chapter 7 aborignal rights.pdf

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5/41CHAPTER 7 | Changing rights and freedoms: Aboriginal peoples 255

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 artgalleries 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 first

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.

(a) From the 1961 Native Welfare Conference:

All Aborigines and part-Aborigines are expected eventually to attain the same manner ofliving 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 influenced 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 definitions of assimilation in source 7.8. Identify the difference in the words used.

SOURCE 7.6

Portrait of AlbertNamatjira 1956

by William Dargie,Australia, b. 1912.

Oil on canvas,102.176.4 cm.Purchased 1957.

Collection: QueenslandArt Gallery

SOUR CE 7.7

Photograph of anAboriginal family in

Browns Flat, near Nowra,in 1959, showing thetype of housing that

was typical of Aboriginalpeoples dwellings in the

mid twentieth century

SOURCE 7.8

The definition ofassimilation changedwhen it became clear

the original aims of thepolicy were not being

achieved.


6/41Retroactive 2256

SOURCE 7.9 Daryl Tonkin, a white Australian bushman, describes his experiences in the Aboriginal communityof Jacksons Track, Victoria, in the mid twentieth century, and the impact of changing government policies onAboriginal communities.

When it came to blackfellas the Board had the final say. It

was as if the Blackfellas were their property, and the Board

could do with them as they saw fit. The blackfellas were

their wards, and they seemed to believe their wards werewretched 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

finger 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 com-

munity, 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 QUESTIONS1 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 examininggovernment policy on Aboriginal communities.

c.1965 to 1972: IntegrationThe Commonwealth Government announced its policy of integrationin 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 establishedthe Council for Aboriginal Affairs and put the Office 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-determinationThe most important policy change came in 1972 with the election of the Whitlam Laborgovernment 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 first significant 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

integration:CommonwealthGovernment policy denoting

respect for all culturesand willingness to accept

their expression within the

broader community

self-determination:the right of a group to

choose and control its owndestiny and development


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1912 to 1974: The Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for GirlsIn 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 languagespunished 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 QUESTIONS

1 Describe the impression source 7.16 creates of the experiences and attitudes of these girls.

2 Identify the aspects of the girls lives that the picture and caption ignore.

3 Describe the perspective indicated in the photo and caption.

4 Assess the reliability of this image for someone investigating the experiences of the StolenGenerations.

SOURCE 7.16

The October 1952 frontcover for the magazine

Dawn, published bythe Aborigines Welfare

Board (NSW). Thecover depicts girls

from the Cootamundra

Domestic Training Home.The accompanying

description read Thesehappy Cootamundragirls, spick and span

in their neat schooluniforms, await the

bus to take them intoCootamundra High

School. These womenof tomorrow are being

given a training thatwill make life easier

and sweeter for themand help their eventualassimilation into the

white community.


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As a child I had no mothers arms to hold me. No father to lead me into the world. Us taken-

away 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 flogged 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 liketrouble. 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.

[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 fight 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 mybrothers because I felt I belonged and I finally 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 ofthe 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.

EmploymentWhen 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. Childrentaken 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 sawtheir 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-determinationIn 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.

SOURCE 7.20

A comment from AlecKruger in Us Taken-AwayKids, a booklet edited by

Christina Kenny (2007,p. 5), commemoratingthe 10th anniversaryof the Bringing Them

Homereport

SOURCE 7.21

Two extracts fromwitness statements in

the 1997 HREOC reporton the Stolen Generations



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 page 256)

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 homeIn 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 togain 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

defines the forcible removal of children to another group as genocide (that is, thepolicy 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 sorryIt 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.



ACT IVITIE S

CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING1 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 lifethey missed out on.

4 Explain how Australian governments organised the removal of Indigenous children fromtheir parents.

5 What did they claim were the reasons for removing children from their families and whatwas 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 puttingIndigenous 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 anduphold their rights?

9 Outline the ways attitudes and practices towards Indigenous children changed from thelate 1960s onwards.

10 What is HREOC? Explain its role in relation to the Stolen Generations.11 Identify five conclusions from the Bringing Them Homereport.

12 How did Australias governments respond to demands for a national apology to the StolenGenerations in the decade after the Bringing Them Homereport?

RESEARCH AND COMMUNICATE13 Use the Coming Homeweblink in your eBookPLUS to view a 2007 painting of the same

name by Beverley Grant. Read the symbolism and story below the painting and explainthe message the artist wants to convey and how this is achieved.

WORKSHEETWorksheet 7.1 Film review Rabbit Proof Fence

Describe means state whatsomething is like.

Outline means give a briefdescription or summary

of the main features ofsomething.

eBookpluseBookplus

eBookpluseBookplus

Working historically

///We analysed the techniques used in politicalcartoons in chapter 1 (see page 32). Noticethe techniques that the cartoonist Alan Moir uses inthis political cartoon which he called Father of theYear in 1997.

The target is in the centre of the picture.The head is quite large so people focus attention onthe facial expression.The pupils of the eyes are small dots to make theexpression severe.The exaggerated eyebrows enhance the severeexpression, as well as helping to identify the PrimeMinister.The body language (pointing aggressively) alsoexpresses a message.The background is minimal, with just a chair tosuggest 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 onPrime Minister John Howards attitude to the Stolen Generations(as published in theSydney 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.


