NT: Judge to decide on stolen generation case

AAP General News (Australia)
04-29-1999
NT: Judge to decide on stolen generation case

DARWIN, April 29 AAP - A Federal Court judge will tomorrow announce whether a landmark law
suit by two members of the so-called "stolen generation" can go ahead.

Much is at stake, including embarrassment for Prime Minister John Howard and the
possibility of thousands of similar lawsuits from other Aborigines who were taken from their
families as children in the '40s and '50s.

The federal government's lawyers have asked Justice Maurice O'Loughlin to throw out the
case.

They claim too much time has passed, too many crucial documents have been lost and too many
key witnesses have died for there to be a fair trial.

They have argued that instead of being stolen from their families and communities, the two
people trying to sue the government - 61-year-old Lorna Cubillo and 50-year-old Peter Gunner -
were rescued from communities which treated them as outcasts because their fathers were white.

Lawyers for Ms Cubillo and Mr Gunner, however, have claimed their clients have suffered
lifelong mental anguish as a result of being taken from their communities and forced to
assimilate into white society.

They have told Justice O'Loughlin that documents revealed that the government policy of
removing part-Aboriginal children from their families was born out of a fear by whites of
being outnumbered by "half-caste" Aborigines.

Justice O'Loughlin was told that the removal of Ms Cubillo and Mr Gunner from their
communities was meant to wipe away any vestige of their Aboriginality and that it was
contemptible conduct even by the standards of the time.

Before the case began at the start of March this year, the designer of the Aboriginal flag,
Harold Thomas, told about 80 people on the court steps it was an historic day.

He said the case was an opportunity for Australia to thoroughly scrutinise its history, to
confront what he said was its dark past.

Whether Justice O'Loughlin agrees will be known by about 4pm CST tomorrow.

AAP wjh/jnb/br

KEYWORD: STOLEN (CARRIED EARLIER)

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