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The State Government has offered a settlement totalling $55million but this is only a fraction of the stolen wages.

ANTaR is currently running a "Stolen Wages" Campaign in support of Indigenous Queensland workers who have not received wages for which they are entitled - which ENIAR is supporting.

Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.

• Doors open for closure on stolen wages
  18 June 2004 - Stolen Wages Campaign Working Group - Members of the Stolen Wages Working Group who met with Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Policy Minister Liddy Clark yesterday are feeling positive about a renewed commitment to finding closure for people affected by the stolen wages issue.
• Qld Govt in 'stolen wages' talks
  18 June 2004 - A Queensland "stolen wages" advocacy group has met state Indigenous Affairs Minister Liddy Clark. Last weekend, state Labor Party members unanimously passed a resolution to reconsider compensation for wages stolen from Indigenous workers.
• Aboriginal wage claims need evidence
  June 15 2004 - Aborigines seeking to claim back wages and payments stolen or lost by the NSW government could miss out if they don't have documentary evidence. This is despite the government having lost or destroyed their records.
• NSW Govt Must Make All Stolen Wages Records Available
  6 May, 2004 - Senator Aden Ridgeway - The Australian Democrats have welcomed the beginning of the process to bring justice to NSW Aboriginal people over stolen wages and welfare benefits, but say the Government must make all of its records fully available to any potential claimants.
• NSW stolen wages response 'outstrips' Queensland
  5 May 2004 - Stolen Wages Campaign Working Group Executive - The offer by NSW Premier Bob Carr to set up a process for paying back stolen wages, savings and money owed to Aboriginal people across that state far outstrips the equivalent process in Queensland say executive members of the Stolen Wages Working Group.
• Press conference excerpt on Aboriginal trust funds
  5 May 2004 - Premier Bob Carr, Minister for Community Services, Carmel Tebbutt and Terri Janke - Money was stolen from Aboriginal people. We're seeking a criteria to have it returned to them with interest, without the loss of their right to sue, and without being capped. I think it's a fair outcome.
• Aborigines seek lost wages worth $350m
  May 5 2004 - Aboriginal leaders are preparing to launch a class action against the NSW government to recoup what they believe could be as much as $350 million in stolen wages. The move follows the government's declaration that potential claimants will have to provide evidence the money is owed to them, despite a secret ministerial report saying they shouldn't have to.
  • Who, how and how much - panel to assess return of Aborigines' stolen wages
• Stolen Wages in NSW
  April 17, 2004 - Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation - For decades the NSW Government literally stole the money of Aboriginal people who it said were under its care and protection. The sums run to millions of dollars. Nothing yet has been done to fix this scandal. Bob Carr recently said he will find a solution.
• Aborigines fight for their money back / In pictures: Victims and campaigners
  7 April, 2004 - BBC News - Over the past 15 years, Australian Aborigines have fought to receive official title to their ancestral lands and for governments to acknowledge the sad history of the removal of their children. Now they have a new target in their sights: the state-sanctioned confiscation of the wages earned by tens of thousands of Aboriginal workers for much of the 20th century.
• Where are the stolen wages?
  March 1, 2004 - Something stopped the NSW Government from paying back money it took from the earnings of Aboriginal workers for 70 years. Debra Jopson exposes the mystery.
  • Aborigines treated like Nazi slaves, says report
• Qld and NSW governments promote theft from Indigenous communities
  March 1, 2004 - ATSIC - First it was our lands that governments stole with no intention of ever returning them, then our cultures and identities — now it’s our hard-earned wages. Reports today that the governments in Queensland and New South Wales have had long-standing and detailed knowledge of the wages withheld by welfare bodies show they regard theft from Indigenous people as being acceptable.
  • NSW Premier should act on the return of stolen wages without delay - ATSIC
• Busker set to battle Beattie
  February 26, 2004 - An indigenous rights campaigner and renowned inner-city busker today announced he would stand for Premier Peter Beattie's seat in the Queensland election.
  • Queensland Premier meets his match
  • Mall busker plays new tune
  • Queensland candidates stand for stolen wages
• Give back stolen wages!
  February 11, 2004 - Calls for a national levy from former governor-generals and prime ministers, headlines in two states’ Sunday papers, supportive candidates in the Queensland state election, renewed grassroots support in Townsville and a furore over missing, unpaid and underpaid wages in New South Wales have all given a boost to the “stolen wages” campaign in the last month.
• 'Stolen wage' case sparks court protest
  6 February, 2004 - Relatives of a leading Aboriginal boxer of the 1940s and 50s will find out next week if they can sue the State Government for $18 million in allegedly "stolen wages".
• Marjorie awaits her back pay, 62 years late
  5 February, 2004 - All Marjorie Woodrow ever got back from the NSW Government trust fund holding four years' worth of her wages was £5. "It was for the material for my wedding dress," said Mrs Woodrow, one of more than 11,000 former state wards who could be owed a total of up to $69 million by the Government.
• Aboriginal Australians owed millions
  4 February , 2004 - A leaked New South Wales Government report shows that Aboriginal people in the state are owed tens of millions of dollars. There are also fears that some of the money has been rorted by public servants and employers for many years. It's estimated that more than 11,000 indigenous Australians could be entitled to a share of the funds, amounting to as much as $70 million.
• Invasion Day rally demands `repay stolen wages'
  4 February, 2004 - The demand to repay the stolen wages of Aborigines who worked under successive Queensland governments from the 1890s to the 1970s was the central focus of this year’s Invasion Day rally, held at Emma Miller Place (Roma Street Forum) on January 26.

