7

Changing rights and freedoms: Aboriginal peoples

INQ U IR Y questiOn

How have the rights and freedoms of Aboriginal people and other groups in Australia changed during the post-war period?

Indigenous Australians have struggled since European invasion in 1788 to retain their rights and freedoms and to have these recognised by the new governments which gained power in Australia. State and later Commonwealth governments implemented policies ranging from protection in the mid nineteenth century to selfdetermination and reconciliation in the late twentieth century. Within this framework, Indigenous Australians have experienced discrimination, inequality, lack of opportunity and denial of control of their own lives and those of their children. They have also been politically active and achieved some significant changes in the struggle for recognition, for justice for the Stolen Generations and for legal acknowledgement of their land rights.

A photograph taken on 13 February 2008 as thousands of people gathered to hear the Australian Governments apology to the Stolen Generations

7.1 Changing government policies overtime

c.1869 to 1937: Protection
segregate: to set apart or isolate from the main group according to race, religion and so on protection: a policy aimed at managing Aboriginal people by separating them from the larger community and imposing strict controls on their lives
From the mid nineteenth century, Australian colonial and state governments adopted protective legislation and policies to control and segregate Aboriginal people from the white population, and from each other. Government policies were enforced by white protectors who administered the reserves and missions and had wide-ranging powers. In the name of protection, governments directed where and how Aboriginal people should live. Government policies of protection denied Aboriginal people their independence and their basic human rights. Governments justied this by arguing that they were civilising and defending the morality of the defenceless Aboriginal community. The protection of Aboriginal people involved control of: movements of Aboriginal people permission was needed to leave or enter fenced reserves and missions where life remained harsh and poor leisure and sporting activities traditional customs and celebrations were forbidden, recreational time was closely watched with an emphasis on Christian worship as the main community activity work, earnings and possessions of Aboriginal people the protector was the legal owner of all personal property including the wages received. Aboriginal people had to apply to spend money that was placed for them in a compulsory savings account, even to buy basic items such as food and clothing. marriages and family life permission to marry had to be granted, traditional names were forbidden and children were separated from their families and sent to schools where they could be trained for work as farm labourers or household servants (see the Stolen Children section on pages 12930). By the 1920s it was clear that the policies of protection had led to dispossession, despair and a rapid decline in the size of the Aboriginal population. In New South Wales, the Aboriginal Protection Board closed down the reserves and stations on land at Singleton, Batemans Bay, Wingham and Grafton. These and other sites were the homes of Aboriginal people whose links with that land stretched back thousands of years. This traditional Aboriginal land was now needed for the Soldier Settler Scheme (see page88) and the Aboriginal people were once again removed.

SOurce 7.1 A description of life on a reserve

A number of Aborigines openly deed direction to work and were ned or locked up for their efforts. Generally controls were rigid ... The reserves were complete worlds with their own laws, courts, police and gaols. The reserve superintendents were at once policeman, judge and jury ...
R. Broome, Aboriginal Australians Black Responses to White Dominance, 17881980, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1982, pp. 1789.

SOURCE QUESTIONs
1 Using source 7.1 and the text, explain how the policy of protection affected the daily and

community life of Aboriginal people.

2 Suggest what some of the long-term consequences would be for people living under such

conditions.

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SOURCE 7.2 In 1934 the Minister for the Interior appealed for homes, with white families, for half-caste and quadroon children. Amember of the public wrote asking for the child marked with the cross.

quadroon: a racial term used to classify Aboriginal people of mixed ancestry; a quadroon would be one quarter Aboriginal

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Identify the reason the children in source 7.2 need homes. 2 Explain what source 7.2 suggests about community attitudes during the years of the

protection policy.

1937 to 1965: Assimilation

assimilation: policy which forces people to conform to the attitudes, customs and beliefs of the majority of the population status: a persons rank or social position
In 1937 the Commonwealth Government held a national conference on Aboriginal affairs. The conference concluded that the way forward was to ensure that people not of full blood were absorbed into towns and cities and the wider white community. According to this new policy of assimilation, Aboriginal people would lose their cultural identity but have their status raised. During the war years there was some improvement in conditions for Aboriginal people, and some change in community attitudes: 1941 child endowment payments were granted to Aboriginal families not living a nomadic lifestyle. 1942 Aboriginal people became eligible for old age and invalid pensions. 1943 Certicates of Exemption were issued to Aboriginal people as a step towards full citizenship, but also required a denial of family ties and Aboriginal cultural identity. In post-war Australia, poverty, discrimination and the lack of opportunity continued to exclude Aboriginal people from the broader community. By 1951, all the Australian states had accepted the principles of assimilation but they had failed to deal with the discrimination that remained in education, housing, employment and health. Aboriginal people continued to live on the fringes of white society amidst widespread racism.

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SOURCE 7.3 Certicate of Exemption of James Bloxsome

SOURCE 7.4 Excerpt from an article by Michael Sawtell, a member of the Aborigines Welfare Board of NSW in 1958, in Dawn magazine, explaining the issuing of Certicates of Exemption

We cannot be expected to grant citizenship to wild tribal aborigines living say, in Arnhem Land, or the Kimberley coast. Later on, when the detribalised aborigines have worked for the white man and learned something of the way to work and live decently in what we call civilisation, then the Welfare Boards all over Australia ... may issue to such approved persons of aboriginal blood, Certicates of Exemption, which makes them full citizens ...
M. Sawtell, The purpose of Exemption Certificates a form of initiation, in Dawn magazine, published by the Aborigines Welfare Board, vol. 7, serial 6, June 1958, p. 7.

SOURCE 7.5 The artist Sally Morgans interpretation of the Certicate of Exemption, or Dog Tag, is shown in her artwork titled Citizenship, created in 1988.

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Explain the purpose of the Certicate of

Exemption, as indicated in source 7.3.

2 Compare the interpretations of the Certicate of

Exemption in sources 7.4 and 7.5.

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SOURCE 7.6 Portrait of Albert Namatjira 1956 by William Dargie, Australia, b. 1912. Oil on canvas, 102.1 76.4 cm. Purchased 1957. Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

The treatment of Albert Namatjira clearly demonstrated the shortcomings of the Assimilation Policy. Albert Namatjira, an Arrernte man of the Northern Territory, became a widely acclaimed artist during the 1930s. His landscape paintings captured the splendour of central Australia and so appealed to a nation forging an identity. His work was represented in all the state art galleries and collected internationally. In 1954 Namatjira was presented to the Queen in recognition of his contribution to Australian cultural life. In the following year, Namatjiras Aboriginality denied him the right to build a home in Alice Springs. In 1957 Namatjira became the rst Aborigine from the Northern Territory to be granted Australian citizenship. In the year following that, he was jailed for supplying alcohol to his cousin who was not a citizen, and so still restricted by laws that made Aboriginal people wards of the state.

SOURCE 7.7 Photograph of an Aboriginal family in Browns Flat, near Nowra, in 1959, showing the type of housing that was typical of Aboriginal peoples dwellings in the mid twentieth century

SOURCE 7.8 The denition of assimilation changed when it became clear the original aims of the policy were not being achieved.

(a) From the 1961 Native Welfare Conference: All Aborigines and part-Aborigines are expected eventually to attain the same manner of living as other Australians and live as members of a single Australian community enjoying the same rights and privileges, accepting the same responsibilities, observing the same customs and inuenced by the same beliefs, hopes and loyalties as other Australians. (b) From the 1965 Aboriginal Welfare Conference: The policy of assimilation seeks that all persons of Aboriginal descent will choose to attain a similar manner and standard of living to that of other Australians and live as members of a single Australian community.

SOURCE QUESTION Compare the two denitions of assimilation in source 7.8. Identify the difference in the words used.
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SOurce 7.9 Daryl Tonkin, a white Australian bushman, describes his experiences in the Aboriginal community of Jacksons Track, Victoria, in the mid twentieth century, and the impact of changing government policies on Aboriginal communities.
When it came to blackfellas the Board had the nal say. It was as if the Blackfellas were their property, and the Board could do with them as they saw t. The blackfellas were their wards, and they seemed to believe their wards were wretched people who werent capable of making their own decisions, werent good for much, couldnt be trusted. They were a responsibility, a duty, a burden. There was no way to stop the Board from telling the blackfellas what to do. They were like the police, with power to do just about anything they wanted to ... Without considering how the blackfellas felt, the policy of the Board was to separate the people from each other, put them singly in white neighbourhoods, hope they would somehow turn white themselves and disappear altogether ... Before they lived at the Track, most of them had come from mission stations where they werent allowed to lift a nger to take care of themselves without being told what to do. At the Track, they had taken care of themselves in a traditional way: they hunted for much of their food, they built their own houses, fetched their own water, collected their own fuel. They worked for their own money to pay for clothes and staples, taxis and entertainment if they wanted it. Even though they did not live on top of each other at the Track, they never acted as individuals, but always as a community, sharing the food and fuel and water, helping each other with their huts, swapping tools and utensils as well as kids, since every adult was an uncle or an aunty to every kid.
C. Landon & D. Tonkin, Jacksons Track: Memoir of a Dreamtime Place, Viking, 1999, pp. 256 and 268.

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Using source 7.9, identify ways in which the changes in government policy affected Aboriginal

peoples way of life. 2 Explain how the Jacksons Track memoir is a useful primary source for historians examining government policy on Aboriginal communities.

c.1965 to 1972: Integration

integration: Commonwealth Government policy denoting respect for all cultures and willingness to accept their expression within the broader community
The Commonwealth Government announced its policy of integration in 1965 and then did little towards implementing it. The policy meant that Indigenous people would be able to voice and openly celebrate their cultural differences. Following the success of the 1967 Referendum, Prime Minister Harold Holt (196667) was in a position to create laws that would help make integration a reality. He established the Council for Aboriginal Affairs and put the Ofce of Aboriginal Affairs within the Prime Ministers Department. At the same time, his government did not provide the funding needed to meet Indigenous peoples expectations for improvement resulting from both the changed policy and from the Referendum result. Subsequently, Prime Minister William McMahon (197172) took a less sympathetic approach towards Indigenous issues (see page 274). A lack of commitment to integration policy meant that change was slow and inconsistent. A new integration framework did not really emerge to replace the old assimilation framework. The value of Aboriginal culture and identity was still not being recognised within the broader Australian community.

1972 to c.2005: Self-determination

self-determination: the right of a group to choose and control its own destiny and development
The most important policy change came in 1972 with the election of the Whitlam Labor government and the introduction of its policy of self-determination. This was a policy of facilitating Indigenous peoples involvement in decision making for and management of their communities. The policy of self-determination, to be administered through the newly created Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA), marked the rst signicant involvement of the Commonwealth Government in policy making and the provision of support for Aboriginal people. For Aboriginal Australians, this change in government policy brought a formal end to the remnants of protection and assimilation and the beginnings of structures like land

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councils and national representative bodies that would facilitate Indigenous Australians control of their own affairs. Representative bodies established in the 1970s and 1980s were: the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee (NACC) (197377). The Whitlam government established the NACC and Indigenous people voted for their representatives to this body. The government consulted the NACC on Indigenous issues and the NACC provided advice to the government. This marked the rst signicant participation of Indigenous people as advisers to the Commonwealth Government and so was of symbolic importance, even if its advice was not implemented. the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC) (197785). The Fraser government (197583) continued the policy of self-determination, which it referred to as selfmanagement. It introduced the NAC in 1977 to replace the NACC, which had been disbanded after conict with the DAA over the extent of its role and authority. Once again, it was Indigenous people who voted for the members of this body. The NAC was weakened by its failure to mobilise support from Indigenous people themselves and, like the NACC before it, by ongoing conict with the DAA. the Aboriginal Development Commission (ADC) (198088). Initially chaired by Charles Perkins (see page 359), the ADC consisted of 10 government-appointed Indigenous commissioners. It administered housing and business loans and grants to Indigenous people. In 1990 the House of Representatives dened the principles of self-determination as: Aboriginal control over the decision-making process as well as control over the ultimate decision about a wide range of matters including political status, and economic, social and cultural development. It means Aboriginal people have the resources and the capacity to control the future of their own communities within the legal structure common to all Australians. One of the ways it sought to achieve this was through the creation of ATSIC.

