Stolen Generation compensation payouts part of $1bn indigenous welfare plan

Stolen Generation compensation payments of $75,000 will be part of $1 billion in taxpayer spending to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians.

Stolen Generation compensation payments of $75,000 will be part of $1 billion in taxpayer spending to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will announce the new funding on Thursday to “Close the Gap” for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, who trail other Australians in terms of education, health and welfare.

A one-off payment of $75,000 will be given to Indigenous Australians who were forcibly removed from their families as children living in the Northern Territory before 1978, or in the ACT or Jervis Bay before 1989.

The money will be paid “in recognition of the harm caused by forced removal’’, along with a $7000 “healing assistance payment’’ to cover counselling or medical bills.

Survivors will be given the chance to confidentially tell their story about the impact of their removal to a senior government official, and receive a face-to-face or written apology for their removal and resulting trauma.

Stolen Generation victims will be able to apply for the payment from March 1 next year, until February 28, 2026.

Payments will be made to children removed from their family by government bodies, including police, churches, missionaries or welfare bodies, in circumstances where their “indigeneity was a factor in their removal’’.

Aboriginal state wards of 1911.

They must have been living in the Northern Territory or the ACT prior to the territories’ self-government in 1978 or 1988.

The States have already set up their own redress schemes for the Stolen Generation, with $75,000 payments in NSW, a $10 million fund in Victoria, a $100 million redress scheme for children in state care in Queensland, $58,000 payments in Tasmania and compensation funds of $90 million in Western Australia and $11 million in South Australia.

Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt said the $378 million redress scheme would support “intergenerational healing’’.

“This announcement reflects the Government’s commitment to recognise and acknowledge the wrongs of the past as part of the nation’s journey to reconciliation, and this scheme presents a major step forward towards healing,’’ he said.

Minister for Indigenous Affairs Ken Wyatt. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The Closing the Gap funding will include $254 million to build or renovate health clinics, improve digital health equipment and provide housing for health professionals in remote regions.

Alcohol and drug treatment services will be expanded through $66 million in grants, and $45 million will be spent to improve maternal and antenatal care services through a “healthy mums, healthy bubs’’ program.

Three new high schools will be built for children in remote communities, as part of a $75 million scheme for boarding schools.

Large, high-performing city schools will share in $26 million to partner with remote Indigenous schools to improve the quality of teaching and learning.

And $123 million will be spent to provide childcare for more Indigenous children, who risk falling behind at school.

Three new high schools will be built for children in remote communities. Picture: iStock

Centre for Independent Studies research fellow Glenn Fahey welcomed the childcare funding, warning that too many Indigenous children “never catch up’’ at school.

“If they start school at level pegging, they have the best shot possible to advance at school and beyond,’’ he said.

Originally published as Stolen Generation compensation payouts part of $1bn indigenous welfare plan