Today more than half of all Aboriginals live in towns, often on the outskirts in terrible conditions. Many others work as labourers on cattle ranches that have taken over their land. Ever since the British first invaded, Aboriginal peoples have had their land stolen from them or destroyed. Most has still to be returned today, and the loss of their land has had a devastating social and physical impact on Aboriginal peoples.
The initial invasions also sparked huge waves of disease that killed thousands — many others were massacred. In just over one hundred years from the first invasion of their land, their numbers were reduced from up to an estimated one million to only 60, During much of the 20th century, outright killings were replaced with a policy of removing Aboriginal children from their parents and giving them to white families or placing them in mission schools, to eradicate traces of Aboriginal culture and language.
Today they still face racist attitudes, and there are periodic incidents of violence towards them, particularly affecting those in police custody. Their generally poor living conditions mean that Aboriginal people have a far higher infant mortality rate and suicide rate and a lower life expectancy than the rest of the population, and they make up a disproportionate section of the prison population.
Many Aboriginal groups, such as the Martu of western Australia, have used the ruling to have their ownership of their ancestral lands recognized in law. In , publication of a report into sexual abuse and violence amongst Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory caused huge controversy. Survival also supported the campaign of the Mirarr people in the Northern Territory against a proposed uranium mine on their sacred land.
With their strong attachment to traditional lands and extended kinship systems they don't think of 'home' as a particular dwelling. When Aboriginal people move in with households that are related to them, for example in order to escape domestic violence or other family problems, it is not culturally appropriate to think that they are 'homeless' and have no fixed address.
Home is what you make of it. It's where your family comes together. It's not just shelter. It's what gives you identity in the Aboriginal order. A common misconception among white people is that Aboriginal people willingly destroy the houses they are given by the government. Sara Hudson from the Centre for Independent Studies in St Leonards, NSW, says that "although vandalism to houses is evident in some communities, the widespread assumption that Aborigines destroy their houses is false ".
Architect Paul Pholeros has 30 years' experience in Aboriginal housing. The problem is not the people. The problem is shitty housing. The state of Indigenous housing across remote Australia is the most visible and enduring evidence of the failure of governments, over decades, to address Indigenous disadvantage.
Australia-wide Aboriginal people suffer from inappropriate and overcrowded housing conditions. Sometimes houses built by the government are left in such a poor state that they are uninhabitable.
In Western Australia a report found that there was an 'epidemic' of abandoned houses in remote communities which were in such a bad state of disrepair that they were a risk to health and safety. Builders are poorly supervised during the construction process, Mr Pholeros told, and houses not tested after completion. It comes to no surprise that Aboriginal people are fed up with their housing conditions.
On July 15, dozens of Ampilatwatja people, three hours north-east of Alice Springs in the centre of Australia, abandoned their community altogether because the sewerage system failed. Raw sewage flooded the streets, a condition described as "the worst he's ever seen anywhere in the nation" by Adam Giles, the Northern Territory opposition spokesperson on Indigenous Policy.
Consequently many community members including elders and children walked off, camping in the desert in the dead of the Australian winter. Aboriginal housing has a strong link to Aboriginal health. In mining areas such as the Pilbara region in northern Western Australia very little accommodation is made available [16] leading to overcrowded houses.
If men who with their families live in public housing get a job which pays over a certain threshold Homeswest, the Western Australian public housing organisation, "kicks them out and tells them they've got to go to private rental".
As a result many families haven't got a house at all and are homeless. It doesn't take long for health problems to follow. Aboriginal Australians also make and sell the most famous item to come out of Australia: the boomerang. But some art can't be sold — it's on the walls of caves.
A famous Australian landmark, Ayers Rock , is one such place. It's an Aboriginal sacred site named Uluru, located near the center of Australia. The rock covers a series of caves. Within those caves are walls and walls of paintings done by Aboriginal Australians to illustrate their dreamings. While people visit Ayers Rock and see the paintings, there's still no way to know what they mean. And the Aboriginal people, for the time being, are keeping it a secret. The rock was closed to tourists in , because of its sacred nature to Aboriginal Australians.
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Prev NEXT. A Aborgine in a modern train station in Sydney, Australia. Many Aborigines live in modern, large cities. Click here for details about the 'stolen generations'. The history of the 'Stolen children' varies depending on time and place. Table 7. Non-Indigenous children could also be removed without their parents' consent, but only by a court finding that the child was uncontrollable, neglected or abused.
Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities to the care of non-Indigenous people with the aim of assimilating them into non-Aboriginal society. In Queensland, this often meant separating the children into dormitories on reserves. In New South Wales and Western Australia, many children were trained in Aboriginal-only institutions to become domestic servants or farm labourers. Other children were transferred to orphanages and children's homes where Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children were brought up together.