SOURCE 7.10 ATSICs objectives as listed in Section 3 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Act 1989 (Cwlth)

ATSIC (19902005)
Introduced by legislation during the Hawke government (198391), the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) provided the formal structure through which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples could play a role in decision making on Indigenous issues. ATSICs nationwide role was to advise governments, to ght for Indigenous rights and to take responsibility for and deliver most of the programs and services for Indigenous people funded by the Commonwealth Government.

The objects of this Act are, in recognition of the past dispossession and dispersal of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their present disadvantaged position in Australian society: (a) to ensure maximum participation of Aboriginal persons and Torres Strait Islanders in the formulation and implementation of government policies that affect them; (b) to promote the development of self-management and self-sufciency among Aboriginal persons and Torres Strait Islanders;

(c) to further the economic, social and cultural development of Aboriginal persons and Torres Strait Islanders; and (d) to ensure co-ordination in the formulation and implementation of policies affecting Aboriginal persons and Torres Strait Islanders by the Commonwealth, State, Territory and local governments, without detracting from the responsibilities of State, Territory and local governments to provide services to their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander residents.

SOurce questiOn Explain how the above objectives express the policy of selfdetermination.

ATSIC provided advice to the Commonwealth Government on issues affecting them, including the performance of other government bodies. In the late 1990s, the Commonwealth Government was providing about $1.6 billion per year for ATSICs programs. About one-third of this funding replaced funding which would normally be available through other programs and about 10 per cent of ATSICs expenditure was on the provision of services which perhaps should have been provided by state or local governments.

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reconciliation: aCommonwealth Government policy aimed at improving relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Its key features were a recognition of past injustices and an understanding of how relationships between Indigenous and nonIndigenous Australians have been shaped by past events, policies and attitudes.

The Howard government (19962007) was less committed to self-determination, which it labelled self-empowerment, than its predecessors. ATSICs management and funding decisions had been criticised for a number of years. The government abolished ATSIC in 2005 and transferred responsibility for its funding and programs to other government departments. Debate focused on whether ATSICs objectives would be best served by the creation of another Indigenous organisation or by mainstreaming, that is, by using mainstream government departments to deliver them. The end of ATSIC seemed to suggest the end of the policy of self-determination, although Australias two main parties, to varying degrees, still support Indigenous selfmanagement and self-empowerment.

The Hawke government (198391) identied reconciliation as an important goal for the period leading to the centenary of Australian Federation in 2001. SOURCE 7.11 On 2 September 1991, the federal Parliament unanimously passed the Council Mind map showing the for Reconciliation Act. The Act established the 25-member Council for Aboriginal key issues to be tackled Reconciliation with representatives from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups as identied by the as well as from industry, agriculture, the union movement, employers, the media and the Council for Aboriginal major political parties. Reconciliation The Council aimed at having all Australians recognise that Australias Indigenous people were the original Improving relationships owners of the land; that they have suffered ongoing Understanding social and economic disadvantage as a result of having country Valuing cultures their land taken from them; and that this has resulted in Indigenous people missing many of the benets of life that other Australians take for granted. The key issues of The Council lobbied for recognition of customary reconciliation law, self-government for Indigenous Australians, Sharing histories compensation for past injustices, a settlement of native Controlling destinies title issues (see pages 2815) and recognition within the Constitution of Indigenous peoples rights. The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation planned its nal major public event in Sydney for May 2000, Addressing but many Australians felt powerless in the absence of disadvantage more positive government enthusiasm for the process. Reconciliation awaits the achievement of justice with Agreeing on a document regard to Indigenous land rights and to equity with other Responding to Australians in health, living conditions, education and custody levels employment.

1991 to late 1990s: Reconciliation

SOURCE 7.12 A 1991 cartoon by Geoff Pryor commenting on government policies towards Indigenous Australians

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Briey explain the point the cartoonist is

making in source 7.12.

2 Identify the techniques the cartoonist uses to

convey his message.

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Late 1990s to c.2004: Practical reconciliation

Prime Minister John Howard responded by advocating what he called practical reconciliation, which focused on gaining equality in health, education and living standards. Although these were worthy goals, critics expressed their concerns that this meant failing to encourage understanding of issues relating to past injustices and expecting Indigenous people to accept this. By the end of the twentieth century, Indigenous people were still seeking justice in housing, health, land rights, and within the legal system. Australias governments have yet to develop the policies that will effectively deliver equity and justice to Indigenous people.

www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au

SOurce 7.13 Cartoon by Peter Nicholson published in the Australian on 30August 1999
practical reconciliation: Prime Minister Howards policy of viewing the reconciliation process in terms of the outcomes it achieved in health, education, employment and living standards. The policy also means that people neither work to understand past injustices nor accept responsibility for pastwrongs.

2007: Intervention
On 21 June 2007, Prime Minister Howard announced his governments intention to intervene in 64 Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. The aim of the intervention policy was to protect children threatened by violence and abuse. Critics of this policy say that imposing solutions from outside will only meet resistance and could potentially signal a return to practices similar to those of the protectionism of another era.

actiVities
CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING 1 Create a owchart to illustrate the changing government policies for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Include the relevant time periods and a denition for each policy in your owchart. 2 Explain why the policy of assimilation failed to improve the living conditions and opportunities for Indigenous people. 3 Outline the similarities and differences between the policies of assimilation and integration. 4 Identify two barriers that have prevented the policy of reconciliation from achieving its aims. COMMunicate 5 Imagine it is the 1970s and you wish to explain to the broader Australian community the reasons government policy on Indigenous issues needs to change. Write a letter to a newspaper explaining the benets of the new policy of self-determination for Aboriginal people and for Australia. 6 Using ideas from the political cartoons in this unit, design your own cartoon to make a comment on a government policy towards Aboriginal Australians. Decide on the message of the cartoon, the characters you will create and the techniques you will use to communicate your ideas.

Explain means give reasons for something, especially in terms of cause and effect relationships.

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7.2 The varying experiences of the Stolen Generations

Dreamtime: the time of the creation of the earth, living things and the beginning of knowledge, from which emerged the laws, values and symbols important to Aboriginal society. Stolen Generations: term used to describe the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who, while children, Australian state and federal governments forcibly removed from their families. The term usually refers to those taken during the period from about 1910 to around 1970.
For most Australians, the family unit is where people should be cared for, protected and educated in the behaviour and customs of their society and culture. In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, feelings of kinship are also important. Kinship involves special bonds that link an individual to the extended family group. It includes an understanding of the value of sharing and being able to rely on the support of family members and those who understand the Dreamtime. Kinship also involves respect for elders who pass on the important traditions, values and stories within Indigenous culture and who serve as role models for younger members. By the late 1980s, there were more than 100 000 people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who had: lost their links with family and land lost their understanding of kinship missed out on being educated in the language, culture and traditions of their people. They are the Stolen Generations Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders who, while children, Australian state and territory governments separated from their families, usually by forcibly removing them.

SOurce 7.14 An extract from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissions (HREOC) report, Bringing Them Home Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, 1997 (see pages 2667)
indigenous: the term used to describe the rst peoples of a particular country. Since the 1980s the Commonwealth Government has dened an indigenous person in Australia as a person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identies as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted by the community with which he or she is associated. Nationally we can conclude with condence that between one in three and one in ten indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities in the period from approximately 1910 until 1970. In certain regions and in certain periods the gure was undoubtedly much greater than one in ten. In that time not one family has escaped the effects of forcible removal (conrmed by representatives of the Queensland and WA Governments in evidence to the Inquiry). Most families have been affected, in one or more generations, by the forcible removal of one or more children.

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Identify the estimated percentage of Indigenous children forcibly removed from their families

during the period from about 1910 to around 1970. 2 Outline two ways in which this practice has affected Indigenous families.

Government policy
On average, Australian governments removed about one in 300 white children from their families in the twentieth century.
People began removing Indigenous children from their families not long after the arrival of Europeans in 1788. State governments began to systematically remove Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their parents towards the late nineteenth century and continued doing so until the late twentieth century. They: established laws (Protection Acts) to empower them to do this established Protection Boards to administer this policy gave power to police and Protection Ofcers to implement it took over from parents their roles as legal guardians of their children. A minority of politicians expressed concern that these laws and practices amounted to stealing children. Some argued that these children would be exploited as unpaid labour and that removing Indigenous children from their parents would effectively be condoning slavery.

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ward of the state: someone whose legal guardian is the state, the court or a public welfare agency

Ofcials claimed that the removal of Indigenous children from their families was for the childrens protection from neglect and abuse and to provide them with a better life than they could expect to have within their own families and communities. In reality, ofcials, looking for an excuse to justify their removal, often claimed, falsely, that parents neglected and/or abused their children. Ultimately, most state governments made Indigenous children wards of the state so that there was no need to provide reasons for their removal. Governments sought out, identied and took Indigenous babies and children and placed them in government and missionary-run training institutions, put them up for adoption or placed them with foster parents. They focused on mixed-race children and expected that they would assimilate with the white race as servants and labourers. They expected that these children would have children with white partners and that, over generations, Australias Indigenous people would ultimately die out. Writing in 1930, Mr A. O. Neville, the Chief Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia, put it this way: Eliminate the full-blood and permit the white admixture to half-castes and eventually the race will become white. Authorities removed children from their parents and families by force, threat, deception and trickery. Families tried hiding their children. Pregnant women tried to avoid being seen by police and other ofcials. Parents begged ofcials to allow them to keep their children. Some children never came back from what was supposed to be a holiday with a good white family. In some states, parents supposedly had the right of appeal to get their children back. Few understood what this process meant or had the money to nance it.

SOURCE 7.15 An extract from the evidence that a Western Australian woman provided to the HREOC Inquiry

SOURCE QUESTION Explain how source 7.15 is useful for someone studying the experiences of the Stolen Generations.

Every morning our people would crush charcoal and mix that with animal fat and smother that all over us, so that when the police came they could only see black children in the distance. We were told always to be on the alert and, if white people came, to run into the bush or run and stand behind the trees as stiff as a poker, or else hide behind logs or run into culverts and hide. Often the white people we didnt know who they were would come into our camps. And if the Aboriginal group was taken unawares, they would stuff us into our bags and pretend we werent there. We were told not to sneeze. We knew if we sneezed and they knew that we were in there bundled up, wed be taken off and away from the area. There was a disruption of our cycle of life because we were continually scared to be ourselves. During the raids on the camps it was not unusual for people to be shot shot in the arm or the leg. You can understand the terror that we lived in, the fright not knowing when someone will come unawares and do whatever they were doing either disrupting our family life, camp life, or shooting at us.
Confidential evidence 681, Western Australia: woman ultimately surrendered at 5 years to Mt Margaret Mission for schooling in the 1930s, in HREOC, Bringing Them Home, 1997.

Institutions, adoptions and fostering

1908 to 1980: The Bomaderry Aboriginal Childrens Home
The Aborigines Protection Board established the Bomaderry Aboriginal Childrens Home (near Nowra in New South Wales) with the intention of replacing original family ties with a new family unit, created according to a European Christian model. Young children and babies lived there until they were about seven and the Board then sent them on to another home (see the following pages). Staff encouraged the students to think of themselves as white. They denied them any contact with their families and so prevented these children gaining any knowledge of their relatives or their cultural heritage. Many remember this as a happier and more caring place than other institutions, at the same time emphasising that whatever care they received could not make up for what they had lost.

