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Government:
It is clear that each state was separately held responsible for the welfare of its Aboriginal population from the 1880s. Even after Australia celebrated Federation in 1901, the welfare of Aboriginals remained a state responsibility. At this time, it was considered that Aboriginals were a dying race and would not be counted in censuses.
Aboriginal Protection Boards had been set up in each state in the late 19th century, for example in New South Wales in 1883. Each state’s policy of forcibly removing mixed race children from their parents (usually mothers) was enforced by the police.
As well as being able to separate children from their parents, who had no parental rights, these Boards had other powers. For example, in New South Wales, the Aboriginal Protection Board set up reserves, where
- aboriginals had to work for up to 32 hours per week for no pay
- rations were given that were quite insufficient for a full week’s food, malnutrition was common
- corroborees and other traditional practices were forbidden
- there were severe penalties for abusive or threatening language and intoxication.
Overall, there was a sense that Aboriginals were inferior to white Australians. They were deemed to have too low an intelligence to be given the vote. Higgins, during a debate on the Franchise Bill in 1902, thought it “utterly inappropriate to grant the franchise to the Aborigines or ask them to exercise an intelligent vote and Isaacs declared “the aborigines have not the intelligence, interest or capacity to enable them to stand on the same platform with the rest of the people of Australia”.
Read the full text on Dragging the Chain 1897-1997
Aboriginals were denied other fundamental human rights that white Australians enjoyed. For example, in 1908, legislation enacting the old age pension excluded Aboriginals. They did not receive the pension till 1942. Similarly, giving the Aboriginals the vote was regarded as somewhat of a joke for many years. They were finally enfranchised in 1967. They could not own land, nor be entitled to have a passport therefore travel overseas, until 1967.
The 1909 Aborigines Protection Act allowed the states to take the children. Parents were not considered to have any rights over their children. This Act had the aim of removing mixed race Aboriginal people from reserves in order to assimilate them into society. The Act purported to help the Aboriginals, who had to apply to the Aborigines Welfare Board for exemptions
from the Act – ie to ask for freedoms that white Australians took for granted.
The Act was repealed in 1943.
In 1913,the High Commissioner in London Granville Ryrie was quoted as saying… “We must all agree that the unfortunate aboriginal will sooner or later disappear from Australia”.
It seems that the policy of separation was formalised around 1911-1912. Baldwin Spencer, Chief Protector of Aboriginals over that period, made it plain that “no half-caste children should be allowed to remain in any native camp”. Baldwin Spencer apparently believed that because children of mixed race had some “white blood” they could be “civilised”. Areas were chosen, compounds established, for the purpose of removing children of mixed race, especially girls.
Excerpt from a speech by Right Hon. Malcolm Fraser, “The Past We Need to Understand”, 24 August, 2000
The assimilation policy became official in the Northern Territories in 1918. Read the official policy and documents of the 1918 Northern Territory Aboriginals Ordinance (transcript of this document)
This policy was in force in Northern Territories for almost 40 years.
In 1915 A.O. Neville was appointed as Chief Protector of Aboriginals in Western Australia, where he served until 1950. During this time he came up with a plan known as 'biological absorption'. This plan focused on the idea that matching skin colour is the only way for one to fit into society. So, after a couple generations of mating half-castes with a white person, the black skin colour would begin to fade and everyone will be the same colour. The older, darker relatives would die off and so Aboriginal people would cease to exist. Critics have regarded that this policy amounted to “genocide”.
In New South Wales, the Aboriginal Welfare Board was abolished in 1969.
In 1950, Paul Hasluck in the first thorough speech on Aborigines in the National Parliament said, “When we enter into international discussions, and raise our voice, as we should raise it, in defence of human rights and the protection of human welfare, our very words are mocked by the thousands of degraded and depressed people who crouch on the rubbish heap throughout the whole of this continent”.
Missionaries
Missionaries equally thought that they were doing the right thing in taking the children into orphanages, mission stations and private foster homes. With the backing of the Aborigines Protection Act, missionaries took it upon themselves to open orphanages where they could raise Aboriginal children in a 'proper' home. One example of this type of house was Sister Kate's in Western Australia that operated from 1930 until 1974 with at least 85 children living there at one time.
They would be given better food, bedding, clothing, education than on the reservations and would benefit from a Christian upbringing. The missionaries considered that they were taking the children away from conditions of deprivation and neglect, “living in the dust”.
In reality, though some people were well intentioned, the children were often starved, beaten, abused and used as cheap labour. At about age 15, they were often
apprenticed as labourers or domestic servants.
From 1957 on, the children were always placed with white families. It was hoped that they would then grow up as Europeans, marry white people and over the generations, their Aboriginal blood would be diluted out.
In hindsight, the Catholic Church has acknowledged that separating children from their families had unforeseen long term consequences.
This material has been produced by UNITEC Institute of Technology
under contract to the Ministry of Education.
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