Stolen Generations Reparations Steering Committee Report

The Stolen Generations Reparations Steering Committee was formed in December 2020 to provide expert advice and recommendations on the design of Victorian Stolen Generations Reparations.

Date:
3 Mar 2022

Dedication

The Steering Committee would like to respectfully dedicate this report to the Stolen Generations, to those that have passed, to those that are still struggling we honour your resilience, to those that found their way home, to those that are still searching and to those that never made it back home but rest in the Dreaming with their loved ones and Ancestors.

Members of Steering Committee

  • Ian Hamm (Chair)
  • Aunty Annie Moore
  • Bev Murray (representing Link-Up Victoria)
  • Eva-Jo Edwards
  • Jennifer Bates (representing Koorie Family History Service - Koorie Heritage Trust)
  • Jody Barney
  • Kathy Travis
  • Lee-Anne Carter (representing Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service)
  • Lisa Zammit (representing Connecting Home Ltd)
  • Paul Glass
  • Sandra Barber
  • Uncle Larry Walsh
  • Veronica Heritage-Gorrie
Left to right top row: Uncle Larry Walsh, Lee-Anne Carter, Sandra Barber, Bev Murray, Veronica Heritage-Gorrie, Paul Glass, Aunty Annie Moore, Eva-Jo Edwards, Kath Travis, Jennifer Bates.

Left to right bottom row: Sue-Anne Hunter (Welcome to Country), Ian Hamm and Rhyll Tonge.

Absent: Jody Barney and Lisa Zammit.

Stolen Generations Reparations Steering Committee Secretariat

  • Rhyll Tonge, Connecting Home
  • Rebecca Doig, Connecting Home

Terminology

  • The Victorian Stolen Generations Reparations Scheme is referred to as ‘Stolen Generations Reparations’ and or ‘the Stolen Generations Reparations package.’
  • The term Stolen Generations in this report refers to an adult Aboriginal person who as a child was separated from family, community, Culture, and Country and subsequently lost their identity.
  • The term Reparations was defined by the Bringing Them Home Report as follows: ‘Reparations shall render justice by removing or redressing the consequences of the wrongful acts and by preventing and deterring violations’. 1
  • The Stolen Generations Reparations Steering Committee is referred to as ‘the Steering Committee’.
  • The term Aboriginal is used within this report to refer to Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
  • Intergenerational trauma in this report refers to the ‘…effects of traumatic experiences endured during childhood and adulthood being transmitted to subsequent generations’.2 For example a Stolen Generations person may inadvertently pass down trauma to their children and subsequently their grandchildren may also then experience this trauma. This report uses the term intergenerational trauma to include transgenerational trauma which another common term used to describe trauma transmitted across a number of generations.3

End notes

1 Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997, Bringing Them Home Report

2 Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, 10 July 2019, Witness Statement of Dr Graham Gee

3 Atkinson, J., 2002, Trauma Trails, Recreating Song Lines; The Transgenerational Effects of Trauma in Indigenous Australia, North Geelong, Spinifex Press

Updated

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