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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 .

"The clear message is that the Queensland model is not the way forward," Democrats Indigenous Affairs spokesman Aden Ridgeway said. "I urge the NSW Government, in its current deliberations on this issue, to avoid the conflict and heartbreak the Queensland offer produced and to do the right thing first up. We know there is strong evidence within NSW archives and overwhelming anecdotal evidence about control and loss of wages.

"It happened to Aboriginal people who were wards of the State and former Wards of both the Aborigines Protection Board and later the Aborigines Welfare Board. There is also the issue of other benefits being withheld to which these people were entitled such as child endowment.

"In Queensland this has now become an issue of industrial justice, with the Queensland Council of Unions supporting the Aboriginal workers' fight for their money.

"What is lacking is a willingness on the part of all State governments to disclose what they are holding in their archives about the extent of lost and stolen wages belonging to Aboriginal people.

"The recent death of a high profile stolen wages campaigner in Brisbane highlights the urgency of delivering justice to the Aboriginal people, who have bean denied their rightful wages and benefits."

Meanwhile, the Democrats say 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.

Democrats Employment spokesperson and Queensland Senator John Cherry said the offer made a year ago of just $2000 - $4000 to Aboriginal workers who had lost a whole life of wages was an inadequate recognition.

Source:Koori Mail

Further information:

• 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 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.
• '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.
• 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.

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