In response to the Prime Minister's apology

At the end of last week, dozens of Australian Aborigines, victims of the policy of forced assimilation of the indigenous population, announced plans to file a lawsuit against the current authorities demanding compensation. Last Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, for the first time in the country's history, officially acknowledged the fact of discrimination against Aboriginal people in previous years and apologized to the “stolen generations.” This threatens to trigger a flood of compensation claims.

By yesterday, about 40 indigenous people in Victoria had expressed their desire to join the lawsuit against the Australian government. This happened almost immediately after the historic speech of the current Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, in which he, on behalf of the government and parliament, acknowledged the fact of discrimination against local aborigines and offered an official apology to the indigenous population (see Kommersant on February 14). It was about the so-called assimilation policy, under which, in the 1910-1970s, Australian authorities forcibly separated Aboriginal children from their families and handed them over to be raised by white families. Over the decades, up to 100 thousand children have become victims of this practice, dubbed the “stolen generation.”

The fact of such discrimination was first recognized in 1997 in the report of an independent investigation. Since then, activists from among the representatives of the “stolen generations” have been seeking an apology from the authorities for many years. However, former Prime Minister John Howard, who headed the government for more than ten years and lost the prime minister's chair to Kevin Rudd last fall, once again categorically refused to issue an apology. He motivated his refusal mainly by the fact that this would inevitably provoke hundreds of lawsuits demanding monetary compensation. As recent events have shown, he was right.

Yesterday, the intention of the Victorian Aborigines was supported by one of the leaders of the indigenous people, Patrick Dodson, nicknamed the “father of reconciliation”. “Any group of people who have been mistreated has every right to seek compensation legally, and they deserve our support,” Mr. Dodson commented on the class action lawsuit, making it clear that the authorities expect dozens, if not hundreds of similar lawsuits ahead.

However, as lawyers say, recognition by the central authorities of the fact of discrimination will not at all make legal procedures easier for plaintiffs. To date, only the smallest Australian state of Tasmania has legislatively provided for compensation to representatives of the “stolen generations” and last year paid almost half a million to a certain Bruce Trevorow, abducted with the sanction of the authorities half a century ago from a children's hospital. And last month, Tasmania announced plans to pay slightly more modest monetary compensation to 84 Aboriginal people separated from their parents as children and 22 of their descendants.

However, at the national level there is no talk of any compensation for victims of the policies of past governments. “I think we have made it very clear that the issue of creating a compensation fund is not being considered, we will only take on redoubled energy to overcome the challenges facing indigenous Australians in the field of health and education,” Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard emphasized recently . As you know, Aboriginal people, numbering 450 thousand people, or 2% of the Australian population, are the most disadvantaged category of citizens with the highest rates of child mortality, illiteracy, alcoholism and unemployment. One of the first measures to improve their lives, announced in Canberra at the end of the week, will be the deployment of an additional 200 teachers to the remote north. Over the next four years, the government will allocate $58 million for these purposes. Other measures are expected to be presented soon by a special commission on Aboriginal affairs, in which the ruling Labor Party for the first time has attracted representatives of the liberal opposition.

Natalia Kommersant-Portyakova

Aborigines will bill Australia