Withheld Wages and Forced Savings

Eligibility - Queensland citizens
Principal Petitioner:
David Lowe
PO Box 1761
Aitkenvale Qld 4814
Total Signatures - 281
Sponsoring Member: Peter Wellington MP
Posting Date: 11/8/2008
Closing Date: 11/2/2009
Tabled Date: 12/2/2009
Responded By: Hon Desley Boyle MP on 13/5/2009
TO: The Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland
Queensland Citizens draw the attention of the House to the fact that successive Queensland Governments have withheld wages, underpaid wages and withheld forced savings of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders for more than a century and that payment of these monies should now be concluded. The sections and recommendations relevant for Queensland from the Report of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, "Unfinished business: Indigenous stolen wages", tabled in the Australian Senate on 7 December 2006 can be viewed on a Senate web site. Your petitioners therefore request that the Queensland Government revise the terms of its payment offer so that: (a) Indigenous claimants are fully compensated for monies withheld from them; (b) further time is provided for the lodgement of claims; (c) claimants are able to rely on oral and other circumstantial evidence where the records held by the state are incomplete or are allegedly affected by fraud or forgery; (d) new or further payments do not require claimants to indemnify the Queensland Government; and (e) the descendants of claimants who died before 9 May 2002 are included within the terms of the offer. Your petitioners therefore request the House to legislate in order that an independent legal body be established to ascertain the quantum of the payments and all the sources of the required funds.