VIDEO: The Price of Justice

'The Price of Justice'

4 August 2025

Four Corners

NEWSREADER: The largest class action settlement in Australian history.

REPORTER: Families crying out for answers and compensation.

MOVIE CLIP: A class action? Let him finish.

ANNE CONNOLLY, REPORTER: Hollywood's shown the power of class actions.

MOVIE CLIP: The judge came back with a number.

ANNE CONNOLLY: How ordinary people can take on huge corporations and win.

MOVIE CLIP: He's gonna make them pay $333 million.

ANNE CONNOLLY: In the real world, it's the lawyers and those investing in class actions, earning hundreds of millions of dollars.

KEITH PITMAN: I really smelt a rat when you'd ask questions and you wouldn't get a straightforward answer.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Some treating their clients with total contempt.

CHRIS BOTSMAN, LAWYER: The whole strategy was an attempt to crush my Mum.

PETER CASHMAN, BARRISTER: Profitability has become the prevailing mantra. The transaction costs are high, the legal costs are high, the funding commissions are high, and the ultimate people who pay the price are the class members.

ANNE CONNOLLY: When class actions win, more than half the payout can disappear in legal fees and commissions. And it's often the disadvantaged who suffer the most. Do you know how much they took in fees, Minnie, the lawyers?

ANNE CONNOLLY: What's your opinion of it all?

GEORGE DANN, CLASS MEMBER: It's woeful. We get the scraps once again.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Without class actions, those who've been exploited would get nothing. You're really betting on the class action being successful.

JOHN WALKER, ASSOCIATION OF LITIGATION FUNDERS OF AUSTRALIA: We don't see it as gambling. We see it as investing.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Victims say they're taking too much. In the past two decades, litigation funders have earned a billion dollars.

SHARON TODD, CLASS MEMBER: We are being used over and over again to make money for other people. How are these people sleeping at night?

ANNE CONNOLLY: In this episode of Four Corners, we ask: are class actions delivering justice for ordinary Australians, or have they simply become a money-making exercise? We reveal how those who fund class actions are making massive profits while law firms pocket huge fees, leaving people they represent feeling exploited all over again.

TITLE: ."THE PRICE OF JUSTICE"

ANNE CONNOLLY: In the gold rush town of Ballarat many retirees had their savings in a little-known investment firm, Banksia Securities. Eighty-nine-year-old former bus driver and plane spotter Keith Pitman was one of them.

KEITH PITMAN, BANKSIA SECURITIES INVESTOR: It was 1400 odd around Ballarat, 16,000 statewide. And the largest number of retirees. And I'd imagine now there's probably a third to probably close to half have passed away.

ANNE CONNOLLY: When Banksia collapsed in 2012, many of those retirees were left with nothing.

KEITH PITMAN: Banksia went down to the tune of $660 million. We'd lost a few dollars. Some people had hundreds of thousands and so forth, and some of it was their retirement savings in there. You know, it's just colossal.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Keith was on a committee working with the receivers to try and claw back the lost money.

KEITH PITMAN: I don't fully understand legal work and what's involved but it appeared the receivers did most of the hard work.

ANNE CONNOLLY: That's when a high-flying lawyer named Mark Elliott and his legal team proposed another solution: a class action.

KEITH PITMAN: Well, I thought it was a good idea initially. You trust your lawyer, you know, they're supposedly the most trustworthy people in our society.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Class actions are expensive to run. That's why there are companies, called litigation funders, that invest in them. In return, they take a commission from any payout. In the Banksia case, the class action lawyers were also the litigation funders.

KEITH PITMAN: I didn't know what the lawyers were charging. I had no idea. That only came out later.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Like most of the group, Keith didn't know all the details. The only person consulted throughout a class action is "the lead plaintiff" – someone who represents the group, and approves the costs and any payout.

BANKSIA SECURITIES INVESTOR: It's embarrassing that you can't pay your bills.

