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In 1938 a group of aborigines gathered in Sydney, New South Wales, to declare a Day of Mourning for the fate of their people. This action began an era of Aboriginal activism and a rights movement that has continued until today. Several decades passed before the Commonwealth and state governments adopted Aboriginal rights policies. A long history of disenfranchisement has left may Aborigines poor, unemployed, uneducated, sick and homeless.
The demise of assimilation policies: In the 1950Os the federal government drafted a formal policy of Aboriginal assimilation aimed at having Aborigines adopt the values and ways of the dominant European based culture of Australia. The policy aimed to achieve its goal by dividing intact Aboriginal communities and thus ending traditional lifestyles. Strong child welfare laws also allowed the removal of Aboriginal children from homes with their mothers and fathers deemed unfit for parenthood. Reasons of removal included joblessness, poverty and requests for welfare support by Aboriginal parents. Public sentiment for a change in national policy toward the Aborigines voiced most strongly by young-adult Aboriginal and white Australians. In 1967 after a national referendum, the Commonwealth government recognised Aborigines as citizens on the Australians census and formally dropped assimilation in favour of integration between Aborigines and whites as a government the power to create laws regarding the rights and welfare of Aborigines. In 1972 the Australian government began providing money and legal means for Aboriginal parents to challenge the removal of their children. In 1973 the government established a Department of Aboriginal affairs. This agency sponsored or promoted programs dealing with Aboriginal housing, education, health, land ownership, business and legal and administrative reform. In the 1980Os Aboriginal rights groups increased awareness among welfare workers of the continuing disproportionate and unfair removal of Aboriginal children from their families. All the Australian states and territories have since revised their child welfare laws in an effort to correct this problem. In 1991 the Department of Aboriginal affairs was replaced by a new governmental agency, the Aboriginal and Torres strait Islander Commission.
Land Rights: In the 1980Os and 1990Os legal issues concerning the rights of Aborigines to their ancestral lands have dominated the politics of relations between white Australians and Aborigines. Aborigines have pressured the federal government to grant them rights over territory of religious, cultural and historical importance to them. In 1976 the government passed the Aboriginal land rights act, which was applied to the Northern Territory; as a result of this act, nearly 36 percent of the total area in the territory has reverted to aboriginal ownership under freehold title, meaning that Aborigines have lifelong rights to this land. In 1985 the government officially transferred Uluru (Ayers Rock) to the Pitjantjatjarea and Yankunyjatjara Aboriginal peoples. This site is the most scared to these two groups. The transfer contained a condition that required the groups to guarantee public access to the monolith, one of the most popular tourist sites in Australia. Also in 1985 the federal government proposed legislation that would give Aborigines freehold title to national parks, vacant crow lands and former reservations all of which the federal government had previously controlled. In a landmark 1992 ruling, the Australian High Court recognised that aboriginal land title existed before European settlement in 1788. The so called Mabo decision said that Aborigines could claim native title if they could show a close and continuing relationship with the land in question. The Mabo ruling overturned the concept of terra nullius and for the first time acknowledged the Aborigines as original owners of the Australian continent.
Human Rights: while Aborigines have significantly advanced their land rights in the past few decades, they still suffer serious abuses of their human rights. Questions about human right abuses against Aborigines came to national and international attention in the late 1980Ls when the Australian government faced scandals over a disproportionally high death rate among Aborigines in prison and alleged corruption in the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. In 1988 the United Nations published a report accusing Australia of violating international human rights standards in its treatment of Aborigines. Aborigines are still seriously overrepresented in Australian prisons and among those who die in custody; advocates of Aborigines causes believe that the prison situation reflects or results from historical patterns of mistreatment of Aborigines and abuses of their human rights by whites. Man also believe that this history of mistreatment and particularly the legacy of child-removal policies relates the high rates of crime and abuse of alcohol and drugs among Aborigines, all of which contribute to their high incarceration rates.
Reconciliation or Separatism? Most Australians and the state and national governments today recognise that Aborigines have suffered extensive racial prejudice, mistreatment and violence under more than two centuries of white rule. They have also acknowledged that present-day social ills among Aborigines, such as insufficient housing, poor health, high unemployment, low wages, lack of education and high rates of imprisonment, reflect a long history of severe disadvantage. The movement in Australia to atone for past wrongs and improve life for Aborigines has grown. Many organisations support the ideals of reconciliation between white Australians and Aborigines and betterment of Aboriginal life; these organisations include the Aboriginal and Torres State Islanders Commission, the Council for Aboriginal Affairs (CAR), established in 1991, various land councils and the Native Title tribunal, and many health, legal, education and welfare organisations. CAR has been working to achieve tangible goals of reconciliation between indigenous and other Australian peoples by 2001, the centennial of the country.
However, separatist sentiment among some Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders has given rise to sovereignty movements among both peoples; the two indigenous peoples of Australia have established provisional governments and several political parties and each has adopted its own flag; Aborigines have also developed a renewed pride in their heritage and have revived many of their traditional practices. Thus, the future of relations between white Australian and Aborigines remains unclear.
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