
Stolen generations survivors to receive redress
Survivors who were removed from their families in Western Australia before 1972 will be eligible for individual payments of up to $85,000 under the scheme, announced by the state government on Tuesday.
The announcement follows National Sorry Day on Monday, which marks the anniversary of the tabling of the Bringing Them Home report to parliament in 1997.
Redress for survivors was one of more than 50 recommendations in this landmark report.
Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities under accepted government policies during a period spanning from the 1910s until the 1970s.
"The WA Stolen Generations Redress Scheme is a major step in the pursuit of reconciliation and healing," Premier Roger Cook said.
The government said it would also work with Aboriginal organisations to support communications, scheme roll-out and planning for additional measures to assist the healing for survivors.
Attorney-General Tony Buti said the announcement of redress is a recognition of the wrongs of the past.
"It marks a significant step in recognising members of Western Australia's stolen generations by providing reparations for surviving members," he said.
"We hope this support can contribute to healing for those impacted."
With the announcement of WA's redress scheme, Queensland remains the only jurisdiction that does not offer reparations to survivors.
WA's scheme is expected to open for registration in late 2025.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

ABC News
5 hours ago
- ABC News
Are most of the NT's landmark DV inquest recommendations already in place, as the government says?
Two years ago the Northern Territory coroner began an inquiry into the domestic violence deaths of four Aboriginal women, with her findings and recommendations handed down in November. At the last parliamentary sittings, the NT government provided its long-awaited formal response to the inquiry, with Prevention of Domestic Violence Minister Robyn Cahill stating the 35 recommendations were "uninspiring" and "failed so dismally to hit the mark". Ms Cahill's comments received significant backlash from the sector and legal associations, who labelled them "hurtful" and "undermining of the independence" of the coroner. As another series of coronial inquests into domestic violence deaths begins this month in Darwin and Alice Springs — which the NT coroner previously flagged as "an excellent opportunity" to review the government's response — the question remains: What has been the government's progress on implementing the recommendations? Of the coroner's 35 recommendations, the NT government has accepted 21 of them in full and 11 in principle. In the government's tabled response to the recommendations, it stated that for the majority of those accepted, funding for the programs was either already available under existing plans or had been recently assigned as part of the 2025-26 budget. For many of those it accepted in principle, the government said fully implementing them would be "subject to" finding the necessary funding and resourcing, or undertaking significant work to create a "whole new model of operation". During her speech to parliament, Ms Cahill claimed that "24 of the 35 recommendations related to programs or processes already in place". But that assertion is disputed by frontline sector workers, including the chief executive of the Women's Safety Services of Central Australia, Larissa Ellis, who has called such a claim "disingenuous at best". One of the recommendations in dispute is recommendation 7, which relates to an NT-wide rollout of the co-responder model, where police and Department of Children and Families staff work together to support victims and perpetrators of domestic violence. In her report, the coroner called for the co-responder model, which is already being trialled in Alice Springs, to be funded, evaluated and implemented across the NT. Ms Cahill claims that model is already "in place". However, less than two weeks before the last parliamentary sittings, a Department of Children and Families spokesperson told the ABC in a statement that the co-responder model had yet to be expanded across the NT. The full list of locations for the program's expansion was also only announced in parliament late last month. Ms Ellis also says the government has "skipped the monitoring and evaluation" of the Alice Springs co-responder pilot, which would have allowed the sector to consider "the lessons that we could learn [and] the challenges that we have experienced here in Alice Springs". Recommendation 11 is another the government claims is already in place, while sector workers disagree. The coroner called for the Prevent, Assist, Respond training (PARt) domestic violence program to be rolled out to "all current NT police officers, auxiliaries and new recruits, as well as [to emergency call centre] staff" and its specific funding. Ms Ellis says: "I would debate that that has been fully implemented". "The NT government has not funded that initiative, that is funded through philanthropic avenues. And it is temporary funding," she says. Multiple sector workers have also told the ABC that despite Ms Cahill stating recommendation 17— which calls for the replication of Alice Springs's specialist domestic, family and sexual violence court in other regions — is "in place", there is in fact no specialist court outside of Alice Springs. The government did not support three of the recommendations: The government's refusal to establish a peak DFSV body has been particularly contentious. Ms Cahill says there is no need for a peak body because that role is already fulfilled by a government-funded "domestic, family and sexual violence officer" position at the Northern Territory Council of Social Services. But Ms Ellis says this position doesn't equate to a peak body. "We're the only jurisdiction without a domestic and family violence peak, [and] we are the jurisdiction with the highest rates of domestic and family violence across the country," she says. "The domestic and family violence sector in the Northern Territory is in a terrible position, where we are advocating and arguing with our funders. "That places us in really precarious situation, because if we advocate too strongly we risk our funding."