ANNE CONNOLLY: After five long years, the lawyers negotiated a $64-million settlement. Of that, they'd take $5.2 million in legal costs and just over $14 million in commission for funding the case. More than $19 million in total – almost a third of the settlement. Virtually everyone agreed to the deal – except Keith Pitman.

ANNE CONNOLLY: When you first saw the amount of fees that were going to be taken by the lawyers, what was your reaction?

KEITH PITMAN: Oh, shocked. Just exorbitant fees. It just didn't seem right.

ANNE CONNOLLY: The other investors had faith in the class action lawyers but Keith Pitman didn't trust them.

KEITH PITMAN: I really smelt a rat when you'd asked questions and you wouldn't get a straightforward answer. I'd been on this Banksia committee and I had a feeling things weren't right. So, that's why I objected. There was only two of us objected, out of 16 odd thousand.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Another state away, retired Adelaide nurse Wendy Botsman was also worried.

WENDY BOTSMAN, BANKSIA SECURITIES INVESTOR: Very nervous about where it was going to head.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Like most of the retirees, Wendy was out of her depth. Fortunately, she had a lawyer for a son.

CHRIS BOTSMAN, LAWYER: This is part of the problem because by definition, class members are vulnerable. Something bad has happened to a large group of people, and they don't necessarily have any background in the law.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Chris Botsman came to the same conclusion as Keith.

CHRIS BOTSMAN: The amount of money that the class action was seeking to claim in terms of fees and commission looked high.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Wendy and Keith both objected – but the class action settlement was still approved as "fair and reasonable" by the court. Their only option was to lodge an appeal. That's when the class action lawyers began a campaign of intimidation.

WENDY BOTSMAN: Uh, where to start. They wanted to serve papers on me and then there was the letter from the solicitor saying that, you know, I could end up losing my house if I went ahead with it.

ANNE CONNOLLY: And how did that make you feel?

WENDY BOTSMAN: Frightened.

CHRIS BOTSMAN: We're piecing together the story. It was horrendous for Mum because she was fearful that the total exposure that she faced if we were unsuccessful would be financially crippling.

WENDY BOTSMAN: I thought we would be looked after, that lawyers go in to fight for you.

ANNE CONNOLLY: When the appeal finally made it to court an elaborate fraud began unravelling.

CHRIS BOTSMAN: Orders were made for their legal team to produce documents, and one solution that they came up with was to fabricate documents.

ANNE CONNOLLY: The court found the lawyers had "fraudulently backdated invoices", to "gouge costs" out of the settlement. Mark Elliott and another lawyer were exposed as "masterminds" of a "dishonest and fraudulent scheme".

CHRIS BOTSMAN: They placed paid stamps on invoices. They tried to create the impression of having done a lot of work. These people were involved in class actions for personal enrichment. They're so close to getting away with a $20 million heist.

ANNE CONNOLLY: On October 11, 2021, Victoria's Supreme Court handed down its findings. The court was scathing, saying the attempt to claim more than $19 million in fees and commissions from a group of elderly investors was "dishonourable" and "fraudulent". The judge described it as "one of the darkest chapters" in Victoria's legal history.

ANNE CONNOLLY: As the shocking details were laid bare, lawyer Mark Elliott took his own life. Months later, an expert who'd signed off on the legal costs also died by suicide. He wasn't accused of any wrongdoing.

CHRIS BOTSMAN: He was put in the horrible position that he was put in by the greed and entitlement of Mark Elliott. There were days when I felt like throwing up, there were days when I felt as though my chest was being squeezed in a vice.

ANNE CONNOLLY: In the wake of the fraud, three other lawyers were struck off. The Banksia scandal would never have been discovered except for a lawyer and two determined retirees.

KEITH PITMAN: I felt obligated to get a better deal, particularly for the World War II veterans that put their life on the line for our country. And these rotters have ripped them off. That's what really gets under my craw.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Do you think, without Chris, you would have been able to pursue this?

