About the package

All applicants can access trauma-informed counselling. They can also access financial planning, legal advice and disability supports in relation to the Package.

Package options

If you are found eligible for the package, you can choose any and all of the following:

a $100,000 lump sum payment
a personal apology from the Victorian Government
support for healing programs such as family reunions, reconnecting to Country and language programs
an opportunity to record and share your story
access to State records about your removal.

Applications must be submitted by 31 March 2027. You can change or add to your package at any time until this date. These package options shall continue to be available for a period after the application closing date.

Funeral Fund

The Funeral Fund is provided alongside the Stolen Generations Reparations Package and is administered by Connecting Home(opens in a new window).

The fund provides financial support to the families of deceased Stolen Generations Members who have passed away on or after January 1, 2021. Eligible applicants are provided up to $10,000 to cover the costs of a funeral, headstone or plaque and/or repatriation of their Stolen Generation family member.

For more information go to Connecting Home's Stolen Generations Funeral Fund(opens in a new window) or call (03) 8679 0777.

Design of the package

The package was designed by the Stolen Generations Steering Committee (Steering Committee), made up of members of the Stolen Generations, their descendants and community-controlled support organisations.

This community-led process in 2020-21 ensured Aboriginal leadership in the creation of the package. The Steering Committee had input from over 400 members of the Stolen Generations and their families.

The Steering Committee’s Final Report(opens in a new window), with 56 recommendations, was submitted to Government in July 2021. The Government accepted the recommendations for the package design (part one) and is also committed to a whole of government response to part two of the final report. This will form part of the future work of the department.

Package governance

Stolen Generations Advisory Committee

Members of the Advisory Committee are all Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, and chosen through an open expression of interest process to provide advice to the department on the implementation of the Stolen Generations Reparations Package.

Members have deep ties into communities across Victoria. Their advice to the department calls on both their lived experience of Stolen Generation policies and their professional backgrounds. Their leadership will help make sure the process continues to be community led.

