b'The first Stolen Generation trialsKruger v The Commonwealth of Australia and Bray v The Commonwealth of AustraliaFor 60,000 years First Nations peoples have lived on the landimplied constitutional rights (including the rights to legal now called Australia. The arrival of European settlers hadequality, freedom from genocide and freedom of movement a devastating impact on First Nations peoples, who wereand association). Declarations of invalidity were sought, violently displaced from their traditional lands.as well as damages for infrigement of those rights and for wrongful imprisonment at common law. It was the first In the Northern Territory the Australian Government assumedcase of its kind in Australia.control of First Nations peoples under the Aboriginals Ordinance 1918 and a chief protector was appointed as theThe High Court delivered its judgment on the constitutional legal guardian of every aboriginal and of every half-castequestions in 1997, upholding the validity of the ordinance.child until the age of eighteen, regardless of whether the child had any living parents or relatives. The Northern TerritoryWhile the court did not accept that the ordinance was ordinance empowered the chief protector to remove anyinvalid, the proceedings were significant in highlighting aboriginal or half-caste child and place them in a reserve orits devastating impact. Though neither Kruger nor Bray institution, a practice that resulted in what is now known aswas awarded compensation, these pioneering trials were the Stolen Generation. an important step towards prime minister Kevin Rudds apology to Australias Indigenous peoples in 2008.Alec Kruger was the son of Yrambul Nungarai, a Mudpurra woman, and Frank Kruger, a man of German and IrishThe firm continues to undertake pro bono work seeking descent. Alec was three years of age when he was takenrecompense for members of the Stolen Generation. In from his mother in 1982 and institutionalised at the Kahlin2011 it achieved the first Victorian compensation payment Compound. Arrente man George Bray was taken from hisfor Neville Austin, who was fifteen months old when he family at the age of nine.was taken into the care of the state. Austin was not even informed of his Indigenous heritage. For the next sixteen In 1994 Arthur Robinson & Hedderwicks agreed to supportyears his mother fought to have her son returned. The firm the North Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service in thesecured an undisclosed compensation settlement for Austin, preparation and conduct of legal proceedings in the Highas well as a personal letter of apology from the Victorian Court of Australia for Alec Kruger, George Bray and sevenGovernment for his mistreatment as a ward of the stateother plaintiffs. and as a member of the Stolen Generation. In the proceedings filed in 1995 it was asserted that theFor Austin the apology was more significant than the ordinance was invalid because it was not a law for themoney. His battle through the courts was undertaken, he government of the territories, it infringed the separationsays, to vindicate my mums actions in seeking my returnof powers doctrine, it breached the express constitutionalto her care. The settlement represents that vindication.right to freedom of religion, and it infringed a number of 212'