applied to make this information publicly available; whether all financial records should be controlled by a qualified neutral body to ensure security of the data and equity of access;
• commitments by state and territory governments to quantify wages, savings and entitlements missing or misappropriated under official management; the responsibility of governments to repay or compensate those who suffered physically or financially under ‘protection’ regimes;
• what mechanisms have been implemented in other jurisdictions with similar histories of Indigenous protection strategies to redress injustices suffered by wards; and
• whether there is a need to ‘set the record straight’ through a national forum to publicly air the complexity and the consequences of mandatory controls over Indigenous labour and finances during most of the 20th century.

The committee heard substantial accounts of Indigenous Australians who were denied wages by Queensland and NSW Governments. The committee also received substantial evidence that Aboriginal people in Western Australia were denied or underpaid wages and entitlements. While there was limited evidence available to the Committee in relation to the Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria, the Committee found that it was clear that protection regimes were in place in those states and territories.

The Committee made a number of extensive recommendations including; that governments provide Indigenous people unhindered access to archives relating to stolen wages; that governments fund extensive education programs for Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities on the issue of stolen wages; that state governments establish compensation schemes as a preferable alternative to extensive litigation; that state governments involve Indigenous people when establishing such mechanisms for compensation; and that state governments revise current terms for repatriation in line with the findings of the Inquiry.

The full text of this Inquiry is available at the Parliament of Australia’s Senate website: <http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate> . Both Thalia Anthony and Stephen Gray discuss a number of issues pertinent to the findings of this Inquiry in the commentary section of this volume of the AILRev.