• Stolen Wages - a campaign for justice / Interview with Lanora Jackson
  2003 - National Tertiary Education Union (Queensland) - The National Tertiary Education Union (Queensland) is supporting a public campaign for justice for the generations of Aboriginal workers whose wages were stolen by the Queensland government. - Lanora Jackson tells of the injustice inflicted on generations of Aboriginal workers from the 1890s until the 1970s in Queensland. Her father Henry's story is just one of thousands.
• Tales from the working life of Des Donley
  November 5, 2003 - The following summarises the hard and eventful early years and working life of Melrose Desmond (Des) Donley who is now retired and lives at Summerland Point in NSW. Des has kindly made his written recollections available to the Guardian and has been interviewed by on several occasions.
• Stolen Wages Postcards Launched From Cairns
  30 September 2003 - Aboriginal Coordinating Council - Thousands of stolen wages postcards will be distributed between the communities most affected by the issue following a launch of the public awareness campaign from the Aboriginal Coordinating Council meeting in Cairns this morning.
• Queensland government rejects 1 in 4 stolen wages claims
  September 3, 2003 - One in four Aborigines who applied for compensation under Queensland's "stolen wages" scheme has been knocked back by the state Government. The high rejection rate for the $55 million reparations scheme has concerned Aboriginal lawyers, who want the rules relaxed.
• Stolen Wages an industrial issue
  13 August, 2003 - On August 8, 300 protesters defied rain to hear Aboriginal leaders and union representatives launch the stolen wages postcard campaign. Chair of the rally, 4AAA Aboriginal community radio manager Tiger Bayles set the scene by stating, "Stolen wages in an industrial issue not a welfare issue".
• Stolen Wages Update
  June 2003 - Produced for the (Queensland) Aboriginal Coordinating Council.
• Be fair on wages - Ridgeway
  18 June 2003 - The Australian Democrats have called on the NSW Government to reach a just solution - not a politically expedient - solution when considering its compensation package, for the stolen wages of NSW Aboriginal people.
• Former stockman 'saddles up' for lousy offer
  2 June 2003 - In his 64th year with a heart condition, asthma and diabetes, former Gulf Country cattleman and ranger Fred Edwards has to 'saddle up the horse again' in 2003 if he hopes to keep his car on the road to enjoy during his retirement. He figured he had some money owing to him, in fact he's been waiting for this money for quite some time and living on its promise since he placed a claim for it in the late 1990s. But things just haven¹t quite turned out as he'd hoped.
• Democrats: "Beattie still treating Aboriginal workers like charity cases"
  1 June 2003 - The Beattie Government is repeating the paternalistic mistakes of past generations in not offering full reparation to the thousands of Queensland Aboriginal workers whose wages were stolen by successive Labor and Country-Liberal Queensland Governments, according to the Australian Democrats.
• Stolen Wages National Situation Round-up
  May 2003 - Strong anecdotal evidence exists that wages and savings were controlled and are now missing. Stolen Wages Update ANTaR Qld Newsletter March 2003 - Our struggle is now being fought on several fronts as well as nationally.
• 'Stolen Wages, Stolen Lives'
  29 April 2003 - Speech by Alfred Lacey, Deputy Chair Palm Island Council. When I was a young man on Palm Island in the early 1980s the phrase 'stolen wages', was used in my community by those who knew they had worked, knew they had been paid and wanted to know where it had gone ... My people want ... an honest settlement which acknowledges the value of their work and the pain of their deprivation.
• Lost and stolen wages compensation offer a "sick joke": O'Gorman
  8 April 2003 - The President of the Australian Council of Civil Liberties has labelled the Queensland Government's offer to Indigenous people for lost and stolen wages a "sick joke" compared to compensation payouts to Jews who were persecuted during the Second World War.
• Work and Wages - National Perspectives
  Dr Rosalind Kidd, Delivered at the University of Adelaide, April 2003
  During most of the twentieth century, in every Australian state and territory, one group of people has been subjected to physical confinement and bureaucratic supervision on a scale otherwise applied only to the criminally culpable or the mentally deficient. Yet in almost every case these people had committed no crime. Without due process and without right of appeal they, and too often their children and grandchildren, were sentenced in perpetuity. For most people escape from this internment was conditional on walking away from family, country and culture. This was your reality if you were of Aboriginal descent.
• Stolen wages activist accepts Government reparations offer
  31 March 2003 - "They've given me up to 12 months to live, I have a death sentence and that was the thing that made me decide ... To put it bluntly I don't have the extra time to go and fight it in court but my heart is there and if I had that time I would be there fighting.
• Boxer fights from grave for prize purses
  12 March 2003 - Relatives of an Aboriginal boxer of the 1940s and ‘50s are suing the State Government for $18 million in “stolen wages”. They claim Elley Bennett, who won 40 fights by knockout, earned a fortune as a boxer but died a pauper after his money was apparently dissipated by a government agency supposedly protecting him.
• Laywers warned on wages advice
  6 March 2003 - Lawyers who advise claimants accepting the Queensland government’s reparations offer who do not recommend claimants obtain other independent legal advice could risk charges of negligence according to a Brisbane Lawyer.
• Qld offer adds insult to injury
  5 March 2003 - Although campaigns have taken years to engage the Government it is now attempting to expedite resolution - quite unfairly. Despite the importance of the decision to be made, claimants have only 24 hours to consider the advice they have been given. Although the terms for delivering advice say that claimants are not to be rushed or pressured - this is clearly not the case.
• Black Lives Government Lies
  13 February 2003 -The launch of the second edition of 'Black lives, government lies' by Dr Rosalind Kidd.
• Investigators to report on national stolen wages case
  22 January 2003 - A national team of investigators have commenced work on a report into the lost and stolen wages and savings issue. But the probe will go much further than the Queensland border, with the team setting its sights on determining whether Governments controlled and then lost or stole Indigenous money in all states and territories.
• Unions back workers over Stolen Wages
  20 January 2003 - National Tertiary Education Union - An online petition, critical of the Queensland Government¹s handling of the stolen wages issue, will be launched tomorrow at the Queensland Council of Unions. The petition, posted a week ago under the sponsorship of Member for South Brisbane Anna Bligh, has already drawn well over 100 signatures.

