Wednesday 13 August 2008

Greens to amend Stolen Gen comp bill

The Australian Greens' spokeswoman for Indigenous issues says the party will be amending and re-introducing a Stolen Generations compensation bill to the Senate before the end of the year.

Senator Rachel Siewert says the previous bill, introduced by former Democrat senator Andrew Bartlett, included a cap on the amount of reparations awarded, which the Greens Party has scrapped from the amendment.

Earlier this year a Senate committee called for the Federal Government to set up a National Indigenous Healing Fund to provide services for the Stolen Generations.

Ms Siewert says there is room for both a healing fund and compensation.

"We think that there needs to be financial reparations," she said.

"That's what the Bringing Them Home report said and that's what we will be continuing to support, or re-introduce into the Senate, in an amended bill that provides for financial compensation to the Stolen Generations.

"The different states have various packages available for some forms of compensation but it is very limited and there is a great deal of criticism around it.

"There needs to be an approach by the Commonwealth and very definitely, obviously, the Northern Territory needs to be specifically dealt with by the Commonwealth."

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