ANTAR have just released a national survey, Hard Labour, Stolen Wages: National Report on Stolen Wages by Dr Rosalind Kidd that provides a comprehensive survey on what is known about indignous stolen wages in every state and territory.
Ther report can be downloaded for free from the ANTAR website. Read it get angry and chase your local member on the issue.
Each chapter of the report provides a narrative account of the history of controls over indigenous people particularly as it related to their participation in the labour market and what is known about the handling of funds that were managed by pastroal stations, missions, other employers and the state and territory governments.
The detailed account of the conditions of near slavery and the fraud, mismanagement of funds, negligence by public officials and cost shifting by state governments, witholding of Commonwealth govrnment payments to individuals and using those funds to reduce state expenditure on spport of indigenous communities is worthy of the wrath and vocabulary of an Old Testament prophet. Micah or Amos could probably do a good job on this issue. There is an unbelievable amount of grist for their mill in this report.
"In 1934 the government was notified that ex-workers were starving to d death, but it refused to supply rations arguing this was the responsibility of station management" (p.73)
The amount of money that has been ripped out of the indigenous community over the past two centuries cannot be calculated precisely but is likely to run into several hundreds of millions of dollars at bare minimum and probably several times that amount.
And now we are heading off again down the track of government withholding payments to indigenous people. If the lack of recognition of the history of this sort of enterprise were not a matter so laden in pain and marinated in suffering for the indigenous community there might be space for black humour. History repeats itself (Marx said, I think) first as tragedy and then as farce, or was it the other way around?
Showing posts with label Indigenous Stolen Wages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indigenous Stolen Wages. Show all posts
Sunday, 16 September 2007
Sunday, 19 August 2007
Indigenous Stolen Wages - Senate committee report
One indigenous issue on which there has not been a noticeably speedy response by the Federal government, is the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Report Unfinished Business: Indigenous Stolen Wages.
For a copy of the Report see:
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/stolen_wages/report/index.htm (Can't get the link to work properly)
The report was tabled in December 2006 and was remarkably enough unanaimious in its conclusions, thoroughly nonpartisan, and in its recommendations sought the establishment of a number of processes by the Commonwealth and state governments to document more completely the pattern and extent of indigenous stolen wages.
The silence, in terms of a response to the report, 8 months later, so far has been deafening, certainly at a national level. The WA Government has set up a Taskforce to look into the issue in their state. The findings on the evidence so far dug out by historians and on the basis of testimony given the indigenous people might not be pretty.
The extent to which a bunch of 'Aussie Battlers" (indigenous) had been ripped off over the past hundred and fifty years by governments, missions, pastoral companies, retailers, police you would think would have the country up in arms. The silence from mainstream media has been remarkable - with the honorable exception of the National Indigenous Times.
The issue of stolen wages is not a matter of "black arm band history". This is a matter of robbery, misappropriation, fraud, failure of trust. True conservatives who believe in private property and the rule of law should be screaming blue murder.
The option for indigenous people to build an economic stake in this country, to do the things that the government wants them to do in engaging with the market economy was denied them by those who forced them to work for totally inadequate ages and then withheld large proportions of that inadequate amount.
State goverment's are right in the firing line on this issue ad they were resonsible for the managing the welfre of indigenous people.
Ros Kidd's account of the history of misappopriation, fraud, cost shifting by the Queensland government in her recent work Trustees on Trial, based on painstaking archival research, should make your hair stand on end. If doctrines and standards of fiduciary duty currently applied in the commercial sphere were applied to the Queensland Government's handling of money held in trust for indigenous people the government would be tied up in court for a very long time and facing some very hefty pay outs.
A submission to the Senate Committee by the Aboriginal Legal Services of WA subsequent to the tabling of the report provided information on investigations undertaken in 1965-66 into the administration of Commonwealth entitlements in the Kimberley. The investigation showed that there were ongoing abuses into the payment of pensions and the amounts withheld by station owners acting under the authority of the state government indigenous affairs department. Much of the money so withheld appears to have been misappropriated.
