BY BILL MASON

BRISBANE — More than 200 people, including representatives of Indigenous groups from all over Queensland, protested in the Roma Street Forum on August 3 against the state Labor government's compensation offer on the “stolen wages” scandal.

More than 16,000 Indigenous people have been offered up to $4000 each as compensation for wages and savings misappropriated by government representatives between the 1890s and 1972. Most victims worked on mission settlements or as domestic employees.

The government's “consultation period” closed on August 9; eligible people were asked to sign forms indicating that they accepted the offer. Protesters at the rally attacked the offer as inadequate and said the short duration of the consultation period, and the “pressure” applied to victims to approve the offer, had panicked people.

A government-commissioned survey has supposedly found that 96% of eligible Aborigines would accept the offer, but the bitterness of many at the rally shows a legal challenge will have many supporters.

From Green Left Weekly, August 14, 2002.
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