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1912 to 1974: The Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Girls

In 1912 the Aborigines Protection Board established the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Girls. It was a home for Aboriginal girls from about 7 to 14, who had been forcibly removed from their parents to train as domestic servants for white families. Authorities: denied the girls any contact with their own families taught them nothing about their own cultures and traditions forbade the use of their traditional languages punished anyone who contravened these rules. This pattern continued throughout the period that the home operated. Instructors taught girls that they were white and that Indigenous Australians were inferior.

SOURCE 7.16 The October 1952 front cover for the magazine Dawn, published by the Aborigines Welfare Board (NSW). The cover depicts girls from the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home. The accompanying description read These happy Cootamundra girls, spick and span in their neat school uniforms, await the bus to take them into Cootamundra High School. These women of tomorrow are being given a training that will make life easier and sweeter for them and help their eventual assimilation into the white community.

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 2 3 4

Describe the impression source 7.16 creates of the experiences and attitudes of these girls. Identify the aspects of the girls lives that the picture and caption ignore. Describe the perspective indicated in the photo and caption. Assess the reliability of this image for someone investigating the experiences of the Stolen Generations.

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The girls at the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home used to sit on the wooden cover of an old well, hoping to see family members coming up the drive to take them home. Forty years after the Home was closed down, several former residents created a memorial in the form of the old well, to remind future generations of the experiences they endured as children.
At a time when other girls were working in factories rather than submitting to the poor working conditions and lack of freedom often associated with domestic service, Aboriginal girls were being called on to ll the gap. Once in domestic service, these girls: were paid infrequently, if at all worked long hours with little personal freedom were at risk of sexual abuse. Police went after those who ran away and could then send them to the Parramatta Industrial School, Long Bay jail or even to a psychiatric institution.

1924 to 1971: The Kinchela Boys Home

The Kinchela Boys Home at Kempsey, New South Wales, was among the worst of the homes to which authorities sent children. It was for Aboriginal boys aged from about 7 to 14 and they went there to gain a basic education and to learn farming and some basic manual labour tasks. In the years 1924 to 1971, approximately 400 members of the Stolen Generations lived there. Discipline was strict, treatment harsh and punishment severe. Child Welfare ofcers rarely inspected this institution or checked on what it was doing to investigate negative reports about how the superintendent ran the Home and treated the boys in his charge. Staff referred to the boys as inmates. The day began early with farming tasks before breakfast and no breakfast for those who nished late. Then came school (on the premises and with untrained teachers) until 3 pm, followed by an additional two to four hours work as farm labourers before being sent to bed at about 8 pm. In the 1950s Kinchela boys began attending Kempsey Boys High School, where many of them excelled at sport. Boys at Kinchela had neither the time nor the environment from which to benet from their academic education.

SOURCE 7.17 The late activist, actor and author Burnum Burnum spent 16 years at Bomaderry and Kinchela. Here he holds up a photo from winter c.1940s showing boys lined up for inspection.

Foster homes and adoption

From the 1950s onwards, as a cost-saving measure, governments were tending more and more to put Indigenous children into foster care or up for adoption rather than into institutions. By the early 1960s they had begun to see institutional care as encouraging segregation rather than the assimilation which was their goal. In the period from about 1950 to 1960 authorities put as many as 17 per cent of Indigenous children up for adoption (see source 7.2, page 253). In New South Wales, in the 1960s, authorities placed 300Indigenous children in foster care. Some children went to three or four different foster homes before being permanently placed. Some of the foster and adoptive parents were well meaning and wanted to help the children they took in. Others saw the children as a resource from which they could benet.

SOURCE QUESTION Describe what source7.17 indicates about the treatment of the boys at Kinchela.

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SOURCE 7.18 An extract from a witness statement in Bringing Them Home, 1997, p. 50 SOURCE QUESTION In source 7.18, distinguish between what authorities claimed they were doing for Indigenous children and the reality.

I was taken off my mum as soon as I was born, so she never even seen me. What Welfare wanted to do was adopt all these poor little black babies into nice, caring white families, respectable white families, where theyd get a good upbringing. I had a shit upbringing. Me and [adopted brother who was also Aboriginal] were always treated different to the others ... we werent given the same love, we were always to blame ... I found my mum when I was eighteen she was really happy to hear from me, because she didnt adopt me out. Apparently she did sign adoption papers, but she didnt know [what they were]. She said to me that for months she was running away from Welfare [while she was pregnant], and they kept nding her ... Right from the beginning they didnt want her to have me.
Boards frequently pressured Indigenous mothers to give up their children at birth. Often these mothers didnt understand the consent papers that ofcials gave them to sign. In Western Australia, ofcials didnt need to obtain consent because the law classied all Indigenous children as wards of the state, meaning that, legally, their parents had no rights to them.

Stolen lives, stolen identities

Physical, psychological and emotional harm
Stealing children had a devastating impact on its direct and indirect victims. Parents and communities lost their roles in nurturing these children to adulthood. Children denied these skills failed to learn by example how to be good parents. For the stolen children themselves, the separation from parents was as traumatic as if their parents had died. Denied access to their language, heritage, culture and role models within their own communities, many suffered depression and poor self-esteem. The staff they encountered in institutions varied from those who were kindly and well meaning to those who were cruel and sadistic. None had any training suited to their work. Children of the Stolen Generations were more vulnerable than children generally. Other people ruled their lives, denied them opportunities for complaint and were reluctant to believe them if they did complain. The Bringing Them Home report (see page266) indicated that as many as 2025 per cent of children in adoptive and foster homes and 10 per cent of those in institutions were victims of sexual assault.

SOURCE 7.19 An extract from condential evidence 248, which a Western Australian woman provided to the 1997 HREOC Inquiry. She was removed from her family as a baby and sent to the Colebrook Home at Eden Hills, Adelaide. At 15 she was raped while at a work placement which the Home had organised.

I remember when my sister come down and visited me and I was reaching out. There was no-one there. I was just reaching out and I could see her standing there and I couldnt tell her that Id been raped. And I never told anyone for years and years. And Ive had this all inside me for years and years and years. Ive been sexually abused, harassed, and then nally raped, yknow, and Ive never had anyone to talk to about it ... nobody, no father, no mother, no-one. We had no-one to guide us. I felt so isolated, alienated. And I just had no-one. Thats why I hit the booze. None of that family bonding, nurturing nothing. We had nothing.
The governments and agencies that separated Indigenous children from their families wanted this separation to be permanent. Therefore, they were committed to preventing and minimising contact with parents and other family members. Authorities censored letters and put severe restrictions on family visits. Under the policy of assimilation, the NSW Government made it illegal for Indigenous parents to attempt to contact their children living in institutions. Staff taught the children to think of Indigenous people as dirty, untrustworthy, threatening and inferior. Children learned to fear and even reject Indigenous people and many blamed their parents for their removal. Over time, some of the Stolen Generations turned to drugs and alcohol. As a group, they were more likely than other children to: have poor health have poor opportunities have poor education be arrested or go to prison.

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SOURCE 7.20 A comment from Alec Kruger in Us Taken-Away Kids, a booklet edited by Christina Kenny (2007, p.5), commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report

As a child I had no mothers arms to hold me. No father to lead me into the world. Us takenaway kids only had each other. All of us damaged and too young to know what to do. We had strangers standing over us. Some were nice and did the best they could. But many were just cruel nasty types. We were ogged often. We learnt to shut up and keep our eyes to the ground, for fear of being singled out and punished. We lived in dread of being sent away again where we could be even worse off. Many of us grew up hard and tough. Others were explosive and angry. A lot grew up just struggling to cope at all. They found their peace in other insti tutions or alcohol. Most of us learnt how to occupy a small space and avoid anything that looked like trouble. We had few ideas about relationships. No one showed us how to be lovers or parents. How to feel safe loving someone when that risked them being taken away and leaving us alone again. Everyone and everything we loved was taken away from us kids.

SOURCE 7.21 Two extracts from witness statements in the 1997 HREOC report on the Stolen Generations

[1] We were playing in the schoolyard and this old black man came to the fence. I could hear him singing out to me and my sister. I said to [my sister] Dont go. Theres a black man. And we took off. It was two years ago I found out that was my grandfather. He came looking for us. I dont know when I ever stopped being frightened of Aboriginal people. I dont know when I even realised I was Aboriginal. Its been a long hard ght for me. [2] Even though I had a good education with [adoptive family] and went to college, there was just this feeling that I did not belong there. The best day of my life was when I met my brothers because I felt I belonged and I nally had a family.
HREOC, Bringing Them Home, 1997, pp. 211 and 13.

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Identify what the author of source 7.20 indicates as being the features of his childhood as one of

the Stolen Generations. 2 Describe what he sees as the impact on his adult life. 3 Identify the emotions experienced by the two witnesses in source 7.21.

Employment
When children reached their mid-teens, the authorities sent them to work as farm labourers or domestic servants. This happened regardless of the individual childs interests, talents and intelligence. In cases where children received good marks at school, the authorities often ignored these results and maintained their belief that Indigenous people had limited intellectual ability and were likely to be troublesome. Employers paid wages straight into a bank account controlled by the authorities. People could get access to their wages only if they provided an acceptable reason for needing them.

Institutions had no comprehensive system of record keeping. Children taken at a young age had little knowledge of where they had come from and perhaps not even the names of their parents. Many members of the Stolen Generations never saw their parents again. In 1980, Peter Read and Oomera Edwards established Link Up (NSW), an organisation dedicated to tracing and reuniting children with their families. It has now become Stolen Generations Link Up, with branches in every state.

Towards self-determination
In the 1960s, most Australians remained largely ignorant of the systematic removal of Indigenous people from their families that had being going on for over a century. Victims often felt too ashamed to talk about it and/or lacked a receptive audience.

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At the same time, Indigenous activism, changing attitudes within governments and among welfare workers and increasing recognition of Indigenous peoples rights slowly began to have an impact. From the mid 1960s, the policy of integration (see page256) brought the beginnings of acceptance of Indigenous culture. In 1969 the NSW Government abolished the Aborigines Welfare Board. Institutions began to close down and from the mid 1970s, under a policy of self-determination (see pages 256 7), the government began to seek the views of Indigenous people when placing Indigenous children in foster care or for adoption. By the mid 1980s the policy on placement had changed to one where the preferred option was that Indigenous children be placed with people of their own race. Indigenous activists pressured governments throughout Australia to adopt this Aboriginal Child Placement Principle and worked to reduce the numbers of Indigenous children whom welfare services removed from their families.

Bringing them home

In 1995, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) began a national inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. The Commission released its report, Bringing Them Home, in 1997. It summarised the rationale behind the policy, its negative impact, and the continuing feelings of grief and loss that individuals and communities experienced while trying to gain some sense of identity. HREOC found that forcibly removing children from their parents went against: Australias own legal standards international human rights obligations the values held by many Australians at the time. Governments did not recognise Indigenous parents as having any rights with regard to their children and did not consider a childs right to grow up within his or her own family. Parents had limited rights of appeal against a decision to take their children. By continuing to approve the forcible removal of Indigenous children to another group, Australia was breaking its commitment to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which it had signed in 1949. The convention denes the forcible removal of children to another group as genocide (that is, the policy of destroying a culture). Racism was one of the motives for taking the children. Those who took children for their own good assumed that their own families could not properly care for them or felt that they were saving them from substandard and impoverished living conditions. They believed that Indigenous culture had nothing worthwhile to offer when compared with European culture. Government bodies and welfare organisations failed to consider that it might have been better to improve Indigenous peoples poor living conditions rather than deprive their children of their own families and culture.

Being sorry
It is not possible to make up for what has been lost by Indigenous families as a result of the forced removal of their children. The HREOC Inquiry made some suggestions, including: an apology from the institutions that had been involved in taking children assistance to Indigenous people to help them reunite with their families and regain their cultural identities public recognition of past injustices through education and a National Sorry Day the establishment of a national compensation fund. The report focused peoples attention on the issue of a national apology. Australias state and territory parliaments all subsequently passed formal motions of apology to the stolen children. In 1999, the then Commonwealth Government, under Prime Minister John Howard, expressed regret for past injustices but would not apologise.

