It includes a $59.5 million administrative scheme offering one-off financial payments of $75,000 to survivors "without the need for a lengthy and arduous legal process". Mrs Williams said the government "acknowledges the real and heartbreaking trauma caused by historic government policies and practices of removing Aboriginal children from their kin and country". Thousands of Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families by the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board or the Aborigines Protection Board between the late 1800s and the 1970s. It is estimated the number of Stolen Generations survivors in NSW today is about 730, although there may be as many as 1350. Fay Moseley, 70, was 10 when she was taken from her family to the Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home, while 72-year-old Shirley McGee was five.

The government-run homes sent the children to work as domestic servants and farm labourers. Ms McGee, who was snatched on the way to her aunty's place, never saw her parents again. "They told me my mother and father passed away," she said. Ms Moseley and six of her siblings were "picked up by the side of the road" in Leeton. She said the Stolen Generations "generated billions of dollars in revenue in terms of our work out in the farms and in houses". "None of us girls were paid," she said.

While compensation was welcome, Ms Moseley said it could not replace "the loss of your parents, the loss of your siblings" and children. Colin Davis, 69, was nine and under the care of his adoptive mother Aunty Shirl when he was taken from the Aboriginal mission in Cowra to the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys' Training Home. "We just thought we were going for a ride," Mr Davis said. He said the grief-stricken Aunty Shirl refused to leave the house for three months "because her kids got taken away from her". Lester Maher, 62, also a survivor of the Kinchela home, said "they called us by numbers" rather than names. He was number 11.

In a report released on June 23, a NSW upper house committee led by Greens MP Jan Barham recommended the government set up an administrative-based financial reparation scheme "similar to those which have been provided in Tasmania and South Australia". The report noted some survivors of the Stolen Generations had already been able to obtain compensation from the NSW government through the settlement of legal claims. However, the committee said an administrative scheme would simplify the process. Mrs Williams said the government had accepted the "vast majority" of the parliamentary committee's recommendations. "Together with the Premier I will establish a Stolen Generations advisory committee to ensure our response is implemented swiftly, effectively and respectfully but most importantly in partnership with Aboriginal people," she said. The response includes a $5 million "healing fund" to address "the impacts of trauma not only for survivors but also for their families, descendants and communities".

In a landmark 1997 report, Bringing them Home, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission recommended financial and non-financial reparations be made to members of the Stolen Generations. In 2007, the Tasmanian government set up a $5 million Stolen Generation Fund. The South Australian government set up a similar scheme in March which included $6 million for survivors. Kerrie Kelly, the network co-ordinator of the Coota Girls Aboriginal Corporation, said survivors were "cautiously optimistic" and looked forward to working with the government to implement the report's recommendations. "It is historic and has largely been the work of the survivors themselves that has put this on the agenda," Ms Kelly said. "Finding the courage to tell their own stories has made all the difference."