The workers were, the firm said, “forced to toil under the same laws that created the Stolen Generations”, and said conditions in which they worked were “akin to slavery”.

Shine argues that this “constitutes a breach of the Western Australian Government’s fiduciary duties and trusts, while the failure to provide a legal remedy for victims is in contravention of the Racial Discrimination Act”.

Jan Saddler (pictured), who is the firm’s head of class actions, said that wages were stolen as part of a labour scheme operating under the Native Administration Act 1936 and Native Welfare Act 1963 in Western Australia.

“Under these discriminatory laws, Indigenous Australians were not only separated from their families but forced to work for little or no money, locking them into a vicious cycle of poverty and disadvantage,” she proclaimed.

“They performed physically demanding jobs in harsh conditions akin to slavery and in some cases were only paid with bread and beef. While no amount of money can undo the harm done, these workers and their families deserve to be compensated for the inhumane way in which they were treated.”

The proceedings are being funded by Litigation Lending Services.

LLS chairman Shaun Bonétt said: “Our focus remains continuing to support First Nations people in their quest for justice from having their wages stolen and being subject to unimaginably difficult conditions for the betterment of Western Australia.”

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Ron Harrington-Smith, a class action member who was four years old when he was forcibly taken from his mother to work at the Mount Margaret Mission in the north-eastern Goldfields region to service gold mines, said: “I can vividly remember, I couldn’t stop myself from crying.”

In a statement, Shine said that Mr Harrington-Smith’s duties as a child included chopping and carting wood to missionaries in their houses, marshalling livestock and cleaning soiled toilet pans by emptying them down a mineshaft.

“All of this was barefoot and in squalid conditions. I worked on stations, marshalling sheep or cattle, and they might have given us some tucker, like spuds and onions, but we never got paid. It was a hard life in a drought-stricken country and then when I chased the station owners around for my pay, they would say they couldn’t pay me and they blamed the government,” he said.

“I believe in this class action because the government is at fault for taking children in an inhumane way. They snatched us as children and they had no mercy for us. It’s hard to imagine that we endured all this suffering. It is unfair and appalling, and they have to be found guilty of the facts and pay us back the stolen wages which are owed.”

The proceedings against the Western Australian government come as the parliamentary inquiry into litigation funding continues. Lawyers Weekly has been covering the various submissions to the inquiry from litigation funders, plaintiff and defendant firms and other interested stakeholders, all of which are available on the Lawyers Weekly website.

“Class actions offer hope to people who would otherwise struggle to fund legal action against governments and corporations with deep pockets and this case is no different,” Ms Saddler said.

Shine noted that anyone who is subject to the relevant legislation who had their wages stolen is eligible to join the class action, including descendants of deceased workers and their estates.