WENDY BOTSMAN: No way. No.

ANNE CONNOLLY: The Banksia case shows the power imbalance between sophisticated class action players and their often vulnerable clients.

CHRIS BOTSMAN: I think that the only reason that it was exposed was a coincidence. And the coincidence was that one of the class members, my mother, happened to have a lawyer as a son, and a lawyer as a son who had experience in class actions.

NEWSREADER: Thousands of survivors of the deadliest Black Saturday bushfire have won nearly half a billion dollars in compensation.

ANNE CONNOLLY: From natural disasters to corporate scandals…

REPORTER: Today there is an element of relief.

ANNE CONNOLLY: … for victims, joining a class action is often their only chance of compensation and justice.

CLASS MEMBER: We've had to sue our own government to get the justice that we deserve.

REPORTER: The return to each claimant will vary and about 12 per cent will go towards lawyers' costs.

ANNE CONNOLLY: But some say they've become a money-making machine.

PETER CASHMAN, BARRISTER: This case has gone on far too long. It's been far too expensive.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Peter Cashman was the king of class actions in the '90s, when most lawyers took cases on a 'no win, no fee' basis. Everything changed, he says, when a High Court decision 19 years ago allowed litigation funders to invest in class actions.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Most people think class actions are initiated by a group of victims. That's not the case anymore, is it?

PETER CASHMAN: It's very rare that the case will be initiated by someone simply because they have a grievance. Quite often they're orchestrated by a combination of commercial funders and law firms. They will often identify a potential claim and proactively seek out people who might be potential class members, and then hopefully sign them up.

ANNE CONNOLLY: If a class action leads to a settlement, and the judge approves it, the lawyers and funder receive a large slice of the payout.

PETER CASHMAN: The transaction costs are high, the legal costs are high, the funding commissions are high, and the ultimate people who pay the price are the consumers or the class members who get substantially reduced settlements. That's out of kilter with what's happening elsewhere in the world and would simply not be permitted.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Litigation funders aren't regulated in Australia. That's meant overseas players – including those based in tax havens – have flooded the market. They can get two to three times their investment back – sometimes more.

PETER CASHMAN: Australia has become a honeypot for commercial investors in litigation. They're not in it for love and they're not in it to further the interests of access to justice.

ANNE CONNOLLY: They're in it for the money.

PETER CASHMAN: They're in it for the money. Unfortunately, profitability has become the prevailing mantra.

JOHN WALKER, ASSOCIATION OF LITIGATION FUNDERS OF AUSTRALIA: I'm a farmer's son. I come at this from a social justice bent. We're a for-profit industry and we seek to maximise profit as much as we can, but at the same time seek to focus on creating value.

ANNE CONNOLLY: John Walker pioneered litigation funding in Australia – he co-founded one of the world's largest funders, now worth more than $400 million.

JOHN WALKER: I'm absolutely proud of what's happened with class actions in Australia. They're absolutely essential to create accountability in respect of the big companies and governments.

ANNE CONNOLLY: He says legal costs are too high for the average person, and that's where funders step in.

JOHN WALKER: We underwrite the project. We'll pay everybody if we lose, but in return, if we win, then we get a share of the recovery.

ANNE CONNOLLY: You're really betting on the class action being successful.

JOHN WALKER: We don't see it as gambling. We see it as investing. It's a market and I don't step away from that.

ANNE CONNOLLY: When a litigation funder invests in a class action, the victims, on average, get less than 60 per cent of the payout. And in some cases, less than half.

ANNE CONNOLLY: If they're getting 50 per cent or less of the settlement, is that fair?

JOHN WALKER: I don't think it's a success. Fairness is a-, is a big part of it. But it's not just the money, it's also making the behaviour accountable. Now, class actions do two things. One is seek to compensation, and the other is to create a deterrent to-, to-, to show that big end is going to be accountable for its behaviour.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Class actions are now so common there's at least one launched every week, on average. Leading law firm Maurice Blackburn signed up thousands of taxi drivers after Uber decimated their business.

