7

Changing rights and

freedoms: Aboriginal
peoples

INQ U IR Y Q U E STION

 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

over time
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:
s movements of Aboriginal people permission was needed to leave or enter fenced
reserves and missions where life remained harsh and poor
s 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
s 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.
s 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 page 88)
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.

252

Retroactive 2

SOURCE 7.2
In 1934 the Minister for
the Interior appealed
for homes, with white
families, for half-caste
and quadroon children.
A member 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:
s 1941 child endowment payments were granted to Aboriginal families not living a
nomadic lifestyle.
s 1942 Aboriginal people became eligible for old age and invalid pensions.
s 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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253

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.

254

Retroactive 2

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

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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255

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

256

Retroactive 2

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

councils and national representative bodies that would facilitate Indigenous Australians
control of their own affairs. Representative bodies established in the 1970s and 1980s
were:
s 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.
s 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.
s 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;

SOURCE QUESTION
Explain how the above
objectives express
the policy of selfdetermination.

(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.

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:
a Commonwealth
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.

1991 to late 1990s: Reconciliation

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.

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.

258

Retroactive 2

Late 1990s to c.2004: Practical reconciliation

www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au

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.

SOURCE 7.13 Cartoon by

Peter Nicholson published in the
Australian on 30 August 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
past wrongs.

Explain means give reasons

for something, especially in
terms of cause and effect
relationships.

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.

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