Sky News AU
2 days ago
- Sky News AU
Voice 2.0: Albanese sets his sights on peace in Gaza having tried and failed to find a solution to Aboriginal disadvantage
Anyone who has worked in a newsroom understands the hierarchy of suffering that determines the running order of a bulletin. A tragedy on our doorstep matters more than a larger tragedy on the other side of the world. So we shouldn't be surprised if most Australians care less about the conflict in Gaza than what it is doing to our country. The hatred on our streets breaks the unwritten rule that everyone who enters Australia leaves their troubles at the border. That's not to dismiss the distressing images emerging from Gaza, not all of which are faked. Nor are we downplaying the good fortune of living in the only permanently populated country untouched by civil war. We want to keep it that way. Much as we wish for global peace, our greatest desire is to enjoy harmony at home. Two years after his humiliating referendum defeat, the Prime Minister has once again been drawn into gesture politics with a promise that divides Australians and tests the strength of our social fabric. Belatedly, the PM has adjusted his rhetoric in deference to the discomfort we felt at the sight of an angry mob flying the banners of jihad while burning the Australian flag. 'Australians overwhelmingly want to see the killing stop,' he told a TV host Tuesday. 'They also, of course, don't want to see conflict brought here to our harmonious, multicultural society.' His acknowledgment is almost certainly too little and too late. He was the one who picked sides by recognising the non-existent state of Palestine. It was his announcement that terrorists praised and the US has condemned. The immediate consequence is that Anthony Albanese will be starved of the oxygen to talk about anything else, just as he would with the Voice. There's no obvious way to subdue the hornets now that the nest has been stirred. Every press conference spent on this issue will add to the remorse of Australians who voted, thinking they were electing a prime minister, not an activist-in-chief. Once again, he has failed to explain the point of the exercise, resorting to banal clichés. He wants to 'send a message' that he wants to see 'the world move forward'. He tells us he wants to make 'a practical contribution towards building momentum' and engage 'in detailed dialogue' with the international community, 'talking about what a peace looks like in the region'. He should have begun engaging in a detailed dialogue with the Australian people about what this gesture will achieve, beyond rewarding bad behaviour, getting Australia offside with our most important ally. Polling suggested Australians were sympathetic to the idea of a Voice. By referendum day, however, they'd worked out that its purpose was merely symbolic and that the PM was winging it, hoping to get through on the vibe. The hubris is astonishing. Having failed to find a solution to the problem of Aboriginal disadvantage, the PM has extended his ambition by promising to bring peace to the Middle East. He says Australia can help broker a peace deal that defied the best efforts of Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin, Jimmy Carter, King Hussein, Yitzhak Rabin, Henry Kissinger, George H. W. Bush, Shimon Peres, Bill Clinton, and a host of others better versed in the art of statesmanship than he. The recognition of Palestine will be welcomed by many, just as millions of Australians were passionately in favour of the Voice. Yet if a plebiscite were held, it is not hard to guess the demographic profile that would vote in favour. They will be the same constituencies, more or less, that voted in favour of a Republic in 1999 and the Voice in 2023. They are the seats that recorded the most significant majorities in favour of same-sex marriage. There would be variations of course in seats with large Muslim populations that were strongly opposed to same-sex marriage. The hypothetical plebiscite would be less well received in "woke" seats with large Jewish populations, such as Wentworth. However, the people who marched over the bridge were, for the most part, the same inner-metropolitan elite who sign up to every fashionable cause. Some of them would have marched across the bridge a quarter of a century ago in the Walk for Reconciliation. Some may