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in federal elections. The 1962 Commonwealth Electoral Actstated 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.

NSW Vic SA WA NT Qld

Voting rights (state) Yes Yes Yes No No No

Marry freely Yes Yes Yes No No No

Control own children Yes Yes No No No No

Move freely Yes No No No No No

Own property freely Yes No Yes No No No

Receive award wages Yes No No No No No

Alcohol allowed No No No No No NoB. 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 theborder 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 Aboriginalrights in the Northern Territory.

Action for reform: right wrongs write yesGroups and individualsIt 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 withinFCAATSI 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.

SOUR CE 7.25

A table showing howdiffering laws across

Australias states andterritories in 1962

governed Aboriginalpeoples rights


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The significance of the 1967 referendumThe 1967 referendum campaign exemplified 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 fromto inclusion withinthe 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 benefitof

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 mandateto 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 benefit for Aboriginal people, because:

inequities continued in pay and working conditions

Aborigines continued to be victims of racism and discriminationland 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 benefits for

Aboriginal people. Prime Minister Harold Holt created an Office of Aboriginal Affairs

and announced that his government would not be providing any specific assistance

programs for them. It was another five years before successive federal governments

began to implement change in these areas. Integration policy had little practical

benefit 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 significant

barrier to the equality that Aborigines expected the vote to deliver them.

mandate:an authorisationto carry out an action

AC TIVITIE S

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 CommonwealthGovernment 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 benefited 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 AboriginalWilliam Grayden and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI)Jessie Street

Your Fact Sheet should contain the key facts about the role that the individual ororganisation played in the campaign for the referendum and the yes vote in 1967.Find one image to illustrate what you have written.

Assessmeans make a

judgement about the valueof something.



The struggle for rights andfreedom land rights, 1966 to 1990

7.4

1966: The Wave Hill Walk OffOn 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 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.

1971: The Gove Land Rights CaseIn 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 titleright to this land.

SOURCE 7.29

Photo showing peoplemarching in support ofthe Gurindji people inSydney in 1972

sacred sites:sites thatare important to the

spiritual or cultural beliefsof an Indigenous group

native title:legalrecognition of the

existence of Indigenouspeoples law and land

ownership before 1788


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Opposition to land rightsA significant 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.

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 governmentThe year 1985 marked another achievement for Aboriginal people in the Northern

Territory. The Governor-General at that time, Sir Ninian Stephen, formally

returned Ayers Rock to its traditional owners. Since then, people usually

call the rock by its Aboriginal name, Uluru.

SOURCE 7.33

A quote from GalarrwuyYunupingu, then

chairman of the NorthernLand Council, in the

Australian, 10 June 1978

SOUR CE 7.34

Photograph of the officialceremony to mark the

return of Uluru to itstraditional owners in

November 1985

SOURCE QUESTION

Explain the significanceof source 7.34 in

relation to the changingrights and freedoms ofAustralias Indigenous

people.


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The implications of the Ten-Point Plan

Point Consequences

1 This validated some pastoral and mining leases that state governments issued illegally after theMabo decision, ignoring potential native title claims.

2 Some leases gave the leaseholder exclusive use of the land.

3 This seemed to create the potential for local councils and state governments to purposely locatepower services on land where a native title claim had been made, with the intention of extinguishingnative title there.

4 Native title (and thus access to sacred sites) would be permanently extinguished if it contradictedthe rights of a pastoral leaseholder.

5 Claimants could continue to use traditional lands if they could prove they had access to them noteasy if the pastoralist locked them out.

6 Negotiation for mining rights need only be by means of a one-stage agreement, including rights tosearch for minerals and rights to mine them (instead of a separate stage for each activity).

7 This denied compensation to claimants when the state government required a particular area of landfor a development project.

8 Granting the state governments the right to manage resources and air space led to fears that thiswould be used to weaken or extinguish native title.

9 A higher registration test solved some of the problems of the Native Title Act 1993which had made ittoo easy to register a native title claim even if it was unlikely to succeed.

10 This seemed to place a time limit after which no native title claims could be made at all.

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 final 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 handsplanted outside

Parliament Housein November 1997

during a demonstrationover Wik, showing

support for AustraliasIndigenous peoples

SOURCE QUESTION

Describe whatsource 7.42 indicates

about the attitudesof many Australianstowards native title.


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13 February 2008: an apologyLabor 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 infederal Parliament on 13 February 2008

I move:That today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in humanhistory.We reflect on their past mistreatment.We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations this blemishedchapter in our nations history.The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australias history by righting thewrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that haveinflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from theirfamilies, their communities and their country.For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their familiesleft behind, we say sorry.To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and com-munities, we say sorry.And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we saysorry.We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit inwhich 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 cannow be written.We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces allAustralians.A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happenagain.A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement andeconomic opportunity.A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where oldapproaches 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 opportuni-ties 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 StolenGenerations.

2 List the five specific things for which he apologises.

3 On whose behalf is the Prime Minister speaking and who is his audience?

4 Describe his goal in making this speech.

5 Use the National Apologyweblink in your eBookPLUSto access and read the full transcript ofthe apology.

WORKSHEETS

Worksheet 7.3 Story behind the photoWorksheet 7.4 Indigenous rights crossword

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chapter 7 aborignal rights.pdf

Documents

Transcript of chapter 7 aborignal rights.pdf