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Working historically

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We analysed the techniques used in political cartoons in chapter 1 (see page 32). Notice the techniques that the cartoonist Alan Moir uses in this political cartoon which he called Father of the Year in 1997. The target is in the centre of the picture. The head is quite large so people focus attention on the facial expression. The pupils of the eyes are small dots to make the expression severe. The exaggerated eyebrows enhance the severe expression, as well as helping to identify the Prime Minister. The body language (pointing aggressively) also expresses a message. The background is minimal, with just a chair to suggest that the Prime Minister is in the comfort of his lounge room. The children are shut out and apparently unwelcome. There are few words and a simple message. There is irony in the message on the door.

SOurce 7.22 A comment from the cartoonist Alan Moir on Prime Minister John Howards attitude to the Stolen Generations (as published in the Sydney Morning Herald)

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Identify the people depicted in source 7.22. 2 Explain the sign on the door. 3 In what year do you think this cartoon was published?

Give reasons for your answer.

4 Outline the message the cartoonist wants to convey.

actiVities
Describe means state what something is like.

Outline means give a brief description or summary of the main features of something.

CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING 1 Describe the role the family usually serves in the upbringing of children. 2 What additional role did traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families perform? 3 Explain who the Stolen Generations are and what aspects of family and community life they missed out on. 4 Explain how Australian governments organised the removal of Indigenous children from their parents. 5 What did they claim were the reasons for removing children from their families and what was the real reason? 6 Describe the kind of life institutions offered to Indigenous children. 7 When and why did state governments begin to place more emphasis on putting Indigenous children up for adoption or fostering them and how did this affect mothers? 8 In what ways did governments fail to provide protection for Indigenous children and uphold their rights? 9 Outline the ways attitudes and practices towards Indigenous children changed from the late 1960s onwards. 10 What is HREOC? Explain its role in relation to the Stolen Generations. 11 Identify ve conclusions from the Bringing Them Home report. 12 How did Australias governments respond to demands for a national apology to the Stolen Generations in the decade after the Bringing Them Home report? RESEARCH AND COMMUNICATE 13 Use the Coming Home weblink in your eBookPLUS to view a 2007 painting of the same name by Beverley Grant. Read the symbolism and story below the painting and explain the message the artist wants to convey and how this is achieved. WORKSHEET Worksheet 7.1 Film review Rabbit Proof Fence

eBook plus

eBook plus

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7.3 The struggle for rights and freedom the 1967 referendum
The 1967 referendum issue
referendum: this is a vote in which people indicate their support for or opposition to a proposed change to the Australian Constitution (plural: referenda)
2. Proposed law entitled
An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to the People of the Aboriginal Race in any State and so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the Population. DIRECTIONS. Mark your vote on this ballot-paper as follows. If you APPROVE the proposed law, write the word the space provided opposite the question.

On 27 May 1967 Australians voted in one of the most important referenda within Australian society. The referendum was signicant for Indigenous Australians and also for the high level of support it attracted: 90.77 per cent of Australian voters voted yes. Such a high yes vote was remarkable in a country which other nations often judged to be racist and where voters were traditionally reluctant to change the status quo. Voters had only passed four of twenty-six previous referenda proposals.

SOURCE 7.23 An extract from the ballot paper which people received when they went to register their vote on the two referendum questions which the Commonwealth Government put to them in 1967 SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Identify the question voters had to respond to in source 7.23. 2 What did they have to do to register their decision on this

YES in

If you DO NOT APPROVE the proposed law, write the word

NO in the space provided opposite the question.

DO YOU APPROVE the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled
An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to People of the Aboriginal Race in any State and so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the Population.?

question?

The issue
Until 1967, Australias Constitution contained only two references to Aboriginal people. As source 7.24 indicates, both of these disadvantaged them. The words in bold italic in the rst column are those the referendum proposed to delete.

SOURCE 7.24 References to Aboriginal people in the Constitution before 1967

References to Aborigines in Australias Constitution (1901) Section 51: The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to: .... (xxvi) The people of any race, other than the aboriginal race in any state, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws.

Results of these clauses This section, known as the race power, denied the Commonwealth Government the power to make laws concerning Aboriginal people (except those in the territories) and gave this power to state governments. Aboriginal people could not expect to retain rights from one state to another as each state had different laws. State governments did not allocate the resources necessary to tackle the health, education and housing needs of Aboriginal people. The census enables the government to verify the size of its population and to gain information about people which it can then use to improve their lives, calculate the number of MPs to which a state is entitled and allocate government grants. This clause excluded Aborigines from the census, effectively treated them as non-persons, and meant that the Commonwealth Government lacked the information required to tackle their needs.

census: ofcial count of the population, carried out every ve years in Australia

Section 127: In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted.

In the 1967 referendum, the issue was the removal of the discriminatory sections of the Constitution (see source 7.24). It was not about citizenship or voting rights. Indigenous Australians, along with other Australians, gained Australian citizenship in 1948 when the concept of Australian (as opposed to British) citizenship came into existence. In 1949 the Commonwealth Government passed legislation conrming that Indigenous Australians whose states had granted them voting rights, could vote

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in federal elections. The 1962 Commonwealth Electoral Act stated that as long as they enrolled for voting, Indigenous Australians could vote in federal elections regardless of the view of their state governments. Australias Constitution says little about rights. Federal and state laws are what recognise peoples rights. Many state laws affecting Indigenous people reinforced the policy of protection and assimilation and so denied Indigenous Australians rights that other Australians enjoyed. If the Commonwealth Government could make laws for Indigenous Australians, then it could override laws that discriminated against them and implement its integration policy recognising their separate identity.

SOURCE 7.25 A table showing how differing laws across Australias states and territories in 1962 governed Aboriginal peoples rights

NSW Voting rights (state) Marry freely Control own children Move freely Own property freely Receive award wages Alcohol allowed Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Vic Yes Yes Yes No No No No

SA Yes Yes No No Yes No No

WA No No No No No No No

NT No No No No No No No

Qld No No No No No No No

B. Attwood and A. Markus, The 1967 Referendum, or When Aborigines Didnt get the Vote, AIATSIS, Canberra, 1997, p. 13.

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Explain how moving from northern New South Wales to live 50 kilometres away just over the

border in Queensland would have affected the life of an Aborigine in 1962.

2 Identify the areas of Australia which gave least recognition to Aboriginal peoples rights. 3 Identify the extent to which the Commonwealth Government gave recognition to Aboriginal

rights in the Northern Territory.

Action for reform: right wrongs write yes

Groups and individuals
It took 10 years of concerted campaigning from 1957 onwards for Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups and individuals to pressure the Commonwealth Government to hold a referendum to remove the discriminatory parts of the Constitution. The campaign highlighted the many inequalities Indigenous Australians faced in relation to segregation, low pay, racism and lack of opportunity. Some of the key people and groups involved in the campaign were: the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (FCAA, established 1957) which developed into the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR) Faith Bandler, activist and Indigenous rights campaigner who played a key role within FCAATSI and in gathering signatures on a pro-referendum petition Jessie Street, a political activist and committed social reformer, who was another key leader in the petition campaign to pressure federal parliament to hold a referendum; she saw this as essential to making federal resources available to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians Labor MP Gordon Bryant, leader within the Aboriginal Advancement League of Victoria and a long-time supporter of Aboriginal rights. Referendum advocates, including Faith Bandler and Jessie Street, launched the petition on 29 April 1957 at the Sydney Town Hall. Their goal was to collect 100 000 signatures. Eventually they and their supporters collected one million signatures.

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As the annotations below indicate, this poster from the 1967 referendum campaign uses a variety of techniques to express and support its viewpoint.

SOurce 7.26 1967 poster The Rights of the Australian Aboriginesand You

The Rights of the Australian Aborigines AND YOU

And you is a personal appeal to target someones individual attention. The reference to the Human Rights Declaration is a way of supporting the action required, giving it credibility and associating it with something that has a positive image.

LO-RES

All human beings are born free and equal ... in dignity and human rights ... and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. ARTICLE 1. United Nations Declaration on Human Rights

WHAT CAN AUSTRALIANS OF EUROPEAN DESCENT DO TO MAKE THIS A REALITY FOR THEIR FELLOW-AUSTRALIANS OF ABORIGINAL DESCENT?

This question appeals to peoples conscience and to a sense of purpose. Vote YES is a clear message and a direct order telling the audience what to do. The Aboriginal image is a reminder of what the referendum issue is about.

Vote YES
in the Federal Referendum on Saturday, May 27, 1967
Appeal by ... THE AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL OF SALARIED AND PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Identify the audience for this poster and the group that promoted it. 2 Explain the purpose of the poster. 3 Identify the reason the poster provides in support of its message.
The campaign was a national exercise in raising peoples awareness of the situation of Indigenous Australians. People learned through: campaigners lobbying politicians to table their petitions in federal parliament William Graydens 20-minute Warburton Ranges lm exposing the plight of Pitjantjatjara Aborigines living in the Warburton Ranges. The government had displaced them from their land, to allow nuclear testing there. Graydon was Western Australias Minister for Native Welfare and his lm showed the impact of drought and lack of adequate food, water and medical resources on their existence. media reports, especially of conditions highlighted during Charles Perkins 1965 Freedom Ride in New South Wales (see page 359) discussions in school classrooms listening to guest speakers at universities.

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SOURCE 7.27 Photo from the front pageof the Sydney Morning Herald, 25May1967

In 1965 FCAATSI representatives reported how even Prime Minister Menzies was surprised into realisation of restrictions on Indigenous peoples lives. At the end of a meeting with them, he offered them a glass of alcohol. They reported later that he was shocked when poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker) told him that in Queensland he could be jailed for making an offer like that.

Commonwealth Government
In the late 1950s, the Australian Parliaments Constitutional Review Committee twice recommended the repeal (cancellation) of Section 127 of the Constitution. After an electoral redistribution in Western Australia, politicians saw that counting Aboriginal people in the census would enable them to retain a seat in the House of Representatives that they might otherwise have lost. In November 1965 Prime Minister Menzies announced a referendum on Section 127 alone. Menzies argued that retaining all of Section 51(xxvi) would enable the government to discriminate to advantage Aboriginal people. Menzies successor, Harold Holt, took this a step further after he became Prime Minister in January 1966. Later that year, Holt committed Australia to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). This meant that Australia would have to enact laws to eliminate discrimination against its Indigenous people. In March 1967, Holt announced the referendum to repeal the offending parts of both sections of the Constitution. This meant removing the words from the Constitution that prohibited the Commonwealth Government from making laws for Aborigines. Holt acknowledged that this was in response to the many people who had signed petitions demanding this. No-one in either House of Parliament voted against the Bill supporting this change. All major political parties supported the Yes vote. Politicians spoke of the government gaining power to enact laws for the benet of Aboriginal people.

SOURCE 7.28 Gordon Bryant, Labor MP in 1967, explains some of his reasons for supporting a yes vote.

Tonight, to a certain extent, we have taken the rst step towards carrying out an instruction that was issued 180 years ago. This instruction was given to Governor Phillip in the Commission of 1787. You are to endeavour by every possible means to open intercourse with the natives and to conciliate their affection. To most people, the Aboriginal people have been on the edge of the nation. The Bill will provide equitable distribution of nancial assistance to Aborigines among the States, the wealthiest of which have the lowest percentage of Aborigines.
Hansard (Parliamentary records), vol. 54, p. 281.