ANNE CONNOLLY: So just how bad was it for you guys when Uber entered the market?

STEPHEN LACAZE, TAXI OWNER: Oh, it was devastating. People virtually went into shock.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Queensland taxi owner Stephen Lacaze says his licence – once valued at half a million dollars – is now virtually worthless. He says drivers now need to work around the clock to make a living.

STEPHEN LACAZE: Young guys that had bought in and that were up to their neck in debt, they never saw their family.

ANNE CONNOLLY: When Maurice Blackburn proposed a class action, Stephen Lacaze was quick to sign up.

STEPHEN LACAZE: They arranged a couple of information sessions. Maurice Blackburn sent up a couple of personnel. Very professional, very inspiring. We were friendless, and here comes Maurice Blackburn with their Bradman-like batting averages and their, 'We Fight For Fair' banner and we're there with bells on.

ANNE CONNOLLY: The case was bankrolled by an offshore firm, Harbour Litigation Funding –registered in the Cayman Islands tax haven. They'd take 30 per cent of the proceeds. Stephen says he agreed to this, hoping the likely payout would be in the billions.

ANNE CONNOLLY: So therefore, if you were going to lose 30 per cent of billions of dollars of payout, it didn't seem such a big price to pay.

Stephen Lacaze: No.

ANNE CONNOLLY: The night before the trial was due to start in March last year, Maurice Blackburn brokered a deal.

NEWSREADER: Uber will pay $272 million in a settlement to compensate taxi and hire car drivers.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Stephen saw it as a slap in the face.

STEPHEN LACAZE: We were never consulted: 'Is this okay? This is about how much you'll get. Is that a fair enough deal?' If I had mounted this legal action on my own, one-to-one, with a law firm, I cannot believe that they would, without very, very specific instructions from me, enter into a binding settlement with the defendant.

ANNE CONNOLLY: The reality is, only the lead plaintiff needs to be consulted about a proposed settlement. From the almost $272 million-dollar settlement, Harbour received an $81.5 million commission – a more than 250 per cent return on their investment. Maurice Blackburn received almost 39 million in legal costs. That left thousands of drivers with just over half the payout.

ANNE CONNOLLY: And so how much do you expect to get of the payout?

STEPHEN LACAZE: The projection is something like $43,000 minus the legal fees and funding fees. So just a little bit more than half of that.

ANNE CONNOLLY: A little bit more than $20,000?

STEPHEN LACAZE: Yep.

ANNE CONNOLLY: It was not anywhere near what you expected.

STEPHEN LACAZE: No. They've thrown a few dollars at it and, it looks like they've got what they need and that's what matters.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Stephen never saw how Maurice Blackburn's $39-million-dollar legal bill was calculated. The firm kept those details hidden from the public under a court order, and ignored our request to see the report.

STEPHEN LACAZE: It's funny because there's lots of things that were hidden behind the cloak of confidentiality and some things apparently more confidential than others. The costs of Maurice Blackburn, supposedly very confidential.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Maurice Blackburn wouldn't do an interview with Four Corners. The firm said the settlement was assessed as "fair and reasonable" and approved by the Supreme Court of Victoria. It was "the fifth highest class action settlement in Australian history". Around 98 per cent of the members signed an agreement with the litigation funder. Harbour Litigation Funding told us the case was long running, hard fought and complex, and that group members were told about the commission.

ANNE CONNOLLY: John Walker wasn't involved in the Uber case – he was prepared to go on camera on behalf of litigation funders. The taxi drivers in the Uber class action got just over half the settlement of $272 million. Is that fair?

JOHN WALKER: The same question: is that fair. Look, I don't think it's fair that, in circumstances where there has been identified bad behaviour and where it's breached our norms and we've tried to do the best we can to achieve 100 per cent recovery for losses caused by that bad behaviour.

