[cure-news] Australia rejects Aborigine compensation claim

[Ida Hakim]

AFP
Australia rejects Aborigine compensation claim

by Lawrence Bartlett Mon Jan 7, 2:29 AM ET

SYDNEY (AFP) - The Australian government Monday
rejected Aboriginal demands for hundreds of millions
of dollars in compensation for the "stolen generation"
of indigenous children taken from their parents.
ADVERTISEMENT

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has pledged to apologise to
Aborigines for the widely-criticised policy, something
his predecessor John Howard refused to do during his
11 years in power before being ousted in November
elections.

But Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin Monday
ruled out backing the apology with the establishment
of a compensation fund of a billion dollars (870
million US), as demanded by some Aboriginal leaders.

"What we will be doing is putting the funding into
health and education services, and providing
additional support for services needed for
counselling, to enable people to find their
relatives," she told national radio.

"So we won't be creating a compensation fund."

Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre legal director Michael
Mansell had called on the government to establish a
billion dollar fund to give to some 13,000 Aborigines
taken from their parents as children over four decades
up to the 1970s.

The children were put into institutions or foster care
with white families as part of an attempt to force
assimilation, and some of them never saw their
families again.

"The prime minister is going to stand up in front of
the world and say that on behalf of the nation we are
genuinely sorry that this happened," Mansell said.

"If he then walks away and says but I'm not going to
compensate you, it would give a hollow ring to the
words he would be using."

Stolen Generations Victoria chairwoman Lyn Austin
backed the establishment of such a fund.

"People get paid crimes compensation for victims of
crime," she said. "You are looking at the gross
violation and the act of genocide and all the inhuman
things that have happened to our people."

Australia's original inhabitants were marginalised
after the first British settlers arrived in 1788 and
now number just 470,000 out of a population of 21
million.

They have much higher rates of infant mortality,
health problems and suicide than other Australians,
with many living in squalid camps where unemployment,
alcoholism and lawlessness are rife.

Austin said she believed stolen generation victims
should sue the government if it failed to set up a
compensation fund.

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner told reporters people
had the right to take legal action.

"It is up to people who are involved to make their own
choices about how they want to pursue a particular
issue," Tanner said.

In a landmark court case in August last year, an
Aborigine removed from his family as a baby in 1958
won 525,000 dollars (452,000 US dollars) compensation,
the first time such a case had succeeded.

The court heard that Bruce Trevorrow was taken to
hospital with stomach pains on Christmas Day in 1957,
when he was 13 months old. When he recovered he was
put into foster care without his parents knowing.

Despite letters sent by his mother, it was a decade
before he was reunited with her.

Former prime minister Howard's conservative Liberal
Party warned last month that an apology for the stolen
generation could lead to a flood of compensation
claims.

"One of the issues is going to be trying to find a
form of words that doesn't look like it's an admission
of legal liability," said the party's spokesman for
indigenous affairs, Tony Abbott.

The Australian Greens, however, said they were
disappointed the government moved so quickly to rule
out reparations.

"I would have expected it to be one of the issues on
the table as the Rudd government begins a new dialogue
with indigenous communities," Senator Rachel Siewert
said in a statement.
>From hakimida at reparationsthecure.org  Thu Jan 31 12:30:40 2008
From: hakimida at reparationsthecure.org (Ida Hakim)
Date: Thu Jan 31 12:30:44 2008
Subject: [cure-news] Australia apology to Aborigines
Message-ID: <47A213D0.4070106 at reparationsthecure.org>

Australia apology to Aborigines
BBC News
   
The Australian government has announced it will issue its first formal
apology to Aboriginal people when parliament resumes next month.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said the apology would be the
first item of business when the new legislature convened on 13 February.

It is aimed at the "Stolen Generations" - Aboriginal children taken from
their parents to be raised by white families.

It was the "first, necessary step to move forward from the past", she said.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced plans to apologise after his victory
in last year's general elections.

The move is a highly symbolic one marking a definitive break from
policies of previous administrations, correspondents say.

Ms Macklin said that the content of the apology had been determined
after wide consultation with Aboriginal leaders.

It would be made "on behalf of the Australian government and does not
attribute guilt to the current generation of Australian people", she
said in a statement.

"Once we establish this respect, the government can work with indigenous
communities to improve services aimed at closing the 17-year life
expectancy gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians," she said.

Thousands of Aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their parents
and given to white families or institutions to raise between 1915 and 1969.

The policy was aimed at forcing assimilation between Aboriginal and
white communities.

Indigenous campaigners have been seeking a billion-dollar nationwide
compensation package for the policy.

But the government has ruled this out, instead promising to fund
improved education and health care facilities for Aboriginal communities.