The Wire

Governments controlled the wages, savings and benefits of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from the early 1900s to the 1980s. These payments included child endowment, pensions and even soldiers’ pay, and were improperly and unfairly held in trust account funds that was used as public revenue or disappeared through fraud and negligence. This practice of controlling and withholding payments condemned many families and communities to utter poverty that has in many cases extended to today’s generations. While some state governments have acknowledged the practices of previous governments with reparations packages, others have yet to acknowledge that the practice, known widely as Stolen Wages, occurred.