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 2 3 4 5

Identify the intended audience for the photo shown in source 7.27. Explain who the two boys represent and in what ways they are different. What do you think is the perspective of the creator of the source? Explain what the Bill to which Gordon Bryant refers in source 7.28 is proposing to do. Identify two benets that Bryant thinks will come from this decision.
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The significance of the 1967 referendum

The 1967 referendum campaign exemplied the power of ordinary people to achieve change. The result was a public recognition of the existence of Australias Indigenous people as a distinct group within Australian society. It marked the change from Indigenous Australians exclusion from to inclusion within the Constitution. The referendum results: extended the Commonwealth Governments race power so it could make laws and implement policy for Aboriginal people. Presumably this meant laws for the benet of Aborigines (see page 284). This also meant that it could enact laws which would take precedence over any state government laws for Aboriginal people. increased momentum for change among Aboriginal Australians and came to symbolise their broader struggle to achieve recognition of their rights. The result enabled the government to improve Australias international image by removing discriminatory sections from its Constitution. In voting yes Australian voters gave the government a mandate to take action to correct a constitutional injustice against Aborigines without necessarily expecting it to examine injustice more broadly. At the same time, although the referendum result had great symbolic importance, it had little practical benet for Aboriginal people, because: inequities continued in pay and working conditions Aborigines continued to be victims of racism and discrimination land rights remained a key issue to be resolved political parties, which had united to achieve the yes vote, did not share a commitment to improving health, housing, employment and education benets for Aboriginal people. Prime Minister Harold Holt created an Ofce of Aboriginal Affairs and announced that his government would not be providing any specic assistance programs for them. It was another ve years before successive federal governments began to implement change in these areas. Integration policy had little practical benet for Indigenous people. The fact that the highest percentages of no votes came from the areas with the largest Aboriginal populations indicated that racial prejudice remained a signicant barrier to the equality that Aborigines expected the vote to deliver them.

mandate: an authorisation to carry out an action

actiVities
CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING 1 Identify the issue affecting Indigenous people in the 1967 referendum and its result. 2 Explain how Australias Constitution disadvantaged Indigenous people up to that time. 3 How are peoples rights given legal recognition within Australia? 4 Identify two organisations and two individuals who campaigned for the Commonwealth Government to hold what became the 1967 referendum. 5 Outline the methods supporters used to convince people of the importance of a referendum. 6 What was the role of the Commonwealth Government in relation to this issue? 7 Assess the extent to which the 1967 referendum beneted Australias Indigenous peoples. Your answer should be 1015 lines in length. RESEARCH AND COMMUNICATE 8 Create a one-page Fact Sheet on one of the following people or organisations: Faith Bandler Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR) Gordon Bryant Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal William Grayden and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) Jessie Street Your Fact Sheet should contain the key facts about the role that the individual or organisation played in the campaign for the referendum and the yes vote in 1967. Find one image to illustrate what you have written.

Assess means make a judgement about the value of something.

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7.4 The struggle for rights and freedom land rights, 1966 to 1990
1966: The Wave Hill Walk Off
On 22 August 1966, Vincent Lingiari led nearly 200 Gurindji stockmen, station hands, domestic servants and their families in a walk off from the Wave Hill cattle station in the Northern Territory. They set up camp on their traditional lands at Wattie Creek (Daguragu) about 18 kilometres away. This strike began as a protest against poor and irregularly paid wages, long working hours, and appalling living conditions (housing in tin humpies, no running water, no sanitation). It developed into a nine-year struggle for people to regain control of their traditional lands. The Wave Hill Walk Off marked the beginning of the campaign for recognition of land rights. In the ensuing years, Indigenous Australians pursued these claims in court cases, petitions and public protests.

SOURCE 7.29 Photo showing people marching in support of the Gurindji people in Sydney in 1972

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Describe what the photo shows about the people involved in this protest. 2 List the ideas that the placards indicate about the treatment of the Gurindji people. sacred sites: sites that areimportant to the spiritual or cultural beliefs ofan Indigenous group native title: legal recognition of the existenceof Indigenous peoples law and land ownership before 1788

1971: The Gove Land Rights Case

In 1963, the Yolngu people of Yirrkala in Arnhem Land sent a petition on bark to the House of Representatives. The petition recorded their protest against the Menzies governments decision to grant rights to Nabalco Pty Ltd to mine bauxite on more than 390 square kilometres of traditional Yirrkala land, containing sacred sites. They then took their case the Gove Land Rights Case to the Northern Territory Supreme Court. Their goal was to have the court acknowledge their native title right to this land.

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terra nullius: Latin term meaning the land of no-one; according to eighteenth-century law, a land which had no owner could be lawfully taken over by the people of anotherland

In 1971, Justice Blackburn, the Chief Justice of the Northern Territory Supreme Court, handed down his decision in their case Milirrpum v. Nabalco Pty Ltd (1971): that Aboriginal people had lived on the land from time immemorial that their societies had a recognised system of law that native title was not part of the Australian legal system that even if native title had existed, British law had legally replaced it after 1788 that, in any case, the claimants had not proved any native title rights. Justice Blackburns decision upheld the doctrine of terra nullius.

1971: The advent of the Tent Embassy

compensation: the task of making up for some misfortune or wrongdoing tenure: the possession of something, in this case,land
In 1971, the Aboriginal Advancement League asked the United Nations to support its claim for land rights and compensation. Protesters pressured state and federal governments to respond to the injustice of indigenous peoples having been dispossessed of their land. On 26 January 1972, the Liberal Party Prime Minister, William McMahon, announced: Land rights would threaten the tenure of every Australian. He said that his government would grant neither land rights nor compensation to Australias Indigenous peoples. They could lease land, but only for what his government considered worthwhile economic or social purposes. McMahon also said that his government would allow mining on Aboriginal reserves. That afternoon, four Aboriginal activists Michael Anderson, Tony Coorey, Billy Craigie and Gary Williams came up with a daring scheme to express anger at the Prime Ministers attitude. They set up an Aboriginal embassy in a tent on the lawns in front of Parliament House in Canberra. Australias Indigenous people united in their support for the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and the land rights issue it sought to publicise. The embassy became a powerful and ongoing mechanism for raising public awareness of the land rights issue. The government ordered the police to dismantle the embassy but the protesters put it back up again. It remained outside Parliament House for six months and was for many Indigenous Australians a source of great pride, inspiring them to become involved in politics.

embassy: the headquarters of those who represent their nation within a foreigncountry

SOurce 7.30 Photograph showing activists in front of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy outside the old Parliament House in Canberra in 1972

SOURCE QUESTION Describe what the photograph in source7.30 depicts. What impression does it create of the position of Indigenous people inAustralia?
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SOURCE 7.31 An extract from Shirley Smiths autobiography. Known as Mum Shirl and the Black Saint of Redfern, she was greatly loved and admired for her work with children and in promoting Aboriginal rights. She died in 1998.

The young Blacks were getting buses ready now to go up to Canberra to put the Embassy back up. I went too, to help if I could. I took some very young children with me because I knew this would be a marvellous moment in history and I didnt want any Black kids to miss it. What I saw up there would put a shock into anyone. The police came running over in thousands ... and began beating up on the Black women who had grabbed each others hands and were standing in a big circle around the tent ... They punched them, knocked them to the ground and then jumped on their guts. I couldnt believe my eyes. All this was taking place right outside Parliament House ... where I was told the laws were made and the country is governed. The television cameras were everywhere but that didnt stop them.
S. Smith, with the assistance of R. Sykes, Mum Shirl an Autobiography, Heinemann, Melbourne, 1981.

SOURCE QUESTIONS Use source 7.31 to answer the following questions: 1 Why did Mum Shirl go to the Tent Embassy? 2 What does her account indicate about police reaction to the embassy? 3 Explain the point Mum Shirl was making in her reference to Parliament House.
The Aboriginal Tent Embassy focused national and international attention on the Australian Governments policies towards its Indigenous peoples. It symbolised the importance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of establishing recognition of their traditions, culture and rights within the Australian community and by its government.

Aboriginal artist Harold Thomas created the Aboriginal ag around this time. It rst appeared in public in 1971 at an Aboriginal Day street march in Adelaide. The ag made its international debut when it was own above the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in 1972.
The Aboriginal Tent Embassy has been re-established outside the old Parliament House on a number of occasions since 1972. In early 1999, Prime Minister John Howard called for the embassy to be relocated away from old Parliament House. It is still there today.

1972 to 1975: Whitlam government initiatives

The Whitlam (federal) government (197275; see chapter 12) began to use the race power gained in the 1967 referendum to make laws for Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples gained more opportunities to control theirown affairs, and the Whitlam government took a number of initiatives to improve their access to justice within Australian society: It signicantly increased funding for Aboriginal Affairs. The $23million allocated under the previous governments 197172 budget went to $141 million by the 197576 nancial year. It created a Federal Ministry for Aboriginal Affairs. It set up a National Aboriginal Consultative Committee (NACC) to advise the Minister. It instituted a commission to investigate land rights. In 1973 the Whitlam government established the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Land Rights in Federal Territories. The Commissions role, under Justice Edward Woodward, was to investigate appropriate means to recognise and establish the traditional rights of Aborigines in relation to the land. Its brief, because of concern over creating conict with states rights, was limited to an inquiry into Aboriginal land rights in federal territories. Its 1974 report recommended that: two land councils be established and funded to provide legal support for land claims Crown land should be open to land rights claims Aboriginal people should be recognised as owners of their reserves

Crown land: a term to describe land which the state owns and the government administers; it is land owned by the public and not by private companies or individuals

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SOURCE 7.32 Photo showing then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam symbolically giving soil to Vincent Lingiari in August 1975

mining companies should pay royalties to Aboriginal people for minerals extracted from Aboriginal land Aborigines had the right to deal directly with mining companies in any discussions. The Commonwealth Government established the Northern and Central Land Councils and implemented most of the other recommendations. In 1975, the House of Representatives passed a Bill to recognise Aboriginal people as the lawful landowners of their Northern Territory lands. The Senate, where the Labor Party did not hold a majority, defeated this. That same year, the Labor government did succeed in granting some of the land rights for which Aboriginal activists had been campaigning. On 16 August 1975 Prime Minister Whitlam formally handed Gurindji people at Daguragu (Wattie Creek) the lease of part of their traditional lands. This, combined with 90 square kilometres from the Wave Hill station, formed the basis of the Aboriginal-run Dagaragu cattle station.

1976: Land rights and the Fraser government

In 1976, Malcolm Frasers Liberal Party/Country Party coalition government passed the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Bill, allowing Aboriginal people to claim Crown land and reserves on the basis of traditional ownership. Claims could be made only on land that no other person or government has any use for. Control of any land granted was given to a Land Council whose representatives would administer the land on behalf of its Aboriginal community. The law also provided for refusal of mining on Aboriginal land unless it was in the national interest. Although individuals or groups can own land, the government is generally regarded as having rights to the minerals beneath it. Since 1978, the Land Councils have had responsibility for granting permits to people wanting to enter their land. The Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory) 1976 (Cwlth) provided some recognition of Indigenous peoples rights to land. The Act did not allow Indigenous people a right to claim land inside towns. When the Northern Territory gained selfgovernment, it extended the boundaries of Darwin and of three other towns in order to limit Aboriginal peoples land claims. A 1985 High Court decision over-ruled these boundary changes.

SOURCE QUESTION Describe the signicance of this photo in relation to Indigenous peoples struggle for land rights.

Late 1970s to 1985: State governments and land rights

From the late 1970s onwards, many state governments also began to consider land rights legislation, as the table below indicates.

State South Australia

Year 1981

Initiatives in land rights legislation The South Australian Government recognised Aboriginal rights to specic areas of land and also granted the right to receive payment for any mining carried out on those lands. As a result, more than 10per cent of South Australias land was returned to the Pitjantjatjara and Maralinga peoples. Tasmanias Labor government prepared a land rights Bill but this was abandoned when it lost ofce. The new government maintained the myth that there were no Aborigines in Tasmania and therefore no need to provide for land claims. The Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 (NSW) recognised Aboriginal ownership of reserves and also allowed claims to be made on Crown lands. Mining companies had to obtain permission from Land Councils if they wanted to mine anything other than coal, gold, oil or silver. Indigenous people in Queensland gained ownership of reserve land. The Western Australian Labor government failed to get a land rights Bill passed by its upper house. In 1986, fearful of losing the support of voters, it decided not to pursue land rights any further.

