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Aboriginals Claim Citizen Rights
On Australia Day 1938 a meeting of Aboriginal people was held in Sydney. A document called "Aboriginal Claim Citizen Rights" was circulated. This declaration was the first time Aboriginal people had made a national protest. It was widely reported in the papers and many white Australians now started to take notice of their plight. -
Changing Attitudes and Better Treatment
After World War 2 white attitudes toward the first Australians began to change. During the 1950s the Indigenous Australians were allowed to:
- Enroll for voting.
- Drink in hotels.
- Travel without restrictions.
By the early 19600s Aboriginal adults received pensions and maternity benefits. But inequalities remained in pay, voting, access to facilities, control of children and land rights. -
Indigenous Australians take the initiative.
1972 - The Embassy said that blacks were now going to get up and fight back on the issues of education, health, police victimisation, locking people up.
1974 - A government commission recommended that Aboriginals should get back the land where they now lived and had traditionally lived.
1975 - How ever this Northern Territory law only gave the indigenous people some areas of arid and largely useless land. Other land claims were often thrown out by the courts. -
Lost Land, Stolen Children
In the late 18th century Britain claimed the lands of Australia because they assumed nobody owned them. Some Torres Strait Islanders, led by Eddie Mabo, challenged this. Their people had inhabited Murray Island for thousands of years and so were the rightful owners. In 1992 the Hight Court agreed saying that Terra Nullius was wrong and racist. So the 1993 Native Title Act allowed Indigenous Australians to claim land rights. -
Bringing Them Home
The stolen generation was one of the Australia's worst secrets. Few white people knew about it and it didn't feature in the history books until the 1980s. In 1997 the Human Rights Commission report on this horror story made a number of recommendations. -
Stealing People: The Lost Generation. - Part 3
Lorna Cubillo was one of the 100,000 Aboriginal children who were removed from families and put in foster homes or mission run by whites. The authorities wanted to:
- Cut the children off from their culture
- Assimilate them into white society
- Provide cheap labour for white employers
- Hopefully 'breed out the colour' as they later married whites. -
Hope for the future?
The challenge for Australia in the 21st century is to restore Indigenous Australians' pride and nationhood. Positive steps could involve:
- Giving them a fair deal over land rights
- Providing compensation to the 'stolen generation'
- Saying 'sorry' officially
- Recognising that possibly 20,000 died defending their land in Australian wars'
- Providing more help to talented Aboriginal sports people, artists, students and business people
- Educating Australians fully about their history. -
Hope Remains
Indigenous Australian leaders are gaining greater respect and the marches in 2000 showed that Australians of all races want the first people to get a better deal. Some are national heroes and there was great pride when Cathy Freeman lit the torch at the Sydney Olympics and won the 400 metres. There are still many problems to solve by hope remains -
Stealing People: The Lost Generation
Seven-year-old Lorna Cubillo was seized by officials and thrown into a truck with 15 other Aboriginal girls. As the truck left Phillip Creek, everyone was crying and screaming. I remember mothers beating their heads with sticks and rocks. They were bleeding. They threw dirt over themselves. I remember seeing mothers chasing the rucks and then they disappeared.... -
The Awakening - Putting Things Right
In May 2000 250 000 people walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge and up 400,000 marched in Melbourne in December. Many marchers carried signs and banners critical of the Prime Minister's refusal to say 'Sorry' to indigenous Australians for past wrongs. -
The Awakening - Putting Things Right. - Part 2
The marches involved people of all ages and raves. They showed increasing concern about the need to:
- Apologise for the past treatment of Aboriginal people
- Improve their living standards
-Provide them with a fair deal over land rights.
-Give their culture more status
Fifty years earlier most Aboriginal people had been victims of deliberate policies of discrimination. -
A Long Way To Go
In the early 21st century the Indigenous Australians are caught in the culture trap. They are at various stages between their proud past and the modern Australian life. Although Indigenous Australians now own some land, it is mostly desert and economically useless. The Aboriginal population is now growing rapidly and the governments need to help people adapt to modern life.