Stolen Generations survivor support organisations have responded to the WA government's redress scheme announcement, calling it a "powerful moment of truth-telling", while noting that nothing can undo what has been done.
At the Reconciliation Week Breakfast in Boorloo (Perth) on Tuesday, WA Premier Roger Cook announced a fund allowing for $85,000 per person, for living Stolen Generations survivors removed from their families before July 1st, 1972.
It comes after long-running calls for a redress scheme in the state.
A 2021 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report estimated more than one third of Indigenous people in WA over the age of 46 self-reported they had been removed from their families as children; the highest rate nationally.
"Across Western Australia, survivors and descendants have been fighting tirelessly for years for justice and redress. I pay tribute and honour all the Stolen Generations organisations that have advocated and stood alongside survivors throughout this long journey," Healing Foundation chief executive and Yawuru woman Shannan Dodson said on Tuesday.
The Healing Foundation is a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander body supporting Stolen Generations survivors and their families.
The organisation reports their work has engaged with 8,700-plus participants across more than 90 projects.
In February, the Healing Foundation's Are you waiting for us to die? report, called for "urgent changes" to allow elderly survivors to "live out their days with dignity".
It found only six per cent of recommendations to support Stolen Generations survivors and their families made by the Bringing Them Home report 28 years earlier had been fully implemented.
On Tuesday Ms Dodson added: "No amount of money will make up for the trauma inflicted on Stolen children, but redress is validation of their experience, and some compensation for the pain they've suffered."
Healing Foundation chair Professor Steve Larkin called on the WA Government to quickly introduce the scheme.
"We congratulate the Government of Western Australia on recognising Australia cannot wait another generation before acting to support ageing Stolen Generations survivors," Professor Larkin said.
"This scheme will have positive flow on effects through the generations and throughout the state, but time is of the essence."
Professor Larkin also urged for ongoing consultation with survivors and appropriate associated organisations.
Registrations for the redress scheme are expected to open in the second half of 2025, with payments to first be distributed from late in the year, the WA announced on Tuesday.
24 hours earlier, Federal Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy said she would push for state governments to take responsibility and provide compensation for Stolen Generations survivors.
With WA's announcement this week, Queensland becomes the only jurisdiction nationally without a compensation process.
Survivor and Bringing Them Home WA co-chair Tony Hansen said the recent movement in his state "will go down in history as a powerful moment of truth-telling", acknowledging "such a brutal history, and evil policies that ripped the hearts out of children and families".
Bringing Them Home WA is a Stolen Generation survivor and families advocate organisation.
Sister Kate's Home Kids Aboriginal Corporation (SKHKAC) is another, who 'deliver a wide range of cultural healing programs to heal, empower and develop leadership'.
SKHKAC interim chief executive Aunty Jenny Day said Tuesday's announcement acknowledges "that we exist".
"It's an acknowledgement about the history of poor legislation. The government is finally accepting that it was bad and that it happened. To deny a child to live with family has effects that are intergenerational," Aunty Jenny said.