Aunt Annie is a proud Wotjobaluk Elder and member of the Stolen Generations. She’s been a long-time advocate for Stolen Generations rights, justice and health. Annie has been instrumental in shaping and advising the government in its efforts to deliver reparations to the Stolen Generations - sitting on the Stolen Generations Reparations Steering Committee in 2020-2021, and serving as founding Chair of the Stolen Generations Reparations Advisory Committee since the scheme commenced in March 2022.  
Annie’s dedication to the Stolen Generations was recognised when awarded the 2024 Victorian NAIDOC Female Elder of the Year.
Aunt Sandy is third generation member of the Stolen Generations, whose mother and grandmother were also removed from their families. Sandy was a member of the Stolen Generations Reparations Steering Committee and is a founding member of the Advisory Committee, where she was appointed Co-Chair in 2024. Inspired by the experience of connecting with her own Aboriginal ancestry as an adult, Sandy is a strong advocate for Stolen Generations reconnecting with community, as well as ensuring that young First Nations peoples’ and the disabled community’s cultural rights are upheld.
Sandy engages in meditation every morning that draws on Indigenous wisdom and spirituality to provide tools that foster wellbeing through mindfulness and building human connection with the earth.
Aunt Daria is a Stolen Generations member and advocate, working with and for Stolen Generations members across a range of roles in health and community organisations for the past few decades. She recently completed her qualifications in trauma-informed counselling and has worked for many years at the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service with Stolen Generations members and their families as a Bringing Them Home worker.
Daria is also an Elder of the Koori Courts sitting across northern Melbourne.
Aunty Gina lives and works on the unceded territories of the Kulin Nations in Naarm/Melbourne. Her family connections are to the Bundle, Stewart, Cooper, Carpenter & Penrith Families of the East Coast of Australia.
Gina is a Senior Possum Skin Cloak maker and is proud to play her part in the reclaiming of this cultural practice, of these sacred cultural entities of First Nations across the southeast of Australia. She works with organisations to bring the cultural practice of cloaks and healing into health and social justice settings. Gina was the Lead Artist in the creation of the Victorian Treaty Cloak working across Victoria with First Nations contributors in Treaty Workshops. The Victoria Treaty Possum Skin Cloak is a "Historical Document" in its own right.
Aunty Gina is also a Member of Reconciliation Victoria Cultural Council and Board Member for the Victorian Aboriginal Centre for Languages.
Uncle Rod is an experienced executive and board member, holding senior leadership positions for Aboriginal and community organisations across a wide range of sectors and fields. Rod’s contributed leadership and guidance to Aboriginal Co-operatives and Aboriginal health services, as well as government advisory and economic councils, major infrastructure projects, water boards, private corporations, and sporting organisations.
Rod also is a Respected Elder at the Melbourne Koori Court, Adult Magistrates Court, and Children’s Court, and volunteers his time with the Independent Visitor Program in Victorian prisons.
Aunt Trish deeply understands the intergenerational trauma of the Stolen Generations, growing up with a mother that was removed from her family and working closely with Aboriginal families through her role in the counselling services division at the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service (VAHS).
Prior to her role at VAHS, Trish provided culturally safe care and services to the Aboriginal community with positions as a Custody Notification Officer at the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, social work roles at hospitals in Melbourne, and volunteering with the Office of the Public Advocate as an Independent Visitor to people with physical and cognitive disabilities in interviews at Police Stations.
Jacinta is a proud Jaru Yawuru woman and mother to three young men, an artist, and a Research Fellow with the Monash University Indigenous Studies Centre.
Jacinta is an adoptee who, in 1998, approached Link-Up and began a lifetime journey of family reunification. Through life story narrative formation, Jacinta’s PhD thesis echoed the voices of many First Nations families who have and continue to look deeply into living memory, Country, historical textual records and the scholarship of others, to remember their ancestral lineage and love for themselves.
Jacinta advocates for First Nations family standpoints inside of the Academy, Indigenous family access to all the archives that relate to them, and processes of culturally informed intergeneration truth-telling and healing through life story research and writing. 
Dr Lyons is a proud Wiradjuri / Ngiyampaa / Ngunnawal woman based in Melbourne. She has a profound connection to her people and an unwavering commitment to addressing issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, including the stories and families of the Stolen Generations.
As an Academic Educator and Researcher in Indigenous Affairs, Rebecca is deeply passionate about advancing Indigenous knowledge systems and fostering a more inclusive research environment. 
Aunt Jemmes has been a public servant and Aboriginal community worker in the Mildura region for over 30 years, where she has helped to develop culturally appropriate policing, health and hospital services, and worked on cross-border education programs. Jemmes is dedicated to achieving better outcomes for Aboriginal community in the justice system, she is the Chair of the Loddon Mallee RAJAC and she sits on the Aboriginal Justice Caucus, volunteers on the Aboriginal Community Justice Panel, and has previously acted as an Aboriginal Community Liaison Officer for Victoria Police. She has received numerous high-profile awards for her contribution to Indigenous communities in Victoria, including a Public Service Medal.

The Independent Assessment Panel

The Independent Assessment Panel is a non-statutory committee established by the Department of Justice and Community Safety. The panel decides if those who apply are eligible for a Stolen Generations Reparations Package.

When making decisions, the panel considers the recommendations of the Stolen Generations Reparations Steering Committee(opens in a new window), the Bringing Them Home Report(opens in a new window) and the Package Guidelines, including the Package Guiding Principles.

Panel members have been selected because they are:

members or descendants of members of the Stolen Generations; and/or
have experience in law, policy development, advocacy, public administration, and decision-making on complex matters and/or redress schemes.

The panel currently has 10 members, including 2 deputy chairpersons. Most members are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Island persons.