Tasmania

1981

New South Wales

1983

Queensland Western Australia

1984 1985

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Opposition to land rights

A signicant barrier to achieving land rights has been opposition from mining companies and pastoralists (sheep and cattle owners) and from governments reluctant to lose the support of these groups. In 1978, Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen placed Aboriginal reserves at Arakun and Mornington Islands under the control of the Minister for Local Government. His intention was to prevent land rights claims that would threaten commercial and mining interests there. In 1980, a United States company, Amex, wanted rights to search for oil at Noonkanbah in Western Australia. The Western Australian Government supported the company, even though this decision ignored the rights of the traditional owners and their concerns about sacred sites. Indigenous people gained wider support for their case by presenting it to the United Nations and also received considerable support for their protests from within Australia. The Western Australian Government brought in the police so that the protesters would not prevent Amexs work.

SOURCE 7.33 A quote from Galarrwuy Yunupingu, then chairman of the Northern Land Council, in the Australian, 10 June 1978

The white miners interest is short-term but his mines are eternal. They are digging up the most beautiful desert in Australia; they are wrecking the place to make money and then get out. The white man doesnt know how he is affecting the Aboriginal people. These are very sacred areas. Even if only one rock is sacred, that rock shines like a light on the land around it and that land, too, becomes sacred. The Aboriginals suffer a great deal when they see their land being destroyed ...

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Describe the perspective of the author of source 7.33. 2 Explain who you think his intended audience is and what his purpose is.

1985 to 1990: Land rights and the Hawke government

SOURCE 7.34 Photograph of the ofcial ceremony to mark the return of Uluru to its traditional owners in November 1985
The year 1985 marked another achievement for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. The Governor-General at that time, Sir Ninian Stephen, formally returnedAyers Rock to its traditional owners. Since then, people usually call the rock by its Aboriginal name, Uluru.

SOURCE QUESTION Explain the signicance of source 7.34 in relation to the changing rights and freedoms of Australias Indigenous people.
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However, in 1986, the Commonwealth Government, under Prime Minister Bob Hawke, abandoned its proposed national land rights legislation. The decision seemed to reect fear that many white Australians would not support the Labor Party if it increased opportunities for land rights. Opinion polls seemed to conrm this view. The 1988 Bicentennial celebrations of the arrival of the First Fleet brought the land rights issue to the fore once again. One Australian citizen travelled to Britain to demonstrate a dramatic reversal of the roles of invader and invaded. On 26 January 1988, Burnum Burnum (19361998), a member of the Wurundjeri people, stood on the white cliffs of Dover in England. He planted an Aboriginal ag and symbolically claimed Englands land for his people (see source 7.35).

SOURCE 7.35 An extract from Burnum Burnums speech in England on 26January1988

I, Burnum Burnum, being a nobleman of ancient Australia, do hereby take possession of England on behalf of the Aboriginal people ... We do not intend to souvenir, pickle and preserve the heads of 2000 of your people, nor to publicly display the skeletal remains of your Royal Highness, as was done to our Queen Truganinni for 80 years. Neither do we intend to poison your water, lace your our with strychnine or introduce you to highly toxic drugs.

SOURCE QUESTIONS Use source 7.35 and your own knowledge to answer the following questions: 1 What motivated Burnum Burnum to make this speech? 2 To whom was the speech addressed? 3 What actions did Burnum Burnum say would not accompany his peoples possession of the land? 4 Identify the message Burnum Burnum was trying to communicate through his actions and words. 5 Which groups in Australia would have supported him? SOurce 7.36 Photograph of an Aboriginal protest at Botany Bay on Invasion Day, 26 January 1988. Since 2006, Indigenous Australians have begun using the term Sovereignty Day to describe what is ofcially known as Australia Day.

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Explain the meaning of the equation in the top half of the banner. 2 Explain the meaning of the question in the lower half of the banner. 3 What do you think was the purpose of the banners message?

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treaty: a written document explaining the terms of agreement between two groups with regard to friendship, military alliance, trade or some other factors Makarrata: a treaty which would recognise Indigenous people as the original owners of Australia and their unique place within Australian society

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The Bicentennial celebrations (and protests against them) encouraged a good deal of soul-searching about the type of nation that had developed in Australia by 1988 and the role of Indigenous Australians within it. Many Australians criticised the idea of celebrating an event that had resulted in Indigenous people being dispossessed of their land and which began an ongoing struggle to achieve justice and equality under their countrys new rulers. For many Indigenous Australians, 26 January 1988 like 26 January 1938 (the 150th anniversary of the First Fleets arrival) was a day of mourning, on which the only thing that could be celebrated was their survival. Thousands of people marched through Sydneys streets to celebrate their endurance of the society that originated under British rule from 1788. Bob Hawke, Australias Prime Minister from 1983 to 1991, announced that his government wanted to consider a treaty with Indigenous Australians. This treaty, or Makarrata, would give recognition to the societies that had lived in Australia before 1788 and who were the original owners of the land. This would have been an important step towards recognising the rights of Australias Indigenous people. Britain had had treaties with Indigenous peoples in Canada, in the Pacic Islands and in New Zealand, so the idea was not a new one. In the early twenty-rst century, there is still no treaty. Another development in 1988 was the Barunga Statement, which was: a list of rights that Indigenous people demanded the Commonwealth Government recognise a list of the laws they believed would help achieve this a call for a treaty. Aboriginal elders in the Northern Territory presented the Barunga Statement to Prime Minister Bob Hawke in June 1988. (Use the Barunga Statement weblink in your eBookPLUS to view the document.)

1988: White Australia has a black past

Amid the Bicentennial celebrations, many Australians came to recognise that the history being commemorated was only a small part of Australias story and that the nations history began thousands of years before 1788. Since 1988, historians, teachers, students and the public have increasingly attempted to include the viewpoints and contributions of Indigenous Australians and of others of non-British background. The historian Geoffrey Blainey and Prime Minister John Howard (Prime Minister from 1996 to 2007) criticised what they viewed as the black armband view of history one which recognises the negative aspects of Australias past.

SOURCE 7.37 A response to John Howards comment on the black armband view of history

The teaching of secondary history is about inclusiveness. The story of the past is a rich and complex tapestry made up of a myriad of individual threads and stories. The more of these threads our students see, the fuller their understanding of the picture. Teachers around Victoria do cover the institutionalised genocide that occurred in Tasmania, not to make students feel guilty but because even the painful parts of the story have their value. The dark threads serve to ll the gaps, provide the background and the contrast which makes the brighter moments even more eye catching. All threads in the tapestry of the past are of value ... The splashes of blood red massacres are as necessary as the crimson thread of kinship which wends its way through much of the last two hundred years.

The suggestion that we should leave out certain parts of the human story because they are painful I would reject out of hand. We would never suggest that German children should not be taught about the Nazis or that the Japanese should ignore their wars of aggression, or their treatment of prisoners of war. It would be inconsistent (if not hypocritical) to consider our own past so selectively. It would also be a great disservice to future generations of Australians. We remember, not to feel guilty or glorify the past, but to provide an insight into the nature of our own humanity ... If we neglect our history we condemn ourselves to remaining forever an immature country condemned to a Peter Pan world of pre-pubescent adolescence.
John Cantwell, A School Perspective to the Black Armband Debate, in Agora, vol. 2, no. 2, 1997, pp.1819.

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Identify and explain the message of source 7.37. 2 Do you agree with the author? Why, or why not?

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actiVities
Explain means give reasons for something, especially in terms of cause and effect relationships.

CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING 1 Explain the signicance of the Wave Hill Walk Off and the Gove land rights decision in Indigenous peoples struggle for land rights. 2 Outline Prime Minister William McMahons policy on land rights. 3 On what grounds was McMahon willing to lease land to Indigenous people? Explain what makes these grounds discriminatory. 4 Explain why the Aboriginal Tent Embassy was created. What indications are there that it was successful? 5 List three ways in which there seemed to be greater government support for Indigenous people in the 1970s. 6 Explain how the Woodward Royal Commissions recommendations offered hope for more control for Aboriginal people over their own affairs. 7 Explain how the Northern Territory Government tried to overcome the provisions of the Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. Why did these attempts fail? 8 What attitudes and priorities prevented more land rights achievements in the 1970s and 1980s? 9 Explain why some Australians criticised the idea of celebrating the bicentenary of the arrival of the First Fleet. 10 How did the Bicentennial celebrations assist the recognition of Aboriginal rights and freedoms? 11 Explain what is meant by a black armband view of history. RESEARCH AND COMMUNICATE 12 If possible, view the 1988 lm Babakiueria and discuss answers to these questions: a What does the lm have in common with Burnum Burnums actions? b What do you think was the main reason for making this lm? Identify its main message. c Identify the events in the lms story that help the viewer to understand the lms main message. d Continue the lms story by writing 1215 lines beginning with the words: From that time on.... You should write from the viewpoint of one of the family members. Try to show how the loss of land rights is linked to dispossession more generally. 13 The Aboriginal ag is an ofcial ag of Australia under the Flags Act 1953 (Cwlth) and was designed by Harold Thomas. Use the Harold Thomas weblink in your eBookPLUS and read the information it provides. a Explain the message you think Harold Thomas wanted to convey through the Aboriginal ag. b Draw and colour a copy of the ag and label it to show the signicance of the colours and shapes as described by Harold Thomas. 14 Use the Barunga Statement weblink in your eBookPLUS. Read the document and answer the following questions: a Are there any rights demanded here which the average Australian would not expect to enjoy? Give reasons for your answer. b List the international conventions, declarations and covenants mentioned in the Barunga Statement. What do you think was the purpose of mentioning them? c What impression does the Barunga Statement give about the treatment of Australias Indigenous people in 1988? 15 In 2009, the Australian of the Year, Professor Mick Dodson, said it was time for Australia to begin a conversation about the date of Australia Day. a Why do (i) many Indigenous Australians and (ii) many people living outside Sydney consider 26 January an inappropriate date for celebrating the idea of Australia as a nation? b Divide into groups to discuss and decide on a more appropriate date for Australia Day. One representative from each group should report its suggestion to the class.

Identify means nd and name a specic thing that is asked for.

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7.5 The struggle for rights and freedom native title from 1992
Captain James Cook said that Australia belonged to no-one when he laid claim to its east coast on behalf of Britain in 1770. According to eighteenth-century law, a land which had no owner could be lawfully taken over by the people of another land. Following the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, Australias east coast became Crown land land claimed in the name of the reigning sovereign and his or her governments. No consideration was given to the land rights of Australias Indigenous peoples. Gradually, governments claimed more land and either kept it, leased it to others, gave it away or sold it. The Queensland Government took over the Torres Strait Islands in 1879. The Meriam Islanders continued to live on their island, Mer (Murray Island), and carry out their traditional way of life there.

SOURCE 7.38 Photograph of Eddie Mabo (19361992)

1992: Mabo and the High Court

In the late 1970s, the Queensland Government began to deny some of the Meriam Islanders the use of their lands. In 1982, Eddie Koiki Mabo, Father David Passi (an Anglican minister), James Rice, Sam Passi and Celia Salee led a group of Meriam Islanders in a court case challenging the governments right to do this. They claimed that the Indigenous people living on Mer Island owned that land because their families had lived there since time immemorial (further back than anyone could remember). They wanted legal recognition of their ownership rights over particular plots of land on Mer. After losing their case in the Queensland Supreme Court, they appealed to the High Court of Australia. On 3 June 1992, the High Court handed down its historic decision (see source7.39) in Mabo and Others v. The State ofQueensland (1992). This case came to be known simply as Mabo. It was a major turning point in the history of land rights claims for Australias Indigenous peoples.

