Bruce Trevorrow, 50, was the first of the Stolen Generations to succeed in recieving compensation from a state government. His case is an argument for why PM Kevin Rudd should establish a national compensation scheme for the tens of thousands or so members of the Stolen Generations.
In December 1957, when he was 13 months old, Trevorrow was taken by his parents to hospital with gastroenteritis, where he was separated from them. Six months later his mother was told she couldn't see him but that he was making good progress. In fact, by then he had already been fostered out to white parents.
Trevorrow was brought up being told he was white, and that his biological parents were, too. He suffered childhood neuroses including tearing out clumps of his own hair and chewing his clothes. He was not neglected physically, but suffered emotionally.
When Trevorrow was nine he was reunited with his real parents, and was shocked to discover they were Aboriginal.
After seven years of court battles, Trevorrow was awarded $525,000 compensation in a South Australian court on August 2, 2007. On January 31, he was awarded a further $250,000 in interest for the time taken for the case to succeed.
The court found that as a result of his forced separation he had suffered severe trauma. The August 2 Melbourne Age reported that, in his judgement, Justice Gray said, "The plaintiff has struggled throughout life, suffering ongoing and serious depression … his adult life has been scarred by his earlier experiences".
Julian Burnside QC, who appeared for Trevorrow, told the Age: "We have this arrogant assumption that somehow growing up in a white family must necessarily be better than growing up in an Aboriginal family. [His brothers] Tom and George Trevorrow prove exactly the opposite."
The resolution of Trevorrow's case comes at an important time. The new Labor government was elected promising to do what the Howard Coalition government had refused to do during its 11 years in office — apologise to members of the Stolen Generations.
On February 7, Rudd met with the Coalition MPs to discuss the final wording of the apology. The National Indigenous Times reported the same day that an in-principle agreement was reached which, at the time of writing, had yet to be announced.
The NIT reported that a government briefing note stated that the apology to the Stolen Generations will recognise past mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people but will not include any commitment to provide compensation. It reportedly will include a commitment that the parliament will act to ensure past wrongs are not repeated.
This may have been enough to appease nervous members of the Coalition, such as leader Brendon Nelson, who only committed to supporting an apology after being given a personal guarantee by PM Rudd that the government would not offer financial compensation.
Other Coalition MPs, such as Tony Abbott, have been at pains to stress that not all of the Stolen Generations were in fact "stolen". As Abbot put it to the February 7 NIT, "Some kids were stolen, but some were rescued and some kids were helped, so you have to be true to the real history of our country not to a fanciful history of our country."
Abbott's colour-blind comments ignore the racism which was intrinsic to the separation policy — as Trevorrow's story reveals.
While children in abusive situations were targeted for removal, no attempt was made to find nor provide Aboriginal foster parents for those being removed. The real role of the policy of separation was to remove Aboriginal children from their families and culture, and try and to remodel these children as something other than Indigenous: it was an attempt to wipe out a culture.
Trevorrow's win after an arduous seven year-long battle is a win not just for himself but for the Stolen Generations' campaign for justice.
In addition, as one of Trevorrow's lawyers, Claire O'Connor, pointed out on ABC Online on February 2, a national compensation scheme would arguably be a more economic option for the government. "There would have been, on any day, eight or nine lawyers tied up, for months on end, plus the judge and two or three associates and all the staff it involved … there's got to be a better way. Now that we have this judgement, which explains liability and explains practice, it would be preferable to set up a compensation scheme. It's got to be cheaper."
In Tasmania a Stolen Generations compensation scheme, based on a Canadian model, was established in November 2006. It provides up to $58,000 for people who were removed from their families, and $5000 for the children of members of the Stolen Generations.
Making such a scheme national would move the apology beyond tokenism. On January 29 Rudd said he wanted the apology to "build a bridge of respect between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people". But respect is only possible when past wrongs are acknowledged and when real action is taken to redress injustices of the past and present.