ANNE CONNOLLY: In Canberra, there's been a battle over class action law firms and litigation funders.

DAVID HUGHES, MENZIES RESEARCH CENTRE: We have a system where litigation funders who were taking sometimes 30, 40 per cent of the settlement away from victims, operate in a largely unregulated environment. In many instances, you could argue that they have less regulation than real estate agents or mortgage brokers.

ANNE CONNOLLY: The Morrison government tried to crack down on lawyers and funders by capping their fees and commissions at 30 per cent of the settlement. And forcing funders to be licensed by ASIC. Labor was opposed.

DAVID HUGHES: The legislative proposals never ultimately went through the parliament because of the Labor opposition, but there are no rules or regulations in place at the moment.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Why would Labor oppose reforms that meant that group members would get 70 per cent of any settlement?

DAVID HUGHES: We know historically that the Labor Party has had strong links with what we call these plaintive law firms. So, think of the Slater & Gordons and the Maurice Blackburns. They're often seen as a training ground for future Labor politicians, you know, the likes of Julia Gillard and others. But they're also financial backers for the Australian Labor Party. Clearly Labor was lobbied by these plaintiff law firms. Labor was sympathetic to the cause of these plaintiff law firms, but ultimately these plaintiff law firms just knew that their profit share was at risk if these reforms went through.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Maurice Blackburn said it "actively engaged with decision-makers to make sure everyday Australians were better represented by the law". The Attorney General's office told us that class actions provide an important pathway for Australians who might otherwise be denied justice. John Walker says the Coalition and the Liberal Party-aligned Menzies Research Centre have their own agenda.

JOHN WALKER: You know, Coalition to a large extent wants-, and through the Menzies Research Centre, does want to look after the big end of town.

DAVID HUGHES: Absolutely not. We actually haven't received, to the best of my knowledge, any money from any business that's currently facing a class action. We now operate in a system where there is very little regulation, transparency and oversight for litigation funders.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Since there's not any real regulation of the litigation funders, is there any other investment class which makes such big profits that isn't regulated?

JOHN WALKER: Big profits, no regulation, so they're the basis for your question? I disagree with both. First, we are regulated daily. The system has a capacity to-, to-, to do the best it can. It has checks and balances. The first one is for claimants. They have a capacity and the court is open to hear from each and every one of them, uh, and have their day in court. We are regulated every day on a bespoke basis we need to submit to the court and say, you tell us what we are going to get paid. And in my view, it's wrong to say we're not regulated. And I also say and believe that we aren't overpaid.

LAWYER: Aboriginal men, women and children who worked for little or no pay. Many cases were tantamount to slavery.

ANNE CONNOLLY: It's one of the most wretched and little-known chapters in the nation's history.

FR KEVIN MCKELSON, PRIEST: The state expects us to civilise these people. That's the philosophy.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Thousands of Aboriginal men, women and children forced to work on missions and outback stations, for little or nothing.

ROBERT TUDAWALI, ACTOR: They all got sick and tired of this, getting pushed around a lot.

ANNE CONNOLLY: After successive governments largely ignored this shameful treatment, Australia's largest litigation funder saw an opportunity. Litigation Lending Services enlisted Shine Lawyers and launched class actions in WA and the Northern Territory. They began signing up indigenous workers – and their descendants – who were exploited from the 1930s to the early '70s. We've been trying to find Minnie McDonald. She's the woman that Shine signed up as its lead plaintiff in the Northern Territory Stolen Wages class action. Now, Minnie's in her 90s and she's never spoken publicly. In fact, all we've had is a photograph that Shine provided. But after we applied for some court documents, we found a number for Minnie. So we gave her a call and she's agreed to talk to us. Minnie started working at Lake Nash station near the Queensland border at age 14.

