Dr Ros Kidd
Historian - Consultant - Writer
An honest day's pay for an honest day's work:
Fighting for Stolen Wages
Australia is a land of many myths. There is the primary myth of the
great empty continent. Secondary myths include the intrepid explorers,
valiant pioneers, battling families on marginal country, and golden
opportunities for everyone who is willing to work. These myths of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries persist today in thousands of minds
that remain blind and deaf to the glaring errors and omissions.
What of the thousands of tribes and possibly a million people who
predated white arrival by eons? What of the skilled bushmen and women
who watched, guided and rescued so many explorers? What of the
countless families who laboured unrewarded for decades, securing the
prosperity of so many rural pioneers? What of the pathological
conditions endured by thousands during decades of government
interventions supposedly in their best interests? What of child labour
continuing after the mid-twentieth century? What of people compelled to
work into the late twentieth century in unbearable conditions for
starvation wages?
Today it is these families on whom I want to focus: the Aboriginal
workforce that was an essential component of our national development
but remains virtually invisible in our national history.
There has been endless debate about whether or not the practice of
interning Aboriginal families under government control exemplifies
enlightened paternalism or breathtaking racism. The ‘enlightened
paternalism’ argument incorporates its own justifications: we only took
those who needed rescuing; we gave them opportunities they were
otherwise denied; we offered a ‘similar manner of living’ to mainstream
Australians. And of course the corollary is: well, we’ve done our best
to fix their problems with targetted welfare, buckets of money
and endless policy adjustments, but somehow they are still mired
in ill-health, fraught domestic circumstances, chronic under employment
and crippling poverty. It’s still characterised as an Aboriginal
problem.
But this historical leap from then to now neatly omits the in-between
years – the reality of life for those subjected to this magnanimous
intent. If the finishing point is today, then the starting point must
be governments nationally taking absolute control over Aboriginal lives
at the turn of last century. In every State, in some cases into the
1970s, people literally could not move from one place to another without
scrutiny or permission. They were routinely denied standard medical
care. They were denied standard wages and working conditions. Their
children were denied standard education, which, incidentally, was
mandatory for all children. By their thousands families were
condemned to abject poverty and derelict shelter.
All this took place with the full knowledge, if not by the direct
orders, of State governments in the guise of ‘protection’. In every
State authorities amassed thousands of files charting all the details,
decade after decade. State governments ran Aboriginal lives, and if we
are to understand the present predicament we must look at the machinery
of that management. Exactly how did governments so comprehensively
corrupt their stated intent to protect and enhance the lives of
those people they took into custody?
Even before specific State laws around 1900, police and protectors
around Australia removed Aboriginal children from their parents under
laws relating to destitute children or Reformatory schools. All
children removed to mainstream industrial schools or reformatories were
sent out to work as domestics or labourers, although Aboriginal children
were often contracted out before the minimum age of 12 years. At the
institutions and in employment, contact with family was stifled. In the
southern States of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and
Tasmania, Aboriginal children won a degree of freedom after the age of
21. In Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland, however,
internment and contracted labour typically were life sentences.
Early in the twentieth century institutionalisation was abandoned for
white children because it was deemed positively harmful; yet the
incarceration of Aboriginal children and families intensified. The
southern States took thousands of children into mainstream institutions
and indentured employment into recent times. In NSW, from around 1912,
80 per cent of child removals were girls under 14 years who were
processed into the domestic service market; for decades between 300-400
girls were thereby barred from family and freedom. Victoria, like NSW,
closed Aboriginal stations and reserves early last century. They
evicted families to struggle in the wider community where their
exclusion from mainstream welfare programs and often from full-paying
jobs, condemned them to poverty and accelerated the removal of their
children. By the late 1950s more than 10 per cent of Victorian
Indigenous children were trapped in institutions; and in SA child inmate
numbers doubled between 1957 and 1959. All became fodder for the
domestic service and farm labour market.
T
he
larger States of WA, Queensland and the NT primarily processed children
into and through missions and settlements. These States condoned
underage child labour in the pastoral industry into the 1960s, whereas
white child labour ceased from the 1920s. In 1957 the Queensland
director of Native Affairs, admitting the prevalence of broken limbs and
other injuries, merely suggested that graziers limit employment
of ‘undersize and weedy’ children, adding, ‘We try to look on these
people as human beings’. In WA and the NT authorities knew children and
women were co-opted to heavy male work, that government rations were
misused as punishment, and that living conditions were commonly
deplorable. Yet the so-called protectors continued to supply the
industry with cut-rate servants who rarely saw any cash for their work.
