In April 2008, PIAC and the Australian Human Rights Centre made a submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s Inquiry into the Stolen Generation Compensation Bill. This submission proposed:

• a Stolen Generations Reparations Tribunal, drawing on PIAC’s previous extensive work developing a Reparations Tribunal model
• a draft Stolen Generations Reparations Bill
• a model of reparation that includes an acknowledgement and apology, guarantees against repetition, measures of restitution and rehabilitation and monetary compensation.

Unfortunately, the Committee did not recommend the establishment of a Reparations Tribunal, but its report acknowledged:

• strong support for the provision of monetary compensation
• monetary compensation is only one component of reparations
• the issue of reparations needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

Senators from the Australian Democrats and the Greens endorsed PIAC’s Reparations Tribunal proposal, calling for immediate legislation to provide full reparations to the Stolen Generations. 

Although a national reparations tribunal has not yet been successful, PIAC notes that state tribunals have occurred in Western Australia, Queensland and Tasmania, and one is being considered in South Australia. Therefore PIAC is focusing its energies on advocating for a NSW reparations tribunal, modelled on the tribunal suggested by PIAC’S national consultation project (called Moving forward: achieving reparations) which resulted in the report Restoring Identity.