Victorian Greens senator Lidia Thorpe has renewed calls for the federal government to establish a national compensation scheme that would pay reparations to children who were taken away from their families under state sanction. 

Thorpe used the 25th anniversary of the 1997 Bringing them home report to lobby for a recommendation to create a compensation fund to be realised.

“My mum was a co-commissioner on the Inquiry in the 90s. Just this week, she was giving testimony at the coronial inquest of a Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman who died in police custody. 

“We need to break the cycle and stop the trauma,” Thorpe said. 

Thorpe is the Greens’ spokesperson for Justice and First Nations: Gunnai, Gunditjmara and DjabWurrung. In a statement last week, she argued that adequate compensation for Stolen Generations survivors should not be ‘patchy and inconsistent’ nationally. 

The Greens’ proposal to establish a national scheme granting reparations for the harm inflicted by successive Australian governments would see survivors of the Stolen Generation receive $200,000 plus $7,000 for funeral expenses.

“They stole our children to break our people. No government has ever brought peace to survivors of the stolen generation,” Thorpe said. 

"In order to fully understand the present crisis, we must delve into the unspoken history of strangers claiming to protect our children."

"Our children are our future, our children are key to the continuation of the oldest culture in the world."https://t.co/a3KWAi66Nv

— Senator Lidia Thorpe (@SenatorThorpe) May 26, 2022

Twenty-five years was a long time to wait for ‘truth, treaty and black justice’, the senator added, and the pain of First Nations people continued. 

“Sorry means you don’t do it again. Today, there’s more First Nations kids in out of home care now than when Kevin Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generations,” Thorpe said. 

“We call on the Albanese government to compensate survivors and stop a new Stolen Generation.”