The missions and settlements, to which people were sent ‘for their own
good’, were commonly funded at a fraction the rate provided for white
institutions. Consequently these reserves are still characterised as
places of hunger, defective amenities, decrepit shelter, sickness and
early deaths. In the 1960s a medical survey of Queensland Aboriginal
reserves found malnutrition was the key factor in deaths of 50% of
children under three and 85% of children under four. Half of all
neonatal deaths and 47% of all deaths of children under 16 were from
gastroenteritis or pneumonia, both diseases of defective or inadequate
conditions.
The Queensland government was well aware of the atrocious conditions on
these ‘welfare’ institutions. Reports from doctors, health inspectors
and managers, and petitions from residents, piled up year by year on
official files. Even in the 1960s rations for reserve workers in
Queensland were known to fail the State’s own minimum requirements, yet
these were the only return for the compulsory labour demanded of every
able-bodied individual, including children retained in the dormitories.
Only in 1968 did Queensland start paying its Aboriginal workforce, but
at 50% the minimum wage; that is, half the amount deemed essential to
feed a white family of four. And community stores ran at profits of up
to 40%.
In
the early 1970s at Palm Island there were 165 homes for 1300 people.
Few had fridges or beds and the store routinely ran out of milk and
fresh food. Malnutrition was cited as the cause of rampant salmonella
and gastroenteritis. 75% of child outpatients were severely
underweight. And remember, these are the children and adults detained
by the State, ostensibly ‘for their own good’. Yet the State, the
supposed benefactor, was paying these employees only 58% the basic wage
in the 1970s.
Of
course it was not illegal to underpay Aboriginal workers prior to the
1975 federal Racial Discrimination Act. Employee numbers on
Queensland reserves varied from 3000 to 4000 between 1920 and 1975 and
included nurses, cooks, teachers, dressmakers, road builders,
carpenters, plumbers, stockmen, farmers, mill hands and power house
workers. Their financial loss relative to the basic wage over that
55-year period increased from around $13 million annually to $25
million, today’s value.
After 1975 the story of Aboriginal wages is more certain and more
shameful. Queensland Cabinet simply decided to continue underpaying
community workers, deliberately breaking State and Federal law. In the
period up to 1986, when community councils took control of payrolls, the
State cheated these workers of around $187 million. And remember, we’re
not talking the distant past here, and we’re not talking unfortunate
oversight. We’re talking present times and deliberate calculated
deceit. Queensland fought and lost an action before the Human Rights
and Equal Opportunity Commission in 1996, and later offered affected
claimants $7000 each. That’s a total payout of around $40 million: the
State’s illegal gain is over three times that amount.
Records confirm that the pastoral industry in Queensland would not have
survived without the thousands of men, women and children forcibly
contracted at cheap rates from the turn of last century. This
conscripted labour was, as the head of the Queensland department boasted
in 1948 “a valuable asset” to both the industry and the State.
Comparison of the base stockman’s rate in each year with the wage
actually paid shows an industry profit per worker of around $4000
annually during the years 1920/68. With an average workforce of around
4500 per year, that’s just on $18 million each year stripped out
of Aboriginal pockets for a 48-year period, compared with the white
wage. And it was the government that allowed this to happen.
The costs of gross mismanagement of the wages of this contracted
workforce runs into millions of dollars. There was no legal duty to pay
full wages prior to 1975, but Queensland had a stated policy from 1919
to pay pastoral workers 66% the white rate. But in every year between
1931/61 the government did not demand even this discounted amount, a
failure that cost workers $200 million. The major portion of wages went
directly to police protectors where audits and inquiries frequently
revealed it was prey to fraud and negligent defaults. Losses here are
similarly scandalous. And the fraction supposedly paid direct to
workers was so poorly processed that it was condemned regularly in every
decade and into the mid-1960s. There is no doubt the State knew its
system was defective. Losses here, conservatively estimated, could be
as high as $250 million.
The Queensland government took levies from private savings accounts
without the knowledge or consent of workers, there was frequent official
misuse of Trust funds by government, there was child endowment withheld
and diverted to capital works, and deceased estates absorbed into
consolidated revenue even where beneficiaries had been identified. It
is not surprising that so many who worked for decades found little in
their accounts when they finally got control of their savings in the
1970s. This information comes from the State’s records; it proves
authorities knew what was happening. In my opinion, this is close to
institutionalised theft – across generations.
