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'Stolen Generations' court decision highlights differing laws for indigeous Australians : Comments
By Brendan O'Reilly, published 31/1/2017Why then should the estates of Indigenous persons be treated differently? His Honour identified two reasons.
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I didn't know this and when my aboriginal husband died in 1991 I was amazed to receive a letter from the Aboriginal Legal Service informing me of the fact. Not that it was a problem, he didn't have any estate to disperse and from my dealings with the Public Trustee, they appeared very impartial in their decisions.
What I did gain from all this was a pile of old Native Welfare papers giving us access to unknown family history. These papers were what the Public Trustee used to decide that my husband was in fact more than one quarter aboriginal. The whole family were grateful to receive this history.
This law changed in 2013 to bring it in line with non indigenous inheritance laws.