MINNIE MCDONALD, LEAD PLAINTIFF: Well, they used to help us with a little bit tucker. Sugar, flour, rice. They used to put them in the bag, you know, a little bit-, a little bit of tea leaf.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Her family was paid in rations. Minnie says sometimes the station managers would kill cattle and give her family the leftovers.

MINNE MCDONALD: They kill a bullock for themselves, you know, get meat, everything at the station and bring a bone for all the people in the camp.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Oh, you would just get the bones?

MINNIE MCDONALD: Yeah and bullock foot. Everything. We had to cook 'em anywhere. My mother used to cook it and cook it. Uh, bone, back bone, leg bone, everything. You know, everybody-, everybody come up, share that, you know, any old way. Yeah, that was early days. Long time ago, you know.

ANNE CONNOLLY: As the lead plaintiff, Minnie had a crucial role in reviewing and signing legal documents for the class action. But Minnie can't read or write. And did they know that you, that you're not able to read?

MINNIE MCDONALD: Everybody know, yeah.

ELIZABETH MCDONALD, GRANDDAUGHTER: But the Shine Lawyer mob?

MINNIE MCDONALD: Yeah, I told, I told 'em right there.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Her granddaughter Elizabeth helped Minnie make sense of all the paperwork.

ANNE CONNOLLY: So when you had to read all those documents, who was doing that for you?

ELIZABETH MCDONALD: Myself and the lawyer. The lawyer sort of broke it down a bit and I translated and tell Nanna Minnie what it was all about. Yeah.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Minnie signed one document, that proposed an almost $11 million increase to Shine's costs.

MERVYN STREET, LEAD PLAINTIFF: I was growing up and I used to work on a station. I was too young to get pay.

ANNE CONNOLLY: The lead plaintiff in the WA class action was Mervyn Street. He can't read or write either.

ANNE CONNOLLY: When asked about Minnie and Mervyn's capacity to understand legal and financial issues, Shine said it used Aboriginal barristers to bridge communication and cultural barriers.

Shine said both received independent legal advice.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Shine travelled to more than a hundred indigenous communities in WA and the NT to sign people up to the Stolen Wages cases. Traditional owners from the resource-rich Pilbara – Sharon Todd, her sister Jenny Baraga and cousin George Dann, joined the class action with thousands of others.

SHARON TODD, CLASS MEMBER: I just thought it was, was great that our mob was finally going to-, like my dad and my mum were finally going to be recognised for the work that they did.

SHARON TODD: That is our mother's mother. She was born in 1900.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Their grandmother was forcibly removed from her home in the 1940s.

JENNY BARAGA, CLASS MEMBER: Our father used to talk about how that day, with her on the rock, they made a spectacle of her.

ANNE CONNOLLY: This photo shows her wearing shackles around her ankles. She's wearing shackles, why?

JENNY BARAGA: Yes, they shackled her. She was dressed up in this outfit originally, and they eventually were brought into town and she was stripped of her clothing after that.

SHARON TODD: Dad tells this story, and they chained her up so the kids wouldn't run away.

GEORGE DANN, CLASS MEMBER: There's an area there. It had a big ring on it. And they chained them to that ring.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Some of those kids and later their children worked on outback stations. George Dann began working as a teenager.

GEORGE DANN: I started work when I was 13, 14 years old. I worked on the station. Three pound a week. They gave you tin of tobacco. I got a tin of tobacco, and there was my wages for the rest of the week from sun up to sundown, seven days a week.

ANNE CONNOLLY: These women from the remote community of Titjikala, south of Alice Springs, all signed up. Artist Nita Ferguson is in her '70s. She began working on cattle stations as a child.

NITA FERGUSON, CLASS MEMBER: I used to work like rinsing dishes and washing plates and wiping down plates.

ANNE CONNOLLY: What age were you when you started doing that?

NITA FERGUSON: I must have been five or six.

ANNE CONNOLLY: At 16, Nita moved to Alice Springs to get a job but says the station owners brought her back.

