A regurgitation of the previous one, but with some additional information to be gleaned. -- Graham Young Phone: 61 7 3252 1470 W 61 7 3252 1471 F 0411 104 801 M Home Page: http://www.home.gil.com.au/~lecy/current.htm
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy/Womens Policy/Fair Trading, HON. JUDY SPENCE 31/5/99 Government to right past wages injustice The Queensland Government will establish a process for dealing with claims by former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Queensland Government employees who were underpaid by a previous Government because they were Indigenous. Cabinet today agreed to a submission by the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy, Judy Spence, to craft a uniform process for compensating people for racial discrimination they suffered when a former administration refused to give them a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. Ms Spence said: "The Queensland Government will work with the Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action (FAIRA), to establish a fair and equitable way of compensating people who were unfairly and unlawfully underpaid. "If the State Government does not take control of the process in a constructive and consultative way, we will face the prospect of lengthy, expensive and divisive court action. "The people who will be covered by the process are those who did not receive award wages from the then National Party Government after 1975, when the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act came into force. "The sole basis of this administrative discrimination was the fact that these workers were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. Non-Indigenous people doing similar work for the Government were paid award wages at the time. "The underpayment continued until 1986, in spite of the Government's awareness that it was breaking the law, and despite lobbying by the labour movement. "The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) has already ruled that this was unlawful and that the workers deserve compensation. "Twenty former employees of the State Government, all from Palm Island, have already received $7000 each, as full settlement for their claims. This figure is compensation for racial discrimination, not an attempt to estimate every single person's precise entitlement. "FAIRA, which has been researching and advocating on behalf of former workers for a number of years, estimates that at least 3500 living Indigenous Queenslanders were treated in this fashion. "In March FAIRA lodged claims with the HREOC on behalf 380 people who feel they have been similarly disadvantaged. "If we went into court battles over these and other claims we would subject these former Government employees to undue emotional strain and hardship. "We would rather acknowledge that these people were not treated equally, that they were not given a fair day's pay for a fair day's work - which is something every fair-minded Queenslander can understand." Further information: Fiona Kennedy 3227 8821/ 0414 287 858
