Stolen wages offer to Aborigines ‘heartless’

Australia: A rich Australian state's plan to pay up to Aus$2,000 (US$2,106) to Aboriginal people whose wages were kept from them for decades has been criticised as a “cruel and heartless offer”. Western Australia, a vast and resource-rich state riding a lucrative mining boom, has announced the payments for the “stolen wages” of Aboriginal people born before 1958 whose wages were controlled by the state government. But the state's Aboriginal legal service said the payment was scant compensation for the practice under which for decades many indigenous workers were given only “pocket money” while their full wages were held back.

Dennis Eggington, chief executive of the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia, described the payment plan as “a slap in the face and a cruel and heartless offer”.

“This offer is an affront to all fair-minded Western Australians who believe in common decency and a fair go, and it is a vile and disgusting breach of the duty of this state to those whose wages were stolen,” he said. “In a state that is reaping a fortune from the resource sector, to offer nothing more than the crumbs off the table is reminiscent of the mission ration days,” he said in a statement released Tuesday.

AFP