E-Petition

Queensland residents draw to the attention of the House the inadequacy of
both the outcomes and process for the Queensland government Reparations
Offer for Aboriginal Wages and Savings. Your petitioners believe the
amounts offered to individuals bear no relation to what people earned or
had stolen during the periods of control and enforced labour under the
various Protection Acts throughout the past century. Your petitioners
also believe the process via which this offer was made was flawed, as was
admitted by the Honourable Minister Judy Spence after the decision was
made to proceed with the current offer. While it is understood the
government’s intention was to make the offer ‘in the spirit of
reconciliation’, your petitioners wish it to be noted that the offer has
not been received in the same spirit, regardless of how many may be
forced through circumstance to accept it. As the culmination of a
struggle lasting more than 100 years your petitioners believe the offer
as it now stands and the process through which it was arrived at offers
neither dignity nor closure for the people, families and communities most
affected by wages and savings practices and policies under the Protection
Acts. The Queensland and Australian economies benefited greatly from the
enforced labour of Aboriginal people and your petitioners therefore
request that the State re-enter negotiations with relevant Indigenous
representatives and bodies to formulate a proper consultation process and
outcome with the Queensland Indigenous peoples on their terms.