• The Price of Reconciliation
  December 5, 2002 - We stole their land. We stole their children. Now we admit to stealing their money too. Is there anything left to take? Only the souls of a proud and defiant people have been spared and I think they would too have been taken if our governments knew how.
• First the wages were stolen, now justice has been lost
  4 December 2002 - National Indigenous Times - by Dr William Jonas AM - What would you do if the government decided that after you had paid tax you could only have 30% of your income and they would look after the rest for you? What if thirty years later they offered you $4000 or $2000 as compensation and said that if you accept it and promise not to take them to court they will also say sorry for any harm caused?
• Stolen wage group turns back on Peter Beattie in Parliament
  27 November 2002 - Grassroots Murri Action Group (GMAG) - A small but determined group of protesters today turned their backs on Queensland Premier Peter Beattie from the Gallery in Parliament to show how insulted they were by the government's offer of reparations for the wages and savings issue.
• Not 'in the spirit of reconciliation'
  22 November 2002 - Reconciliation QLD Inc (RQI) has objected to the repeated reference by the Queensland Government, to its offer of compensation to the victims of the "stolen wages" case as being "in the spirit of reconciliation."
• Beattie stolen wages offer perpetuates injustice
  22 November 2002 - ANTaR ~ Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation - The Queensland Government's decision to press ahead with its grossly unfair stolen wages offer is regrettable and will only serve to perpetuate injustice against Indigenous people, Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) said today.
• Queensland Government Reparations Offer: Wages and Savings
  20 November 2002 - Dept of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy - In the spirit of reconciliation, the Queensland Government has made an offer to people whose lives were affected by past Government policies which resulted in controls being exercised over the wages and savings of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
• Historic Reparation Offer To Indigenous Queenslanders To Proceed
  20 November 2002 - Premier & Trade: The Hon. Peter Beattie MP - The Beattie Government's historic offer of reparation to Indigenous Queenslanders who had their wages and savings controlled by former Queensland governments has been approved by State Cabinet and will now proceed.
• Unions fight for payouts
  11 November 2002 - The union movement has thrown its weight behind indigenous organisations fighting the Beattie Government over its $55.4 million offer to settle the stolen wages.
• Statement by Dr William Jonas AM on the Qld 'stolen wages' issue
  8 November 2002 - The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Dr William Jonas AM, today called on the Queensland government to delay plans to seek Cabinet approval for their proposed resolution of the Aboriginal 'stolen wages' issue until they have negotiated further with Indigenous groups.
• Stolen Wages Campaign: UPDATE
  9 October , 2002
• ‘Robbed Generation’ Seeks Stolen Wages
  13 September 2002 - State governments face the largest back-pay claim in Australian history as indigenous Australians seek redress for more than 70 years of systematic under-payment.
• ATSIC Stunned by Minister's Comments on Stolen Wages
  9 September 2002 - A senior ATSIC official has expressed outrage at comments by Queensland Aboriginal Affairs Minister Judy Spence that monies stolen from Indigenous workers by previous Qld Governments hadbeen paid back in full by the 1990s.
• Aboriginal councils and coalition to call on Government to account for stolen process on stolen wages
  3 September 2002 - Aboriginal Co-ordinating Council - Representatives from the Aboriginal Coordinating Council, FAIRA and historian Dr Ros Kidd will call on the government today to account for itself over the recent "consultations" with communities concerning reparations for a century of missing wages and savings belonging to Aboriginal people.
• Leak exposes wages 'rip-off'
  20 June, 2002 - A leaked document on the 'stolen wages' issue proved Aboriginal people were being ripped off in the Queensland Government's current offer of compensation, the Aboriginal Coordinating Council said yesterday.
• Aborigines 'insulted' by lost wages compensation plan
  13 June, 2002 - 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.
• Aboriginal community rejects wages compo offer
  24 May 2002 - Aboriginal communities were unlikely to accept the Queensland government's compensation offer for wages and savings withheld by previous state policies, an indigenous leader said today.

