Kidd, Rosalind --- "Book Review: Trustees on Trial: Recovering the Stolen Wages" [2007] IndigLawB 15; (2007) 6(25) Indigenous Law Bulletin 20

• Book Review
• Trustees on Trial: Recovering the Stolen Wages

Book Review
Trustees on Trial: Recovering the Stolen Wages

Dr Rosalind Kidd

Aboriginal Studies Press, ISBN 0 85575 546 6

review by Helen Burrows

Trustees on Trial is a compelling portrayal of a profoundly sinister facet of Australia’s enduring treatment of Indigenous people. Dr Rosalind Kidd reveals how, from the 1890s and for almost a century, those who were coerced into living and working on government missions and reserves in Queensland were surreptitiously stripped of most of their wages. Significant portions were instead diverted into trust funds run by the government. Rather than managing the trusts for the sole benefit of Indigenous people as its fiduciary duties required, large portions were illicitly siphoned off to subsidise government coffers and investments while impoverished Indigenous people suffered further. This shameful legacy lives on with the standover tactics of intimidation employed by the Government today in denying liability and resisting repayment of the monies.

During the protracted period when these laws were in place, governments got richer while Indigenous people starved, became ill and died. The Nazi’esque policy to breed out Indigenous genes also occurred during this period,^[1] as did routine torment of Indigenous people through myriad discriminatory policies and abusive practices.^[2] Despite governmental records of covert diversion and illicit spending of Indigenous peoples’ money, the Queensland Government’s offer of recompense, whilst to be applauded as the first State to address the issue at all, was calculated by them to be worth a churlish $2,000-$4,000 a person. Dr Kidd, along with many commentators and Indigenous Australians are unsurprisingly scathing in their rejection of the offer and what it means for the chances of reconciliation between Australians. Not only does this figure represent a pitiful percentage of what is owed, it does not include any compensation. Particularly repugnant is the blanket indemnity recipients were made to sign renouncing the right for signatories to take any future action against the Government related to any of the raft of discriminatory and paternalistic law, policies and practices in place during this time.^[3] No government would ever ask a white person to make such a suppressive agreement, and Dr Kidd is clear that it is bigotry which drives governmental attempts to make Indigenous people do so.

Dr Kidd provides powerful precedents from Canadian and the United States courts which have ruled on similarly appalling policies and practices which saw governments withhold, mismanage and defraud indigenous people of the money they held in trusts.^[4] The courts have determined that the onus of proof was on the government to show it had properly managed and accounted for indigenous money, not for indigenous people to prove they had lost the money.^[5] The decisions in these cases demonstrate how these countries have accepted and moved towards correcting past injustices committed against their indigenous peoples. They also demonstrate however, the painful sluggishness with which Australia is moving toward recognising and mending the harm it has caused Indigenous Australians. Through a dogged media and fervent lawyers, it is our task to hold the governments accountable for the actions taken and consequences caused by their predecessors.

In addition to the claims for repayment of stolen wages is the need for adequate recompense for the abject poverty and suffering endured by Indigenous people at the hand of successive governments. Discriminatory and paternalistic policies and practices aside, Dr Kidd notes that government can never put aside its moral obligation to protect its citizens, particularly the most vulnerable among them. Instead of providing adequate sustenance, shelter, sanitary conditions and health care, they spent their money on development and capital works on settlements; grants to missions; loans, investments and compulsory relocations; and amenities in the fortified camps. Despite reports from many ‘protectors’ highlighting the plight of Indigenous people within the government’s control, government after government watched on as Indigenous Australians suffered and died of illnesses caused by deliberate deprivation.^[6] Infants died of malnutrition due to a lack of milk and vegetables. Scant clothing, blankets and washing facilities bred skin disease and contaminated water supplies and caused deadly epidemics of diarrhoea.^[7] While the government pursued its own interests and got rich from its lucrative Indigenous-funded investments, it was at the expense of workers and settlement inhabitants whose interests it was bound to protect.^[8] It knew people suffered.

The expenses the government purported to ‘need’ an injection of Indigenous cash are, and were then, the sole financial responsibility of the government. Crevices in government budgets should never be filled by excessive taxation, particularly when the patrons are not extended the courtesy of being informed by the government that they are supplying the ‘filler’. Worse still, Dr Kidd explains how the government’s financial records for this period range from incomplete to non-existent.^[9] The lack of a discernible audit trails signals negligence; the rest is fraud. It makes it impossible to determine with precision how much was taken from Indigenous Australians, yet it is the lack of comprehensive records the government uses to amazingly defend itself against claims.^[10]

It is not necessary to rely on a bill of rights for Australia to follow in the footsteps of its northern cousins. An assessment of the government’s actions as trustees and the wholly deficient audit trail could be sufficient to invoke an obligation on the government to repair the damage its predecessors caused. The questions we should ask include: Did the government gain a benefit from their position as trustee? Did they act with the level of care, discretion and intelligence a prudent person would exercise if operating a business of their own? Were there sufficient checks and balances to prevent fraud and mismanagement? Did the Indigenous community sustain losses as a result of the trustees’ actions?^[11] Dr Kidd asserts that the answers to these questions, and the supporting evidence, will produce a favourable, albeit long overdue outcome. Yet, Indigenous Australians continue to wait, continue to be denied what is theirs, and continue to be punished.

Dr Kidd’s assertions are cogent and compelling. With the supporting documentary evidence she references, lawyers would be able to put forward a persuasive case against governments. The Queensland Government’s unswerving lack of will to take responsibility for the actions and consequences causes by its predecessors makes a mockery of any reconciliatory intention it claims to support. Reconciliation requires mutual respect and dignity, both of which the government is refusing to demonstrate. Many Indigenous Australians have, not surprisingly, lost respect for the Australian government too, even though it has the power to make amends. If the Australian government can afford to service a key role in the ‘war on terror’, it can afford to compensate its own people for wrongs it committed against them. Even simpler is the ability to apologise for the malfeasance and malevolence of its predecessors.

Yet, Indigenous Australians are offered nothing more than the crumbs off the table and are told to be quiet. Is this the future Australia we are living into? Dr Kidd and the vast number of people impacted by the government’s actions, or who share her goal hope not. We have the power to mend the past and leave it in the past, creating a new future with Aboriginal people. Trustees on Trial: Recovering the Stolen Wages is a harrowing account of Australia’s enduring past, painstakingly and courageously researched and engagingly written by one of Australia’s most informed authorities.

Helen Burrows is a lawyer and the coordinator of international law and justice development programs at the Federal Court of Australia. Helen has for several years been involved in a diverse range of social justice issues including Indigenous stolen wages where she has worked with Rosalind Kidd in promoting the need for a national report into the issue.

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^[1] Geoffrey Robertson QC, ‘Foreword’ in Rosalind Kidd, Trustees on Trial: Recovering the Stolen Wages (2006) v.

^[2] Rosalind Kidd, above n 1, 64-7, 94-5, 124-5.

^[3] Ibid, 100 and 149-50.

^[4] Ibid 68-71, 101, 162-3.

^[5] Ibid 32-4.

^[6] Ibid 101-3.

^[7] Ibid 65-7, 94, 122-5.

^[8] Ibid 114.

^[9] Ibid 87-91.

^[10] Ibid Chapter 1.

^[11] Ibid Chapter 3.