SOURCE QUESTION Write three facts about the man shown in source 7.38 to explain why he is important to Australian history. SOURCE 7.39 Summary of the High Court decision on Mabo
The High Court decided: in favour of the Meriam Islanders and against the State of Queensland that native title to land had existed before 1788 and might still be in existence on land which had never been sold or given away that for native title to continue to exist, the land would have to have been continuously lived on by Indigenous families and their descendants since 1788; the people would have to have continued traditional customs that on land which had been legally granted or sold by governments to someone else for their exclusive use, native title had ceased to exist.

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SOURCE 7.40 Map showing the location of Mer (Murray) Island

The Mabo judgement was a turning point in the recognition of land rights. It was important for all Australians because it overturned the legal ction that Australia had been terra nullius (land belonging to no-one) when the British took possession of it in 1788. The High Court recognised that: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were the original owners of Australia that some of these peoples might still retain native title of land. PA P UA Gulf of Papua NEW GUINEA In other words, native title was not granted by the government. It existed as a result of Indigenous peoples Daru customary law the legal system that had existed in Boigu Saibai Island Island Australia in 1788. The High Court did not decide whether or Turnagain Island Darnley Island not native title could still exist on land that had been leased Gabba Island TORRES STRAIT Mer (Murray) to pastoralists on a long-term basis but which they did not Island Badu Island actually own. Moa Island Some Australians worried that they might lose their Thursday Island CORAL Horn Island suburban backyards but there was no basis for this in the Cape York N SEA Prince of Wales Island Mabo decision, which provided limited opportunities for small numbers of Indigenous people to claim the ongoing 0 25 50 75 km AUSTRALIA existence of native title.

1993: Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth)

Eddie Mabo died in early 1992. He was posthumously (after death) named Australian of the Year by the Australian newspaper on 26January 1993. He is now buried on Mer.
On 22 December 1993, after 18 months of discussion and debate with government and community groups, the Commonwealth Parliament passed the Native Title Bill, which was its response to the Mabo decision. The main features of this law were: recognition of existing land rights for all owners of freehold property, and land rights also for many people who held pastoral or other leases the requirement that native title claims be supported by proof of continued association with the land claimed provision for claims to be heard by state tribunals or through the Federal Court nancial assistance to claimants, farmers and Indigenous people whose land had been taken but who could not claim land under the terms of the Act. However, like the High Courts 1992 decision, the governments Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth) did not provide any answers on the question of whether native title could still exist on land that governments had leased to pastoralists. This was the issue considered in the Wik Case of 1997 (see page 283). State and Commonwealth legislation and the establishment of funds for land purchase have resulted in about 15 per cent of Australia being recognised as Indigenous peoples land. Much of this land is in semi-desert areas and of marginal economic value. In New South Wales and Victoria, the two states where most Indigenous Australians live, the Native Title Act 1993 offered little likelihood of successful native claims.

Rights and freedoms

The 1967 referendum result, Aboriginal activism, increased public discussion and debate, court decisions and legislation all helped maintain a focus on land rights and the issues of Aboriginal rights and freedoms connected with them. The Mabo decision and Native Title Act were important in further recognising land rights and in providing funds for Indigenous peoples to regain land. In his Redfern speech of 10 December 1992 (source 7.41), Prime Minister Paul Keating took another step towards recognition of Aboriginal rights and freedoms. He acknowledged both the past injustices towards Indigenous peoples and the fact that all Australians were in some way degraded by these injustices. There have always been threats to achieving justice in the area of land rights. Mining companies and some state governments have often shown little appreciation of Indigenous

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land rights and even less concern for sacred sites. Many non-Indigenous Australians have been more concerned with what government assistance Indigenous people were receiving than how they came to need it in the rst place. Political developments in the late 1990s showed that there were signicant racist and discriminatory attitudes among the Australian population.

SOURCE 7.41 An extract from the speech of former Prime Minister Paul Keating at Redfern on10 December 1992. The Redfern speech marked the beginning of the International Year of the Worlds IndigenousPeoples. SOURCE QUESTION Summarise the message of Keatings speech in source 7.41.

It begins ... with an act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion... We failed to ask how would I feel if this were done to me? As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us.

1996: The Wik decision

In the 1990s, Australia appeared to be turning into a nation divided over the issue of race. In the midst of this, in December 1996, the High Court handed down its decision in the case brought to it by the Wik people of Cape York in northern Queensland. In The Wik Peoples v. The State of Queensland and Others (1996), the Wik people argued that native title rights continued on Crown land which had been leased to pastoralists. This was the issue which had not been sorted out by either the Mabo decision or by the Native Title Act. The High Court decided in the Wik Case that: native title continued in Queensland even on land which the government had leased to pastoralists native title rights and the rights of the leaseholder existed concurrently (at the same time) if there was any conict during the term of the lease about how the two groups wanted to use the land, then native titleholders rights and interests must yield to that extent to the rights of the leaseholders. The Wik people celebrated the decision as one which strengthened native title claims and meant that pastoral leases did not extinguish native title for all time.

1998: Native Title (Amendment) Act 1998

Many individuals and groups from the mining and pastoral industries were angered by the Wik decision and demanded that the Commonwealth Government act to extinguish native title rights completely. The Queensland Government responded by issuing titles and leases without following the provisions of the Native Title Act. The Prime Minister, John Howard, put forward a Ten-Point Plan, which he claimed was a compromise. He expressed concern that the court had given too much to Indigenous Australians and said his plan would return the pendulum to the centre. The Ten-Point Plan seemed to have mainly negative consequences for people wishing to claim native title rights. The table on page 284 lists the implications of each of the points. Members of opposition parties, religious leaders, academics, human rights activists and many members of the Australian public viewed the Ten-Point Plan as a racist proposal and did not hesitate to say so. A number of lawyers pointed out that if it became law, the plan might be challenged in the High Court for going against the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cwlth) or against the Constitution. The 1967 referendum had allowed the Commonwealth Government to make laws for Australias Indigenous people. This race power amendment to the Constitution has generally been taken to mean law-making for the benet of Indigenous people, whereas the Ten-Point Plan was not benecial to them.

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The implications of the Ten-Point Plan

Point 1 2 3 Consequences This validated some pastoral and mining leases that state governments issued illegally after the Mabo decision, ignoring potential native title claims. Some leases gave the leaseholder exclusive use of the land. This seemed to create the potential for local councils and state governments to purposely locate power services on land where a native title claim had been made, with the intention of extinguishing native title there. Native title (and thus access to sacred sites) would be permanently extinguished if it contradicted the rights of a pastoral leaseholder. Claimants could continue to use traditional lands if they could prove they had access to them not easy if the pastoralist locked them out. Negotiation for mining rights need only be by means of a one-stage agreement, including rights to search for minerals and rights to mine them (instead of a separate stage for each activity). This denied compensation to claimants when the state government required a particular area of land for a development project. Granting the state governments the right to manage resources and air space led to fears that this would be used to weaken or extinguish native title. A higher registration test solved some of the problems of the Native Title Act 1993 which had made it too easy to register a native title claim even if it was unlikely to succeed. This seemed to place a time limit after which no native title claims could be made at all.

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Others questioned whether the Constitution gave the Commonwealth Government the power to allow state governments to declare some land grants available for pastoralists exclusive use. Some federal Members of Parliament, like Warren Entsch, responded to such criticisms by calling on the public to boycott churches that had expressed their disapproval of the plan. The Ten-Point Plan was incorporated into the Native Title (Amendment) Bill, which was passed in the House of Representatives and sent to the Senate with only minor amendments in late 1997. On 8 July 1998, after over a hundred hours of debate, the Bill was passed by the Senate. The nal Act resulted from 400 pages of amendments to the original Bill. The requirement that a native title claimant needed to prove an ongoing relationship with the land was replaced by a requirement of proof that the claimants parents had had an ongoing relationship with the land. The Act increased state and territory governments powers over native title claims. Indigenous people would be allowed to negotiate with companies wanting to mine resources on native title land but not to negotiate with pastoral leaseholders who might want to change the usage of land.

SOURCE 7.42 The sea of hands planted outside Parliament House inNovember 1997 duringa demonstration over Wik, showing support for Australias Indigenous peoples SOURCE QUESTION Describe what source 7.42 indicates about the attitudes of many Australians towards native title.
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The twenty-first century

The 1992 Mabo decision gave legal recognition to the concept of native title. It recognised the fact that Australias Indigenous peoples owned land and waters and had their own legal system before the arrival of Europeans in 1788 and that these were part of their practice of traditional laws and customs before and after that time. Native title could not be granted or created. It exists. Native title rights can co-exist with rights that other people have over the same area. They cannot remove anyone elses valid rights to land. Native title does not mean title to land ownership and it can only be applied where Indigenous peoples have maintained their traditional ties and where governments and the law have not extinguished native title. Indigenous groups can apply to the National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT) to investigate and mediate native title claims and to the Federal Court to decide them. Land rights also recognise Indigenous Australians traditional ownership of land and waters. Land rights differ from native title rights in that they are linked to claims people make to governments to be recognised as the legal owners of a particular area.

SOURCE 7.43 A cartoon by Wilcox fromthe Sydney MorningHerald, 22September 2006, in response to Philip Ruddocks comments on the 2006 Federal Court decision onNoongar

2006 to 2008: The Noongar decision

On 19 September 2006 Justice Wilcox in the Federal Court decided in favour of the Noongar peoples claim that native title could still exist within Perths metropolitan area. The decision stated that the Noongar people had maintained an ongoing connection with the land and culture of their ancestors and that dispossession was not enough to extinguish the Noongar peoples native title to the land in question. The decision did not affect either freehold or most leasehold land. Philip Ruddock, then Federal Attorney-General, implied that the decision could mean that Aboriginal people would deny people access to parklands, water foreshores [and] beaches within Perth. The Commonwealth and Western Australian governments both appealed this decision. On 23 April 2008 the Full Bench of the Federal Court largely overturned the 2006 decision. Tom Calma, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, commented that this decision left native title up in the air.

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Identify the man depicted in source 7.43. 2 To what event is he referring? 3 Describe what the source reveals about the perspective of the cartoonist. Identify the

techniques used (refer to page 267).

actiVities
CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING 1 Explain how Captain Cook justied his claim to Australias east coast in 1770. 2 Why did the Meriam Islanders take the Queensland Government to court? 3 Explain what was important about the High Courts decision in Mabo. Why would very few people be able to claim land as a result of the Mabo decision? 4 What aspects of the Native Title Act: a created certainty for Australian landholders b provided help to some groups?

5 What question had still not been answered by the

Native Title Act?

6 Identify the main features of the Wik decision. 7 Which points in the Ten-Point Plan seemed (a) positive,

(b) negative, or (c) neutral with regard to the rights of Indigenous Australians? 8 Distinguish the legal difference between land rights and native title. 9 List the areas that can and cannot be subject to native title claims in the twenty-rst century. WORKSHEET Worksheet 7.2 Match the terms

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7.6 Unfinished business: saying sorry

HREOCs Bringing Them Home report was tabled in federal Parliament on 26 May 1997. Its information and conclusions provoked widespread discussion of the experiences and injustices that the Stolen Generations suffered and of what Australias governments should do in response. The report recommended that: the authorities that created the Stolen Generations parliaments, police forces, church groups should formally apologise to them the authorities should provide money as some compensation for the negative impact of this practice. The Commonwealth Government pledged $63 million towards the implementation of the other HREOC suggestions. This did not include a compensation fund. One by one Australias state and territory parliaments voted in support of motions of apology (see the table below).

