Forty years later, there is a 17-year GAP between the life expectancies of Indigenous and non-Indigenous babies. Aboriginal Australians also have the highest rate of preventable diseases and Indigenous infant mortality rates are three times that of other Australian infants.

Update on Stolen Wages in NSW

From the late 1890s up until 1969, the Aborigines Protection Board (later the Aborigines Welfare Board) collected money on behalf of some Aboriginal people who came under its control and put this money into ‘Trust Accounts’ for them. Much of this money was never paid out. Some disappeared into government revenue through poor or non-existent record keeping and some is presumed to have been embezzled by officials.

The Aboriginal Trust Fund Repayment Scheme (ATFRS) was established in 2005 to repay to Aboriginal people and their descendants money that was put into Trust Funds and never repaid. The Scheme is a repayment, not reparations scheme. While the un-refunded money is often referred to as “stolen wages”, the scheme does not deal with claims about the underpayment or non-payment of wages to Aboriginal people more generally. Nor does it deal with un-paid Commonwealth benefits, such as child endowment. The NSW scheme seeks to look to the evidence and repay what trust account money can be shown to be owed. Unlike the Queensland scheme, an application under the New South Wales Scheme does not prevent any future legal action. In late 2008 the NSW Government announced a second extension of the closing date to 31 May 2009 and some other changes to the scheme.

Under the changes, a lump-sum repayment of $11,000 can be recommended by a review panel; all applications rejected so far are being reviewed; claims with no records are to be rechecked and any payment of less than $11,000 will be topped up to that amount. Oral and non-documentary evidence is now allowed.