This raft of lost and stolen monies is termed the Stolen Wages.
Queensland is not alone in this shameful abuse of financial
responsibility, although we do not yet have comparative financial data
for other States and the NT. In southern States many of the thousands
of people institutionalised as children and contracted to work have not
been able to retrieve their full wages from departmental Trust funds
after their release from State control. We know that child endowment,
paid in bulk to missions and institutions, was not fully distributed.
In NSW in 1930, in the midst of the world’s worst depression, the
Protection Board pocketed almost ₤28,000 (almost $1.4 million) of child
endowment entitlements, effectively stealing from mothers and children.
Only after 1960 did Victoria and NSW stop intercepting child endowment.
When the Commonwealth paid child endowment after 1941, WA, Qld and the
NT not only intercepted the money but also immediately cut government
funding for rations and support by the same amount. In the mid-1940s in
the NT, the twelve missions profited annually by over ₤28,000 ($1.2
million), but gave no accounting for distribution to mothers and
children. In fact the Native Affairs department suggested they use it
for schools, dormitories, clinics and training centers – all patently
State responsibilities. Queensland similarly diverted child endowment
to capital works including vehicles, a recreation hall, child welfare
clinic, and transit hostel. Endowment and pensions were also streamed
into consolidated revenue, a practice that yielded three-quarters of a
million dollars in 1964 and was deplored by auditors. Even in 1984
Queensland still processed child endowment through the department’s
major operational Trust fund. The States have profited hugely from the
destitution of Aboriginal mothers and children.
In
the Kimberleys, into the 1950s, pastoralists disputed distribution of
child endowment on their stations because it decreased the dependence of
their workers. Yet these men were entrusted with distribution of
endowment into the 1960s without proper scrutiny, despite knowledge that
some mothers were charged for rations supplied free by the State.
Pastoralists in the NT similarly distributed endowment unchecked. In
the early 1960s NT missions got around 40 per cent of their income from
social security benefits, far more than from State grants. WA missions
still relied on bulk endowment payments into the 1970s. Remember, these
benefits were intended for the most impoverished mothers and children in
our nation, not to relieve State Treasuries of their lawful obligations.
This appalling history of institutional impoverishment, of gross failure
of fiduciary duty, and of fraud and negligence at all levels, has cost
Aboriginal workers nationally millions and millions of dollars during
the twentieth century and is the root cause of destitution and despair
which continues today. No State has given a public account of their
negligent, and too frequently nefarious, dealings on Aboriginal
entitlements. We know the Queensland government has spent $1.5 million
on research, but solely to defend itself against legal action by former
wards. In maintaining an information vacuum, States around Australia
seem desperate to conceal the truth of their offences and failures.
Meanwhile they – and most mainstream media – continue to depict endemic
poverty, sickness, despair, alcoholism, abuse and self-destructive
behaviour as facets of an intractable ‘Aboriginal problem’.
So
how are people to get their money back?
There are three strategies in our current battle to achieve justice –
legal challenges, independent inquiries, and public outrage. In
Queensland, where intensive private research quantifies the magnitude of
official malpractice, lawyers have offered to act pro bono to bring
claims against the government. Already there have been settlements for
Stolen Wages and also for workers claiming far more than the $7000
offered for under award wage reparations. While it is certainly
fantastic that people can settle for what they feel is fair
compensation, my personal dream is for a case to go through the courts,
with detail after detail – such as you have heard today – streamed via
radio and television into thousands of minds which previously only knew
what governments chose to spin in their direction. Without a doubt,
every person can relate to the right of a worker or pensioner to reclaim
what has been stolen from them, particularly by governments.
Our second project is exposing Stolen Wages as a national scandal.
Today I have merely touched the surface of gross dereliction of duty in
all States and the NT. There are people, like aunty Marjorie Woodrow
here in NSW, who have been pursuing their entitlement for several years,
and people in other States now joining the fight after learning of
progress in Queensland. During last year several of us have been
working towards bringing to reality Justice Marcus Einfeld’s affirmation
that there should be a national inquiry into Aboriginal labour and
financial management. We want a core group in each State and Territory
to compile written and oral experiences of these controls, in the
context of the enabling legal and regulatory framework and evidence of
administrative policies and practices.
