Stolen wages system 1909-1969
From 1909 to 1969, NSW laws allowed the Aborigines Protection Board to collect and keep the wages of Aboriginal people in trust accounts. This primarily impacted Aboriginal children who had been placed in apprenticeships. The system made it very difficult for people to access their wages. Labour practices such as unpaid wages, rations for payment and underpayment resulted in wages being stolen from Aboriginal people.
In 1909, the NSW Parliament gave the Aborigines Protection Board significant powers to control the lives of Aboriginal people when it passed the Aborigines Protection Act 1909 (NSW) (). This included the ability to place certain Aboriginal children in apprenticeships, where children were forced to work long hours usually in domestic and rural roles () (see SUB0087 and SUB0093 for more about apprenticeships). Additionally, the Board was given the power to collect the wages of apprentices.
While the laws began in 1909, the practice of apprenticing Aboriginal children and holding their wages was already occurring (), following the establishment of the Aborigines Protection Board in 1883 ().
Employers of apprentices were required to forward the wages (not including ‘pocket money’) to the Board (, ). ‘Pocket money’ was a small portion of the wages that was supposed to be given directly to the apprentice. However payment of pocket money was not checked by the Board and was not always paid (). The amount of ‘pocket money’ was set by law (see SUB0467 for more information about wages and pocket money).
In Parliament, it was said that it was necessary for the Board to collect and manage any wages payable to Aboriginal child apprentices because of reports that ‘most of the parents of apprentices and servants sent out on to stations would not consent to the wages being banked…’ ().
The Board could expend the wages as it saw fit, ‘in the interests of the child’ (). From 1944, the Board could spend money held on behalf of an Aboriginal apprentice ‘for or towards the maintenance, advancement, education or benefit of such [apprentice] at anytime before he attains the age of 21 years’. The balance was then to be paid to the apprentice when they turned 21 ().
In 1936 the Board’s power was expanded to direct the wages of those Aboriginal people under its control (ie not just apprentices) to the Board (). These collected wages were to be kept and expended solely on behalf of the Aboriginal person to which they belonged and an account kept of any expenditure (). This power was removed in 1963 (). It is not clear if it was used in practice (, ).
Record keeping
The law imposed record keeping and auditing requirements on the Board’s management of these funds (, , ), although it was not until 1941 that there was any law about record keeping in relation to pocket money (). Before this time, it was ‘presumably left to the discretion of the employers to administer pocket money as they saw fit, or the Board’s requirements were administrative rather than legal’ ().
However, the Board’s record-keeping was notoriously poor (, , , ) and there is ‘no evidence within the surviving records to indicate that the [Board] undertook these procedures either on a comprehensive or regular basis’ (). This lack of record-keeping made it extremely difficult for Aboriginal people to recover their wages (see SUB0465 for more about stolen wages repayments).
In the early 1900s, the Board Reports specifically detail the amount of money held in trust accounts (, , , , ). However, from the 1920s onwards, the Board reports lack this detail and do not refer to specific amounts held on trust (, , , , ).
The wages of apprentices collected by the Board, along with other funds belonging to Aboriginal people including some social security entitlements (), were ‘held in one large interest-bearing ‘Trust Account’ (opened in 1897) that was transferred from the Savings Bank department to the Rural Bank department of the Government Savings Bank in 1923’ ().
Use of trust monies
In practice it has been said the Board had ‘virtually free access to the trust monies’ (). In 1921 it was put towards a general expenditure blowout (). It was also spent on clothing and medical expenses which were supposed to be supplied by the employer and to account for property damage without the knowledge or consent of the apprentice ().
While the law permitted an Aboriginal person to access their money at the end of their apprenticeship (), this did not always happen ().
For example, during the 1920s Mary Hollis, a domestic servant, wrote to the Board for the payment of her trust fund monies. She was 25 and had been working as an apprentice for almost a decade. The Board records show she had been paid at a third-year rate since first becoming an apprentice. The Board promptly refused her request to access her trust fund monies and instead insisted she take a holiday. Only after persuasion and threats did the Board send her 5 Pounds. The Board did not record Mary’s application for her wages ().
In 1941, the Board’s Annual Report noted that action was being taken to advance the accumulated funds to ex-apprentices (later called wards) (). There were also notices provided in the 'Dawn Magazine' in 1958 attempting to 'acquaint' Aboriginal people of 'money standing to their credit trust accounts, long forgotten by them' ().
In addition to this formal system of witholding wages, Aboriginal people also had their wages stolen through underpayment and being given rations being instead of wages (see SUB0467).
The withholding of wages was just one element of a labour system that included coercion, violence and abuse, which some have described as resulting in slavery (). For more on laws relating to Aboriginal labour generally see SUB0463 (the apprenticeship system) and SUB0513 (adult labour).
The systemic misappropriation of wages had, and continues to have, significant negative impacts on Aboriginal people's economic, social and health outcomes. By being denied control of their wages, Aboriginal people did not historically have the opportunity to develop financial literacy skills or to save, which has led to a ‘cycle of poverty and dependance’ (, see also ).