In other cases, and especially after the s, Aboriginal children were fostered or adopted into non-Aboriginal families. In its report Bringing them home , the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission estimated that between one-third and one-tenth of all Aboriginal children growing up during the years in which forcible removal laws operated were removed. The full scale of removals is still not known because many records have been lost.
Many members of the Stolen Generation reported during the Bringing them home Inquiry that they were forbidden to speak their Aboriginal language, they were told their parents did not want them, they experienced neglect as well as physical, emotional and sexual abuse, they received little or no education, and were refused contact with their families.
The effects of the separation from their parents and communities, being institutionalised and being abused, have been reported to impact on self-esteem, cultural identity, social skills and survival skills, developing relationships and parenting. Many members of the Stolen Generations still have not been reunited with their families.
The legacy of forcible removal remains in the lives of Indigenous individuals and communities today. Before , Aboriginal Affairs was a state responsibility and the Commonwealth Government was only in charge of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. Having repeatedly rejected Aboriginal claims to equal pay for equal work during the s and s, the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission finally granted Aboriginal stockmen award wages in The federal Labor Government led by Gough Whitlam adopted the policy of 'self-determination' for Indigenous communities in This policy was described as 'Aboriginal communities deciding the pace and nature of their future development as significant components within a diverse Australia'.
It recognised that Aboriginal people had a right to be involved in decision making about their own lives. The federal Coalition Government led by Malcolm Fraser, which came to power in late , adopted the policy of 'self-management' which focused on Indigenous communities managing the government projects and funding locally, but with little say in what projects would be created. The Hawke and Keating Labor Governments from used both self-determination and self-management as key principles in their Indigenous affairs policies.
The Coalition Government led by John Howard from has reverted to a policy of self-management. In , the Federal Government passed land rights law for Aboriginal peoples in the Northern Territory.
Most other states also have some form of Land Rights legislation in place although the degree of control given to Indigenous peoples over the land in question differs significantly from state to state.
In the Mabo case of , the High Court of Australia rejected the long-standing doctrine of terra nullius. It found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who have maintained a continuing connection with their land, according to their traditions and customs, may have their rights to land under traditional law recognised in Australian law.
This is native title. Self-determination is the right of all peoples to 'freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development' Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The claim by Indigenous peoples to the right of self-determination raises two questions: 1 Do Indigenous groups constitute a 'peoples'?
The application of self-determination to indigenous people is the subject of ongoing negotiations in the United Nations. Many countries now accept that self-determination applies to Indigenous people, although they do not accept that self-determination would authorise secession, and are unwilling to formally recognise indigenous self-determination unless it is accompanied by a guarantee against secession.
Indigenous peoples have responded to this concern in international negotiations by noting that international law provides protection against secession. Most Indigenous people in Australia want self-determination within the existing nation. This would require recognition by the Government of their distinct cultures and forms of social organisation, governance and decision-making.
It would mean transferring responsibility and power for decision-making to Indigenous communities so they can make decisions in relation to issues that affect them. Reconciliation aims to promote understanding of the history of contact between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and develop better relations for the future.
The formal reconciliation process began in with the establishment of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation for a ten year period. The Council was established by legislation with 25 Indigenous and non-Indigenous members appointed by the Government.
The Council was required to promote reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the wider Australian community. At the end of its ten-year period, the Council was also required to make recommendations to the Government on actions for achieving reconciliation. The Council developed a declaration towards reconciliation, a Roadmap for Reconciliation which contains four national strategies and a final report, titled Reconciliation: Australia's Challenge , which sets out a comprehensive program of activities to address the 'unfinished business' of reconciliation.
The Council's proposals relate to four areas: achieving economic independence, overcoming Indigenous disadvantage, recognising Indigenous rights and sustaining the reconciliation process. Reconciliation Australia was established by the Council in December to carry forward the reconciliation movement. Those rights can range from a relationship similar to full ownership of the land through to the right to go onto the land for ceremonies or to hunt, fish or gather foods and bush medicines.
To have their native title rights recognised, the Indigenous group has to prove they still have a connection with their country according to their traditional laws. Australian law gives all other land titles priority over native title.
In many cases the creation of an interest in land under western law has the effect of extinguishing any native title rights that might have existed. However, in some cases Indigenous and non-Indigenous interests in land can co-exist - for example, Indigenous people might be able to visit their country freely even though it is on a cattle station.
Even in these cases, wherever there is a conflict between the two sets of interests, the non-Indigenous interest will prevail.
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