This National Report needs to be tightly formulated, the written
statements legally presentable, and the timeframe around twelve months.
We already have a gratifying list of volunteers. If you would like to
participate as a volunteer or as a potential claimant, or just to be
kept informed, please contact
nationalreport@hotmail.com. We
are currently applying for funding to cover secretariat and
communication needs. The National Report will be presented to the Prime
Minister as evidence that a top-level National Inquiry is
incontrovertibly overdue.
Our third strategy is to communicate our battle to the average Joe and
Kylie Public through articles, public talks etc. The Indigenous media,
in particular the National Indigenous Times, have done a magnificent job
in publicising the Stolen Wages fight. We have also gained great
support from a range of unions nationally which are disseminating
background information through links to their web sites and from the
shop floor.
So, what of government responses? In May 2002, faced with 4000
potential litigants, the Labor government in Queensland offered people
$2000 or $4000, depending on age, as total compensation for a lifetime’s
lost or stolen wages. No one will get money until they first indemnify
the government against all future legal actions. The government refuses
to supply all claimants with their personal work records, so most have
no idea of their real entitlements, and few realise the wealth of
incriminating evidence which would support claims for the full amount.
Unions nationally have joined the fight. They are distributing some of
the 50,000 specially designed Postcards now circulating which protest
against the Beattie government’s pitiful offer and demand new
negotiations. These Postcards are brilliantly crafted in three parts:
one is signed and sent to the premier, one goes to the head of the
Queensland Council of Unions (to count responses), and the last is
pinned to your fridge, alongside the terrorist-alert magnet if you so
choose. For Postcards and further information just slot ‘ANTaR
National’ into your search engine. Following the recent State election
we have a new minister, and have intensified our lobbying on three
primary points: that the ‘offer’ be considered a down payment until full
entitlements are independently assessed; that there be genuine community
participation in the process; and that all workers who had the
misfortune to die before the May 2002 cut-off point be included through
their descendants.
A
few weeks ago the National Indigenous Times broke the sensational
Proposal by the NSW government to compensate those whose money had been
withheld and misused by successive regimes during the twentieth
century. Unlike Queensland’s offer, this 2001 Proposal, which includes
input from Crown Law, admits the government was trustee for all seized
earnings and entitlements, that Treasury profited considerably through
the seizure of these monies, that the seizure represented a ‘shameful
execution of government policy’, that there has been a policy of lying
about Aboriginal funds still held by the government, that records are so
unreliable all claims should be assumed valid, and that claims of
deceased persons, described as ‘rightful owners’ of part of the Trust
funds, will be recognised through their descendants. Do not let your
government resile from these admissions.
The NSW Proposal of up to $69 million for an estimated 11,500 claimants
means around $6000 per person, much higher than Queensland’s $2000 or
$4000. It also compensates for a far lower loss, since many Queensland
workers were trapped in the contract labour system for a lifetime;
although mothers, pensioners and heirs to deceased estates have been
similarly deprived of desperately needed finances over decades.
It
is clear that both governments remain resolutely in handout mode,
generously ‘offering’ what they can comfortably afford. Premier Beattie
told parliament his offer was a win for the taxpayers, and NSW rejected
the higher Reserve Bank assessment, instead choosing a ‘fair value’
ratio because it wouldn’t ‘inappropriately impact on government
resources’. But this has nothing to do with fiscal comfort or political
generosity. This is about governments acknowledging decades of
negligence and theft. This is about legal redress for gross dereliction
of duty. This is about returning stolen monies to the rightful owners.
Around Australia, at the turn of last century, governments introduced
legislation they said would ‘protect’ Aboriginal people. It now matters
little whether their intent was benign or bigoted. What matters is the
appalling toll on the wellbeing, lives and futures of thousands of
people they took into custody. One way or another, States must take
responsibility for entrenched incompetent and illicit practices. Any
other scandal of this magnitude would trigger a high-level independent
inquiry to establish the true extent of custodial neglect and the true
figure of such disgraceful expropriation. Until then no government in
Australia has any idea of their full financial indebtedness, and current
restitution packages must be considered down payments only.
Our national debt is not only financial but also historical. We need to
explode the damnable myths of Aboriginal ineptitude, indolence and
financial incompetence that are still peddled today as some sort of
'racial' explanation for contemporary destitution and despair. We need
to reveal just who profited from Aboriginal labour and by how much. We
have everything to gain by encompassing all of our history, and only our
prejudices and ignorance to lose.
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