Eligible Aboriginal workers and their families whose wages were stolen under racist government policies throughout much of the 20th century will receive share $144,375,000 in compensation.
The Federal Court judgement, streamed online from a Melbourne courtroom, came four weeks after Justice Bernard Murphy approved the $180 million class action settlement for the 8,750 successful claimants.
The compensation granted will amount to $16,500 per eligible claimant and comes following discriminatory government policy between 1936 and 1972.
The class action was initiated by Gooniyandi stockman and artist Mervyn Street, who worked on stations for most of his life and was not paid a wage until he was in his 30s.
Justice Bernard Murphy said the financial compensation didn't take into account the trauma this period and action inflicted on Indigenous people in WA.
"In the course of the proceeding, the court heard evidence from many Aboriginal people who were taken away from their families at the young age, placed into an institution run by the state, or a church where they are then required to work for no pay or little pay," he said, as reported by the ABC.
"Many of the children suffered inestimable grief and trauma by being forcibly removed from their families, and many were cruelly treated within institutions and discriminated against."
The WA government announced in November it would pay up to $180.4 million to eligible Aboriginal workers, their spouses and children, including $15.4 million in legal costs.
Justice Murphy heard submissions from Shine Lawyers and other eligible claimants, the state government, and Litigation Lending Services (LLS), the litigation funder backing the case last month.
On Wednesday, he said Shine Lawyers would receive $27.5 million for their legal costs, having spent just under $30 million in the class action.
LLS will be paid $15.4 million.
"That reduction is centrally based, in my view, that the hourly rates Shine sought to charge for legal and paralegal work were excessive and the costs of the post-settlement registration regime were overblown," Justice Murphy said.
In late November last year a bipartisan apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers for decades of stolen wages in Western Australia was heard by members of parliament and applicants in the class action.
In April, Shine Lawyers travelled to more than 200 communities across WA to register complainants before the registration deadline of June 30, 2024, which was later extended to the end of September.