have even glued themselves to the tarmac during peak hour in April 2022 to raise awareness about the climate emergency. They are members of the activist class, the people who wear their compassion on their sleeve, heavily invested in the cause of humanity but less concerned about humans themselves, particularly their fellow citizens who have the humility not to advance an opinion about things they know little about. For those people, the behaviour of the radical alliance between progressives and terrorists is a frightening development. They are disturbed by the politics of identity that divides citizens according to race or religion. They find the assault on the Jewish community abhorrent, not just because it is anti-Semitic but because Australian multiculturalism is not meant to work like that. Our social fabric is held together by the twin instincts to live and let live and treat every citizen with equal respect. The implication that Palestinians in Australia deserve special status for inherited suffering, and Jewish Australians must carry the collective guilt for the imagined sins of Israelis, is anathema to Australians who grew up understanding that character is infinitely more important than race. The anti-colonial narrative that divided us between First Nation people and others, by implication, Second Nation people, was the deal breaker in the Voice referendum. Mr Albanese has made the same mistake over Palestine. He has embraced a decisive narrative that exacerbates the divide in Australia, incites hateful protests and leaves many of us wondering if we recognise the country in which we once lived. Nick Cater is a senior fellow at Menzies Research Centre and a regular contributor to Sky News Australia


Perth Now
2 days ago
- Perth Now
A handful of soil: 50 years since iconic land hand-back
Half a century ago then prime minister Gough Whitlam poured a handful of soil into the hands of a man who had led an eight-year protest for the rights of his people. On August 16, 1975 Mr Whitlam travelled to Wave Hill Station, about 600 kilometres south of Darwin, to hand back land to the Gurindji people. During an official handover ceremony, transferring leasehold title to a parcel of land at the Wave Hill cattle station to Gurindji people, Mr Whitlam poured the soil into the hands of senior Elder Vincent Lingiari. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the iconic image of the red earth trickling from Mr Gough's hands to Mr Lingiari's was an enduring tribute to the courage, determination and solidarity of Gurindji people. "There is more to do to ensure Traditional Owners can unlock the economic potential of their land and build the long term prosperity that will see their communities thrive," he said. "Let the milestone we look back on today, inspire us for the journey ahead." Mr Lingiari had been a stockman at Wave Hill, and almost a decade earlier had led 200 Gurindji, Mudburra and Warlpiri stockmen, domestic workers and their families on a strike. Walking off the station, the workers were taking a stand against injustice, demanding fair pay, better work conditions and the return of their traditional lands. The group set up at Dagauragu, and for eight years the strikers stayed firm in their demands. The Wave Hill Walk Off helped pave the way for Aboriginal Land Rights legislation in the Northern Territory, and for federal laws which enabled First Nations people in the NT to claim rights for Country. Indigenous Affairs Minister Malarndirri McCarthy said the strike laid the foundations for Aboriginal land rights across Australia. "The formal handover of land to the Gurindji people - and the soil passing from one hand to another - is a defining moment in the Aboriginal land rights movement and Australian history," she said. Each year, the annual Freedom Day festival brings people together to mark the walk off and the hand-back. The Gurindji Aboriginal Corporation says this year's festival carries extra significance, marking the 50th anniversary. "The festival is in recognition of a story of national significance, which changed the Australian landscape and history forever," the corporation said in a social media post. "Vincent's legacy still lives on today through his grandchildren, great-grandchildren and all the Gurindji people." The Freedom Day festival will be held at Kalkarindji from August 22 to 24.