Compensation for the Stolen Children: Political Judgments and Community Values

A number of the recommendations of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families focused on means of compensating for the harms done to those taken from their families. In its submission to the Inquiry, the Commonwealth Government raised as a concern the difficulty in estimating the monetary value of losses, on the grounds that there is no comparable area of awards of compensation and no basis for arguing a quantum of damage from first principles.