NT Stolen Generations descendants say $50m class action payment delays adding to trauma

Stolen Generations descendants say they're worried they may not receive money from the settlement. (ABC News: Hamish Harty)

Descendants of Northern Territory Stolen Generations who won a $50.45 million class action against the federal government in 2022 have complained the law firm that achieved the settlement is adding to their trauma by not yet paying the money out to them.

In August 2022, Shine Lawyers won a class action for about 2,000 people whose mixed-race Indigenous parents were forcibly removed to NT institutions between 1973 and 2012 under the federal government's assimilation policies at the time.

The institutions included the Garden Point Catholic Mission, on the remote Tiwi Islands off Darwin.

Shine Lawyers last year told the ABC that claimants would start to receive payments from the class action "some time in the new year" of 2024.

But now the claimants have told the ABC they feel left in limbo because Shine Lawyers is still trying to work out who is entitled to the money.

Vikkie Hoult's parents John and Irene McLennan were among thousands of mixed-race children who were forcibly removed from their families in the NT under federal government policies.

Both were sent to Garden Point.

"They didn't have family, they lost their culture, they lost language, they were abused," she said.

"Mum was belted regularly.

"Dad told me that his father went over on a lugger to the Tiwi Islands. Dad was in school and they didn't tell him that his father was there and wanting to see him – [and] when he found out, and raced down to the beach, the lugger was gone."

Ms Hoult said her parents' trauma had shaped how they cared for their children.

"They didn't know how to love and show love," she said.

"Even on the day he died, dad could not say 'I love you'."

This intergenerational trauma was recognised by the federal government in the 2022 class action settlement.

The Shine Lawyers formula for dividing the settlement money was approved in court a year ago.

Ms Hoult said the wait for compensation was subjecting her and other claimants to further trauma.

"How much longer [is it] going to take and how many of us are going to pass away?" she said.

"Last year my sister passed away unexpectedly. We don't know what's going to happen to her claim."

Fellow claimant Brian Long is also worried.

His parents Agnes and John Long were taken from Ti Tree and Daly River to Garden Point as young children.

"If they wet the bed, they would be thrown down the [empty] well, and left there all day and night," he said.

"The priests gave them a good hiding, with their fists, and they were just kids."

Mr Long said he and his siblings experienced the results.

"They were harsh to us initially, because they were copying what the priests did to them," he said.

"Especially the older ones in our family, we got a good flogging.

"The generational trauma is passed on to us, it's quite terrible because we're living it, and Shine is now making it worse."

Claimant Benedict Vigona said he was worried he might die before any payments were made.

"We're all frustrated, and half of us are not very healthy, so it's time for Shine to come on," he said.

Shine has now said, in a statement: "We envisage the distribution of compensation will commence in late June to early July".

"Our team is continuing to determine the eligibility of a large number of registrations," the firm added.

That has left some claimants, including Ms Hoult, worried they may get nothing.

"Why can't they just tell us, what's the hold-up?" she said.