Stolen generation fund starts in 2016 after the Bruce Trevorrow South Australian supreme court decision in 2007
In the South Australian supreme court in 2007, Bruce Trevorrow, of the Stolen Generations, was awarded $775,000 compensation
Members of the Aboriginal stolen generations in South Australia can apply for compensation from the state government, with an $11 million reparation fund starting in 2016. South Australia was the second state after Tasmania to create such a scheme.
The compensation scheme was mooted in 2007, after the late Bruce Trevorrow was first from the stolen generations to successfully sue for compensation.
A bipartisan parliamentary committee in 2013 found a reparation fund would be cheaper for the government than fighting legal claims and meant victims could avoid court.
About 300 members of the stolen generations are eligible for payments that were set at a uniform $20,000 each, as recommended to the state government by an Aboriginal committee. Lowitja O'Donoghue, one of the Stolen Generations, called the amount "unworthy".
Six million dollars of the $11 million was to be distributed ex gratis to members of Aboriginal communities removed from their families and whose residence was within the state at the time of separation. The remaining $5 million would be used for whole-of-community reparations, such as memorials, counselling and support, scholarships and exhibitions telling the stories of the stolen generations.
In 2007, supreme court judge Thomas Gray awarded Bruce Trevorrow, of the stolen generation, $775,000 compensation. The state government said it would compensate Trevorrow but seek a high court review to clarify the court's findings. Trevorrow died in Victoria, aged 51, less than a year after the court decision.
Trevorrow was separated from his mother in 1957 after being admitted to the Adelaide Children’s Hospital with gastroenteritis. More than six months later, his mother wrote to the state's Aboriginal Protection Board, which had fostered him out, asking when she could have her son back. The court was told the board lied when it wrote that her son was “making good progress” and the doctors still needed him for treatment.