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Siewert calls on WA and Commonwealth to repay stolen wages
Wednesday, 26 September 2007
8:45:27 AM
PERTH, September 25, 2007: Tens of millions of dollars stolen from Aboriginal workers must be repaid by the West Australian and Commonwealth governments, Senator Rachel Siewert says.
The WA government has set up a taskforce to investigate evidence entitlements and pay of Aboriginal workers were withheld up until the late 1960s.
Indigenous workers were either underpaid or not paid at all and commonwealth benefits and entitlements were misappropriated by governments during this time, the WA Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS) says.
Money in state government-controlled trust accounts also disappeared or was transferred to general revenue, ALS says.
Ms Siewert, a Greens senator and member of a 2006 senate committee into stolen wages, said there was less documentation on stolen wages in WA than in the eastern states.
It was important that both the WA and federal governments made reparation, she said.
"It needs to be dealt with, the damage needs to be fixed and the reparation given and it needs to be given as a matter of urgency.
"The Commonwealth is also liable and responsible. They have yet to acknowledge that.
"We have a very high bill and debt that needs to be paid."
WA ALS chief executive Dennis Eggington yesterday reiterated a call for the WA government to repay WA's Indigenous workers.
"As well as the legal obligation to give people money back that's owed to them, we want to see the history of this country rewritten to show the true extent of Aboriginal involvement, of Aboriginal input into the building of this nation," Mr Eggington said.
"Many people are not aware of the major contribution that Aboriginal people made to this country's economy through their low paid and unpaid labour."
Mr Eggington said WA was lagging behind other states and territories which had already begun compensation procedures.
"If other states and territories have started compensating stolen generations and stolen wages then this state, the richest state in the country, needs to be giving something back to Aboriginal people," he said.
It has been estimated by the Goldfields Land and Sea Council that the amount owed to Indigenous workers in WA could be as much as $150 million. - AAP
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