A Yorta Yorta man, Ian has extensive government and community sector experience, particularly at executive and governance levels. Ian has overseen major policy and strategic reforms for government and community organisations. He works with people from a vast array of backgrounds, managing complex and sensitive relationships to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.
Ian chairs and is a member of a number of boards, including the Indigenous Land & Sea Corporation, the Community Broadcast Foundation, Connecting Home, The Healing Foundation, Holmesglen TAFE and the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is also devoting himself to improving the representation of Aboriginal people on boards and other high-level governance, through strategic action, advocacy and mentoring.
Tracey’s contributions for many years as a Victorian public servant have given her a clear understanding of her responsibility to be impartial and uphold the values of the Victorian Public Service. She is well versed in following guidelines and policies and has been an assessor of many applications for government.
Tracey is in her second term on the First Peoples Assembly of Victoria as a member for the Melbourne Metropolitan region, where she was the inaugural Chair of the Elders Voice and currently co-chairs the Yurpa Cultural Governance Committee. Her strong ability to uphold cultural protocols to balance good cultural governance is an asset to this role. Through the Yurpa Committee Tracey led the development of the guidelines and policy for Additional Pathways for Unrecognised Clans to join the Assembly. A descendant of Stolen Generation and niece of Archie Roach (OAM) she will always hold dear the survival of all Stolen Generations and will continue to advocate, remember and honour the legacy of our true warriors in our community.
Janeene is a Wiradjuri woman residing in Dja Dja Wurung Country. She has lived experiences of the effects of the Stolen Generations and intergenerational trauma caused by removal of children. She has spent many years reviewing and accessing applications across a variety of different sectors with varied application processes.
Janeene has served on many boards in the public and private sectors, which have given her sound understanding of the legal system and policy skills which are be valuable in the work of the panel and follow the same guiding principles where set criteria must be met. She has extensive experience in understanding complex selection processes and ensuring that eligibility criteria are used to determine outcomes.
Christopher is a GunaiKurnai man living in Gippsland on country. He is a Stolen Generations descendant from his father who is a survivor/victim, as was his grandmother and her siblings.
Chris has worked across areas including Aboriginal Community Services, Aboriginal Legal Services, Aboriginal Health, Aboriginal Mental Health and Aboriginal Forensic Mental Health.
Chris previously served as Co-Chair of the Stolen Generations Reparations Package Advisory Committee and is familiar with the recommendations of Stolen Generations Reparations Steering Committee as well the guidelines for the process of applications.
Chris is a Wotjobaluk man from the Wimmera. He is the Co-Chair of the Aboriginal Justice Caucus, the self-determining body that has provided state-wide Aboriginal representation and leadership and a strong voice to the Victoria Government for over 24 years.
Chris has worked in various roles in the community over the past 19 years ranging in justice, community services, education and employment, including sitting on various committees, forums and boards across grassroots to state-wide level in Victoria.
Chris is currently the State-wide Chairperson and State Coordinator for the Aboriginal Community Justice Panels that provide advocacy and welfare support to Aboriginal People when they are taken into custody this service has been running for over 30 plus years and was one of the recommendations from the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) 1991.
Felicia is a proud Yorta Yorta woman, and mother of two and grandmother to five. She is the Chief Executive Officer of Rumbalara Aboriginal Co-Operative, which delivers community care, health and wellbeing services to the First Nations community in and around Shepparton.
Felicia has a strong background in Aboriginal Affairs and the Community-controlled sector, and supports the Communities model based on self-determination, and flexibility as the way forward for addressing the disparity across Australia for Aboriginal communities.
Cassandra Seery is a legal academic, researcher and public policy professional who is dedicated to First Nations’ justice and children’s rights. She is currently based at Melbourne Law School, having previously worked at Deakin University’s NIKERI Institute (formerly the Institute of Koorie Education). Cassandra also has experience working in the not-for-profit sector and the Victorian Public Service, specialising in Indigenous Peoples’ rights and youth justice.
An experienced leader, strategist and advocate, Cassandra has served as a board member with Amnesty International Australia and the Bravehearts Foundation. She is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and holds a Bachelor of Arts (Dist) / Bachelor of Laws (Hons), a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice, and a Master of Laws (specialising in international and human rights law).
Nicole is a senior legal professional with extensive experience in public policy and is passionate about human rights. Nicole has worked in specialist human rights-related areas for most of her career and has experience in leading teams, strategic policy and advice, and in developing and implementing law reform.
She has worked in a wide range of organisational contexts including Aboriginal-led organisations, government, justice system reform, and tertiary education. She has also developed and led teams of consultants in the area of diversity and inclusion, as well as designed and delivered consultancy services and workplace training.
Dr Bari is a senior law academic who specialises in human rights and Australian Constitutional law, including a thorough understanding of the historical and cultural contexts surrounding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies.
He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Law and the Deputy Head (Research) at the Thomas More Law School, Australian Catholic University, where his teaching and research focus on law reforms necessary to inform changes for upholding democratic values, such as safeguarding the fundamental human rights of individuals- particularly, vulnerable communities.
Stephanie is a senior legal professional specialising in human rights and public interest law and policy. Stephanie has worked for a variety of government departments, non-government agencies and statutory bodies including Victoria Legal Aid, and eight years at the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (VEOHRC). She is currently General Counsel at the Victorian Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission.

Law & justice

Updated 3 December 2024