TAS: Stolen generations legislation expected soon

AAP General News (Australia)
08-10-2006
TAS: Stolen generations legislation expected soon

HOBART, Aug 10 AAP - The Tasmanian government is expected to introduce legislation
soon to financially compensate Aborigines forcibly removed from their families.

Tasmanian Aboriginal Legal Centre legal director Michael Mansell said today legislation
to address the so-called stolen generations would be introduced after parliament resumed
at the end of this month.

Mr Mansell estimates up to 40 Aborigines will have a case for compensation, which is
hoped to be $100,000 for each person.

The government has not mentioned a figure, but Premier Paul Lennon has repeatedly affirmed
his commitment to resolve the stolen generations issue "once and for all".

Mr Lennon said in June he hoped to finalise payments by the end of the year.

Mr Mansell said no amount of money would be adequate to compensate the stolen generations,
but $100,000 was a realistic figure.

"... it doesn't matter whether its $1 or $1 million it's not going to be adequate,"

he told ABC Radio.

"It's time to strike a balance and time to say here's a sufficient amount of money
so we don't trivialise what happened to these members of the stolen generations but at
the same time trying to work within a realistic framework of the amount of compensation
that a government could pay to the people."

Mr Mansell said a "lack of moral will" had left other states lagging on the issue of
reconciliation.

"I think the capacity of the states on the mainland to pay for the stolen generations
is far greater than that of Tasmania and it's only their lack of moral will, I think,
that's made Tasmania move forward while the other states have done nothing," he said.

Tasmania is the only state to have agreed to financial compensation for Aborigines
forcibly removed from their families by Australian government agencies and church missions
between about 1900 and 1972.

In Tasmania, Aboriginal children were removed under general child welfare legislation.

AAP rgr/grc/nf

KEYWORD: STOLEN

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