By Rich Bowden:

The Supreme Court today dismissed an appeal by the South Australian Government against a landmark 2007 decision to compensate a member of the Stolen Generation.

The Court ruled that the $775,000 payment for Mr Bruce Trevorrow — who had been awarded the sum as compensation for being taken from his parents as a child more than 50 years ago — was legal and dismissed the South Australian Government’s challenge.

Mr Trevorrow died in 2008, not long after he became the first member of the Stolen Generations to be awarded compensation.

The State Government said it had pursued the case, not to seek a return of the money paid to Mr Trevorrow, but to clarify the legal point on which the case rests.

Despite the victory, Claire O’Connor — counsel acting on behalf of the Trevorrow family — said it did not necessarily pave the way for more cases of compensation for members of the Stolen Generation.

“You have to remember that in 1997 Bruce Trevorrow issued proceedings against the state of South Australia. We’re now in 2010,” she said to the ABC.

“Millions of dollars have been spent by both the commonwealth and the state in this matter and for another child to take on the government in this way would be extremely difficult.

“It does uphold that there was a breach of the duty of care towards Mr Trevorrow in the way they removed him and it upholds that the state was wrong in the way that he was removed,” Ms O’Connor added.

She told reporters outside the court that a proper scheme to compensate those who have suffered should be introduced.

“It’s time to spend the money on indigenous people, not on white lawyers,” she said.

“We need to set up a scheme and compensate those people who have suffered.”

Tags: aboriginal justice, bruce trevorrow, stolen generation, supreme court