The Wire

Western Australia has become the latest state to look into the missing millions of Indigenous wages and savings. Queensland and NSW have already begun handing back money, although claimants and their families believe the amounts are well below what is rightfully owed. And at the end of last year, a Federal Inquiry “Unfinished Business: Indigenous Stolen Wages” was tabled in parliament. It investigated the extent of the practice of governments withholding the wages and savings of Indigenous workers for more than a century. Terry Chenery – Executive Officer of the New South Wales Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committee says the impact of the ‘stolen wages’ era are still being felt today.