NITA FERGUSON: I could've come into town and worked for hundreds of dollars. I did work like a slave children.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Did you think that they treated you like slaves?

NITA FERGUSON: I think, yeah. Just nothing else but just work, work. Just run around doing work. I am sad about all that. After all, we lived in a humpy, no electricity or anything.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Did you think that you were going to get the money that was owed to you after all those years?

NITA FERGUSON: I was thinking we'll get about 200 or $100,000 each.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Both class actions were settled over the past two years – for $180 million in WA and about $200 million in the Northern Territory. Overall, Shine Lawyers will receive at least $41.6 million dollars for its work, while the funder, Litigation Lending Services, will take a commission of up to $57 million. The exact amount that Aboriginal workers will receive is unclear. Based on the court judgements, Four Corners estimates they'll get between $10,000 and $14,000.

GEORGE DANN: You know, it's woeful.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Do you know how much the lawyers in WA are getting as part of the settlement?

GEORGE DANN: I do not know.

ANNE CONNOLLY: The lawyers are getting 27 and a half million dollars.

GEORGE DANN: So we get the scraps once again.

SHARON TODD: It's a real insult. It just makes me feel that we are an industry that are being used over and over again to make money for other people. How are these people sleeping at night, you know?

ANNE CONNOLLY: The Federal Court judge criticised Shine, saying it had ran up enormous costs. The firm had 64 law clerks charging at a $375 hourly rate. Many were undergraduate law students. The judge said that they were "excessive hourly rates charged by Shine" and the "fees were seriously overblown". He shaved $4 million off the legal bill.

GEORGE DANN: I'd like to see them fellas there now get what our family got. They, they get, they get that in an hour. What our family would get in a year.

JENNY BARAGA: It's not good enough.

ANNE CONNOLLY: In the NT, the Chief Justice went further. She said the "pursuit of the business model" had "at times overshadowed" the "good intentions" of the lawyers. Shine "overcharged" for some of the work law clerks had done and "elected to do some work in the most expensive way". She said some indigenous workers and their families might view the case as "little more than a money-making exercise" and doubted they "would see much social justice in this outcome".

ANNE CONNOLLY: We got hold of these confidential reports into Shine's costs for the WA class action. It shows that Shine hired at least a dozen barristers – at a total cost of almost three and a half million dollars. With one charging almost $5,000 an hour. The court accepted those costs but when Shine tried to claim other things from the settlement, $35,000 in booking and credit card fees and almost $40,000 for meals, coffee and alcohol, the court knocked them back.

ANNE CONNOLLY: There's nothing luxurious about Minnie McDonald's life in Alice Springs. Now in her '90s, Minnie doesn't ask for much. But neither she nor her granddaughter believe a $10 to $14,000 payout is fair.

ELIZABETH MCDONALD: I reckon it's not enough really to say, you know, for the old people that actually worked back in the days, you know, they had a hard life.

MINNIE MCDONALD: Yeah, that's true. I know. No shoes. Get up in the morning, go to work, come back afternoon cold. I was thinking, get a little bit more. Kid might get a car, take me for a picnic somewhere, you know, have a feed, cook kangaroo tail or whatever. Yeah.

ANNE CONNOLLY: You didn't get enough to buy a car?

MINNIE MCDONALD: Yeah, nothing. Not enough.

ANNE CONNOLLY: During our interview, Minnie's phone is constantly ringing.

MINNIE MCDONALD: Hey, stop ringing now you mob. Right. Yeah.

ANNE CONNOLLY: What are they ringing you about?

MINNIE MCDONALD: Oh, what's happening? When are we going to get the money and everything, you know.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Shine Lawyers didn't want to do an interview. Shine said in a statement it gave Aboriginal workers "the chance to tell their stories, receive compensation and be acknowledged … for the historical injustices they suffered". The firm said these cases "required experienced and well-resourced lawyers". While acknowledging the criticism it faced, Shine said it was the only law firm willing to take on this challenge and see that workers received a "a portion of the money owed to them". The funder of the Stolen Wages cases, Litigation Lending Services – bankrolled another action in Queensland. They're set to make up to $95 million in commission from all three cases – a 250 per cent return on their investment.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Is that appropriate, do you think?

