The Age is reporting this afternoon that Queensland unions are backing a move by indigenous leaders in their battle to have stolen wages returned to court.
A number of Aboriginal elders gathered in Brisbane today, with meetings in regional cities around the country to launch the campaign and the Queensland Council of Unions will lodge a writ in the District Court on behalf of Yarrabah mand Uncle Conrad Yeatman, seeking recovery of wages withheld by state governments over the decades.
In 2002, former premier Peter Beattie acknowledged that as much as $500m may have been stolen as Aboriginal wages were taken and supposedly placed in trust accounts which were later found to be different or non-existent.
$55m was offered as compensation and a repatriation scheme paid out $35 to around 7,000 people, and Premier Anna Bligh placed an additional $20m into indigenous education.
Mr Yeatman who was worked as a carpenter and labourer in the north Queensland community of Yarrabah from the age of 14.