Date 28 May 1997 28 May 1997 18 June 1997 13 August 1997 17 September 1997 26 May 1999 17 June 1997 24 October 2001

Place Western Australian Legislative Assembly South Australian House of Assembly New South Wales Legislative Assembly Tasmanian House of Assembly Victorian Legislative Assembly Queensland Legislative Assembly Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly Northern Territory Legislative Assembly

Apology proposed by Leader of the Opposition, Dr Geoff Gallop Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Dean Brown Premier Bob Carr Premier Tony Rundle Premier Jeff Kennett Premier Peter Beattie Chief Minister Kate Carnell Chief Minister Clare Martin

SOURCE 7.44 Photo showing the Corroboree 2000 walk across Sydney Harbour Bridge on 28 May 2000

Prime Minister John Howard, in keeping with his policy of practical reconciliation, rejected the idea of making a formal apology saying: Australians of this generation should not be required to accept guilt and blame for past actions and policies over whichthey had no control. He argued that practical measures of compensation were more important and over the next decade continued in his refusal to make an apology in federal Parliament. Ordinary Australians signed Sorry books, recorded their apologies electronically on a specially designated website, and on 26 May 1998, participated in activities for the rst National Sorry Day. Since then, 26 May has become the day when people acknowledge the hardships and injustices that the Stolen Generations experienced and seek to embark with them on a process of healing. On 28 May 2000, over a quarter of a million visibly showed their support for Indigenous Australians by joining in the Corroboree 2000 walk across Sydney Harbour Bridge. The event served to underline the disappointment many people felt over the Australian Governments failure to apologise to the Stolen Generations.

SOURCE QUESTION Assess the usefulness of source 7.44 for a historian studying the issue of an apology to the Stolen Generations.
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13 February 2008: an apology

Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister of Australia on 3 December 2007. At 9 am on 13 February 2008, the second sitting day of the new Parliament, he delivered an apology to the Stolen Generations. Listening within Parliament were representatives of the Stolen Generations and four former Prime Ministers. Media outlets broadcast the apology live on television throughout Australia and on large outdoor screens at places such as Parliament House Canberra, Martin Place Sydney, Federation Square Melbourne and the foreshore of the Swan River in Perth.

SOurce 7.45 Prime Minister Kevin Rudds apology to the Stolen Generations, delivered in federal Parliament on 13 February 2008
I move: That today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history. We reect on their past mistreatment. We reect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations this blemished chapter in our nations history. The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australias history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with condence to the future. We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country. For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry. To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry. And for the indignity and degradation thus inicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry. We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation. For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written. We today take this rst step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians. A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again. A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and nonIndigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity. A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed. A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility. A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.

SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 In source 7.45, identify the term Prime Minister Rudd uses to describe the period of the Stolen 2 3 4 5

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Generations. List the ve specic things for which he apologises. On whose behalf is the Prime Minister speaking and who is his audience? Describe his goal in making this speech. Use the National Apology weblink in your eBookPLUS to access and read the full transcript of the apology.

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WORKSHEETs Worksheet 7.3 Story behind the photo Worksheet 7.4 Indigenous rights crossword
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7 Review timeline and summary

2008 13 February: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivers a

TIMELINE
mid 1800s Beginning of official policies of protection 1883 Aboriginal Protection Board established in New South

formal apology to the Stolen Generations Federal Court overturns the Noongar decision SuMMary

Wales
1897 Chief Protector given authority to move Aboriginal

people to and from reserves

1901 Australian Constitution excludes Aboriginal people

from the census. State governments have law-making power for Indigenous people.
1909 Aborigines Protection Act (NSW) gives Protection

Board control over any Aboriginal child it labels neglected

1937 Federal government adopts policy of assimilation 1965 Federal government announces policy of integration 1966 Wave Hill Walk Off begins the modern campaign for

the recognition of land rights

1967 Historic yes vote to remove discriminatory sections

from the Australian Constitution

1971 Establishment of the Tent Embassy

Gove Land Rights Case upholds terra nullius

1972 Federal government adopts self-determination policy 1973 Prime Minister Gough Whitlam formally hands lease

of part of their traditional lands to the Gurindji people

1976 Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory) 1976

(Cwlth) provides some recognition of Indigenous peoples rights to land

1983 Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 (NSW) recognises

Aboriginal ownership of reserves and also allows claims to be made on Crown lands
1985 Uluru is returned to its traditional owners 1991 Federal government adopts policy of reconciliation 1992 The Mabo decision overturns terra nullius 1993 The Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth) 1996 The Wik decision 1997 Publication of HREOCs Bringing Them Home report 1998 Native Title (Amendment) Act 1998 (Cwlth) 2006 The Noongar decision states that native title could

still exist within Perths metropolitan area

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Federal and state government policies towards Indigenous people have ranged from those in which protection often meant denial of rights and freedoms to those of self-determination where Indigenous rights and freedoms gained increasing recognition. The policy of reconciliation has increased awareness of issues of injustice, even though government support for it has been inconsistent. By the late 1980s, more than 100 000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples had become part of the Stolen Generations. Authorities focused on mixed-race children and expected that they would assimilate with whites. Parents and communities lost their roles in nurturing their children to adulthood. Children were denied access to their language, heritage and culture. HREOCs 1997 Bringing Them Home report led to demands for a formal apology to the Stolen Generations. Many state governments did so, but Prime Minister John Howard limited his governments response to one of regret. In 1967, 90.77 per cent of voters voted yes to remove discriminatory sections of the Australian Constitution. The result enabled Aboriginal people to be counted in the census and the federal government to make laws for them. Despite its symbolic importance, the referendum failed to usher in improvements to Indigenous health, housing, employment and education. The concept of integration and federal government initiatives to foster Indigenous self-determination paralleled Indigenous activism for the recognition of land rights through the Wave Hill Walk Off, the Tent Embassy and the Gove and Mabo cases. Land rights legislation has also been important. The turning point was the 1992 Mabo decision overturning terra nullius. In the Mabo case, the High Court recognised that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were the original owners of Australia and that some of their descendants might still retain native title of land. The Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth) provided a framework for deciding native title claims. The 1996 Wik decision recognised the existence of native title on land leased to pastoralists. The Native Title (Amendment) Act 1998 (Cwlth), incorporating much of Prime Minister Howards Ten-Point Plan, undermined key gains of the Wik decision. On 13 February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered a historic and long-awaited apology to the Stolen Generations.

chapter

7 School Certificate practice

4 To which event does source A refer? (A) The separation of Indigenous children from their parents (B) The 1967 vote on eliminating discriminatory sections from the Australian Constitution (C) The establishment of the Tent Embassy (D) The Mabo decision 5 Why would source A be regarded as a primary source in a study of the changing rights and freedoms of Aboriginal people? (A) It appeared in a newspaper. (B) It was created at the time of a key event related to that topic. (C) It expresses the authors viewpoint. (D) It is a record of something from the past. 6 What is one problem historians would face if they wanted to use source A? (A) It appeared in a newspaper and so must be propaganda. (B) It expresses an unusual viewpoint. (C) It is biased. (D) It is one persons viewpoint and its accuracy would have to be tested against other sources. 7 What was the goal of the Wave Hill Walk Off? (A) Demonstration against the governments assimilation policy (B) Demand for citizenship (C) Demand for fair pay and land rights (D) Demonstration against the governments integration policy Questions 8 and 9 refer to source B. Source B

Multiple choice
Choose the letter that best answers the question. 1 Which term best describes the policy of giving people control of their own lives? (A) Self-determination (B) Reconciliation (C) Assimilation (D) Integration 2 What did governments want to achieve through policies of protection? (A) To help Indigenous people achieve recognition of their land rights (B) To help Indigenous people gain citizenship (C) To control all aspects of Indigenous peoples lives (D) To encourage all states to give Indigenous people the vote 3 Consider the following two statements about the Stolen Generations. Statement I: The decision to separate children from their parents contravened a number of Australias human rights commitments. Statement II: The decision to separate children from their parents was motivated mainly by concern that their parents were neglecting them. (A) Both statements are true. (B) Both statements are false. (C) Statement I is true and statement II is false. (D) Statement I is false and statement II is true. Questions 46 refer to source A. Source A

Comments by Charles (Chicka) Dixon, May 1967

For most Aborigines [the referendum] is basically and most importantly a matter of seeing white Australians nally, after 179 years, afrming at last that they believe we are human beings ... Few white people realise that I, as an Aboriginal, would break the law somewhere by merely moving around the country as an ordinary citizen. Somewhere I would come under restrictive laws which demand that I get approval from a magistrate, policeman or public servant just to exist on that very spot. Here in Sydney I can go where I like. If I go into Queensland I become the subject of a Government Department which can order me around, conne me to a certain area of the State or even separate me from my family.
Extracts from Chicka Dixon (Acting President for Aboriginal Affairs), I want to be a Human Being, Sun-Herald, 21 May 1967 , p. 47 .

An extract from a letter, read in the federal Parliament in 1966, in which Gurindji people claim land rights
... desire to regain tenure of our tribal lands, of which we were forcibly dispossessed in times past and for which we have received no recompense. This land belonged to our forefathers from time immemorial we feel that morally if not legally, the land is ours and should be returned to us. We are not a degraded people and if given our rightful heritage, we would show the rest of Australia and the world, that we are capable of working and planning our own destiny as freecitizens.
Extract from Hansard, 1966, vol. 53, p. 2359.

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 8 According to source B, what is the main thing the Gurindji people are demanding? (A) Compensation for their dispossession (B) Recognition of their land rights (C) That the government apologises for its past failures (D) Self-determination 9 What can be concluded from source B about the actions the Gurindji people intended to take to achieve their goals? (A) That they are planning court action (B) That they are going on strike (C) Nothing (D) That they are going to plan their own destiny 10 Which of the following is correct with regard to the Tent Embassy? (A) It was established by Prime Minister William McMahon. (B) It publicised the Australian Governments policies towards Indigenous people. (C) It existed for only six months. (D) The government and the police supported it. 11 Why was 1988 signicant in Indigenous peoples struggle for the recognition of their rights? (A) It encouraged people to think about whether or not they should be celebrating an invasion. (B) Prime Minister Bob Hawke signed a Makarrata recognising that Indigenous people were the original owners of the land. (C) The Commonwealth Government released the Barunga Statement of Indigenous Rights. (D) All of the above

12 What is the correct chronological order for the following? (A) The Wik decision/the Native Title (Amendment) Act/the Native Title Act/the Mabo decision (B) The Native Title Act/the Mabo decision/the Native Title (Amendment) Act/the Wik decision (C) The Native Title (Amendment) Act/the Wik decision/the Mabo decision/the Native Title Act (D) The Mabo decision/the Native Title Act/the Wik decision/the Native Title (Amendment) Act

Short answer questions

1 Outline two government policies towards Aboriginal people. 2 Briey describe two ways in which the rights and freedoms of Aboriginal people were denied in the period 19371967. 3 Explain the signicance of the 1967 referendum for Australias Indigenous people. 4 Identify the issue that was being tested in the Mabo case and outline the main features of the Mabo decision. 5 Identify the issue that was being tested in the Wik case and outline the main features of the Wik decision.

Extended response questions

1 Describe the varying experiences of the Stolen Generations. 2 Outline the developments that led to the success of the 1967 referendum. 3 Explain the changes since c.1966 that have occurred in the recognition of land rights and native title for Australias Indigenous people.

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eBook plus

ICT activities

eLesson
THe 1967 ReferenduM and tHe AbOriginal Tent EMbassy
In 1967, the Holt Liberal government held a referendum and the Australian people voted yes to include Aboriginal people in the national census and allow the Commonwealth to make laws to help improve conditions for Aboriginal people, no matter where they lived in Australia. Yet in 1972, a group of young Aborigines erected a beach umbrella on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra, with a sign saying Aboriginal Embassy. It still stands today. What does this tell us about Australian attitudes towards our Indigenous population? This video lessonincludes an interview with Noeline BriggsSmith, an Aboriginal woman who experienced rst-handwhat life was like for Aboriginal people in countrytowns in the 1960s.
SEARCHLIGHT ID: ELES-0258

Learning Object
AbOriginal RigHts and FreedOMs
Download this interactive learning object and test your knowledge about the history of Aboriginal rights and freedoms in Australia. Answer all 15 questions and receive instant feedback. You can even print your results to hand in to your teacher.
SEARCHLIGHT ID: T0223

These ICT activities are available in this chapters Student Resources tab inside your eBookPLUS. Visit www.jacplus.com.au to locate your digital resources.

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