Related information:

• Secret Country
  October 2002 - Oral history recordings are an inadequate tool in trying to find out what happened to Aboriginal stockmen and their communities on cattle stations in Northern Australia, writes Neale Towart.
• Aborigines trapped by dole scheme: professor
  October 5 2002 - The Aboriginal "work-for-the-dole" scheme is widely regarded by indigenous leaders as the principal poverty trap for their families and communities, leading anthropologist and activist Marcia Langton said last night.
• A New Deal? Indigenous development and the politics of recovery
  October 4, 2002 - Dr Charles Perkins Memorial Oration. Delivered By Marcia Langton.
• Money that's black and white and spent all over
  The dollars may appear black, but there are plenty of "grey" areas. Not all native title dollars are being used to Aboriginal advantage. They are being used to help those opposing native title claims. They are being used to help other landholders and the nation deal with the fallout of a High Court decision - the landmark Mabo finding in 1992 that native title exists.
• Working For the Man: Wages Lost to the Queensland Workers 'Under the Act'
  June 1996 - The Indigenous Law Bulletin - The kindest complexion one might put on the disposition of wages was that the government believed that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were unable to manage their own affairs. However, this is not supported by the evidence.
• The 1966 Wave Hill Strike: From Little Things Big Things Grow: A Song By Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody.
  
• Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research
  The Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) is a multi-disciplinary social sciences research centre at the Australian National University (ANU) with a primary focus on Indigenous Australian economic policy and economic development issues, including native title and land rights, social justice, and the socioeconomic status of Indigenous Australians.
• ANTaR Qld
• Public Interest Advocacy Centre
  
  
• Stolen wages, missing Trust funds : The fight for justice in Queensland