Essentially the Department of Social Services investigation showed that misappropriation of pension money, overcharging for goods, complete lack of account keeping and in some cases theft by warrantees, those charged with handling the withheld pension money. What happened? Apparently nothing. Not a good look.
A positive and prompt response to the Senate Committee recommendations to investigate the actions by government in their handling of money held in trust for indigenous people would be a good start and a gesture of good will.
The Senate Committee report paints part of the background against which the critical response of indigenous people to recent government policy initiatives in the Northern Territory can be understood.
Government taking control over portions of payments due to be paid to indigenous people? Have we been here before? what happened last time we went down this track? You can understand why people with memories, with stories passed down the family about withholding of wages and payments might be a trifle suspicious.
You could understand if indigenous people were to take the view that "the whitefellas did a pretty good job of doing the blackfellas over last time around, financially speaking and still haven't got the accounts sorted out. Why sould we trust them this time around?"
For a copy of the Report see:
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/stolen_wages/report/index.htm (Can't get the link to work properly)
The report was tabled in December 2006 and was remarkably enough unanaimious in its conclusions, thoroughly nonpartisan, and in its recommendations sought the establishment of a number of processes by the Commonwealth and state governments to document more completely the pattern and extent of indigenous stolen wages.
The silence, in terms of a response to the report, 8 months later, so far has been deafening, certainly at a national level. The WA Government has set up a Taskforce to look into the issue in their state. The findings on the evidence so far dug out by historians and on the basis of testimony given the indigenous people might not be pretty.
The extent to which a bunch of 'Aussie Battlers" (indigenous) had been ripped off over the past hundred and fifty years by governments, missions, pastoral companies, retailers, police you would think would have the country up in arms. The silence from mainstream media has been remarkable - with the honorable exception of the National Indigenous Times.
The issue of stolen wages is not a matter of "black arm band history". This is a matter of robbery, misappropriation, fraud, failure of trust. True conservatives who believe in private property and the rule of law should be screaming blue murder.
The option for indigenous people to build an economic stake in this country, to do the things that the government wants them to do in engaging with the market economy was denied them by those who forced them to work for totally inadequate ages and then withheld large proportions of that inadequate amount.
State goverment's are right in the firing line on this issue ad they were resonsible for the managing the welfre of indigenous people.
Ros Kidd's account of the history of misappopriation, fraud, cost shifting by the Queensland government in her recent work Trustees on Trial, based on painstaking archival research, should make your hair stand on end. If doctrines and standards of fiduciary duty currently applied in the commercial sphere were applied to the Queensland Government's handling of money held in trust for indigenous people the government would be tied up in court for a very long time and facing some very hefty pay outs.
A submission to the Senate Committee by the Aboriginal Legal Services of WA subsequent to the tabling of the report provided information on investigations undertaken in 1965-66 into the administration of Commonwealth entitlements in the Kimberley. The investigation showed that there were ongoing abuses into the payment of pensions and the amounts withheld by station owners acting under the authority of the state government indigenous affairs department. Much of the money so withheld appears to have been misappropriated.
Essentially the Department of Social Services investigation showed that misappropriation of pension money, overcharging for goods, complete lack of account keeping and in some cases theft by warrantees, those charged with handling the withheld pension money. What happened? Apparently nothing. Not a good look.
A positive and prompt response to the Senate Committee recommendations to investigate the actions by government in their handling of money held in trust for indigenous people would be a good start and a gesture of good will.
The Senate Committee report paints part of the background against which the critical response of indigenous people to recent government policy initiatives in the Northern Territory can be understood.
Government taking control over portions of payments due to be paid to indigenous people? Have we been here before? what happened last time we went down this track? You can understand why people with memories, with stories passed down the family about withholding of wages and payments might be a trifle suspicious.
You could understand if indigenous people were to take the view that "the whitefellas did a pretty good job of doing the blackfellas over last time around, financially speaking and still haven't got the accounts sorted out. Why sould we trust them this time around?"
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