Converting Past Injustices into a Positive Legacy

The Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Foundation is a charitable trust that was established by execution of a Trust Deed on 25 November 2008. The effect of the Trust Deed was to place an amount of money under the control of The Public Trustee of Queensland. That amount "almost $26 million" was to be held and invested to produce income, used to achieve the Trust's objectives:

• to provide scholarships to advance the education of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people in Queensland;

• to increase community awareness of the need to advance the education of Queensland's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people;

• to ensure engagement by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community with QATSIF; and

• to ensure the income produced is unending, and to secure additional financial support from the wider community for the Trust and the objectives it seeks to achieve.

While the income is used by QATSIF, the original amount given to The Public Trustee of Queensland to generate that income is preserved. Those funds represent the toil of previous generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Queenslanders who laboured under now-repealed control laws and policies. It was drawn from two sources: $10.8 million from the former Aborigines Welfare Fund and $15 million from the remaining unspent funds from the Indigenous Wages and Savings Reparations Scheme.

In recognition of the significance of these sources, the Trust Deed provides that this initial capital must always be preserved and identifiable separate from any income or future donations.