JOHN WALKER: It gets back to, is it appropriate for what this-, the Australian Government and the Australians did to the community? And what we are trying to work out is what is the best way to resolve disputes.

ANNE CONNOLLY: But in that circumstance, couldn't Litigation Lending Services have taken a smaller commission?

JOHN WALKER: It depends on, I don't know, on their personal commercial circumstances whether they'd lost money on others or whether they-, I just don't know the circumstances. It's a market trying to work out a social solution that isn't always perfect, but we do the best we can and, but we can do better.

ANNE CONNOLLY: But if it does hold itself up as saying we are running this social justice campaign and they take great pride in it, yet make an absolute fortune, why don't they just take less?

JOHN WALKER: What's your answer to that?

ANNE CONNOLLY: Well. Aren't they being-

JOHN WALKER: You're saying they shouldn't have-, the courts are the-, now the only ones that decide what is fair. I, in answering ask, asking the question, you're really asking whether the judge got it right and, and I don't-, whether you know enough about it to ask that question.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Litigation Lending Services said without them, indigenous workers would receive nothing. They told us they were proud of their role and their commission was lower than market rates "to reflect the social justice nature of the claims". If litigation funders and the plaintiff lawyers are in there saying, 'we're here for social justice causes,' but in reality, aren't you as big a company or corporation as those that you're up against?

JOHN WALKER: No. No. What? No, we're not.

ANNE CONNOLLY: But you are making-

JOHN WALKER: We're, we're, we're-

ANNE CONNOLLY: You are making a a lot of money.

JOHN WALKER: Almost invariably, the defendant, in a broad sense, has more money to allocate to the dispute than on the plaintiff's side.

ANNE CONNOLLY: But in reality, you've got a lot more money than the class members, right?

JOHN WALKER: Absolutely. But that's what they need us for, that, that's our job. I mean, we're trying to bring the money as much money as we can, certainly enough to be able to try and get some justice.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Litigation funders and class action lawyers say they're the only ones making sure victims get something – but what happens when that "something" is nowhere near real compensation?

STEPHEN LACAZE, TAXI OWNER: Morris Blackburn came along and said, "We will fight this to get a fair outcome." We're talking cents in a dollar. How can that possibly be fair?

PETER CASHMAN, BARRISTER: You have a three-way tug of war at the end of the day between the funders, the lawyers, and the class members. The lawyers have an interest in maximising their billable time. The funders have an understandable interest in maximising their commercial return. And often the class members are not adequately represented in that process. They don't often have sufficient insight into the issues involved or the complexities of the settlement agreement.

ANNE CONNOLLY: Ultimately, It's the judges who decide what's fair and reasonable. But is that burden too great – when they're the only ones regulating the system?

PETER CASHMAN, BARRISTER: Judges play an important role in controlling both the legal costs and the funding commissions. But it's far too little, far too late. It's at the end of the day when the costs have been incurred, most judges don't want to second guess the forensic decisions that were made during the course of the case.

GOUGH WHITLAM, PRIME MINISTER: All of us as Australians are diminished while the Aborigines are denied their rightful place in this nation.

ANNE CONNOLLY: If ever there was a need for justice, it's for those First Nations workers who were so shockingly exploited. After almost a year, in WA they're still waiting for their share, while the lawyers have already been paid.

GEORGE DANN: It's a farce, like everybody's saying, you know, it really is. They say people are going to get $180.4 million. That's what they stated, didn't they? But it's not. They're all a big mob of liars. And, you know, they should be the ones to put up what our people put up with. You know, a lot of people, they worked all their life and for this to happen is a terrible thing.