Indigenous Australians - History - 20th and 21st Centuries

20th and 21st Centuries

By 1900 the recorded Indigenous population of Australia had declined to approximately 93,000 although this was only a partial count as both mainstream and tribal Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders were poorly covered with desert Aboriginal peoples not counted at all until the 1930s. The last uncontacted tribe left the Gibson Desert in 1984. During the first half of the 20th century, many Indigenous Australians worked as stockmen on sheep stations and cattle stations. The Indigenous population continued to decline, reaching a low of 74,000 in 1933 before numbers began to recover. By 1995 population numbers had reach pre-colonisation levels and in 2010 there were around 563,000 Indigenous Australians.

Although, as British subjects, all Indigenous Australians were nominally entitled to vote, generally only those who "merged" into mainstream society did so. Only Western Australia and Queensland specifically excluded Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders from the electoral rolls. Despite the Commonwealth Franchise Act of 1902 that excluded "Aboriginal natives of Australia, Asia, Africa and Pacific Islands except New Zealand" from voting unless they were on the roll before 1901, South Australia insisted that all voters enfranchised within its borders would remain eligible to vote in the Commonwealth and Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders continued to be added to their rolls albeit haphazardly.

Despite efforts to bar their enlistment, around 500 Indigenous Australians fought for Australia in the First World War.

1934 saw the first appeal to the High Court by an Aboriginal Australian, and it succeeded. Dhakiyarr was found to have been wrongly convicted of the murder of a white policeman, for which he had been sentenced to death; the case focused national attention on Aboriginal rights issues. Dhakiyarr disappeared upon release. In 1938, the 150th anniversary of the arrival of British First Fleet was marked as a Day of Mourning and Protest at an Aboriginal meeting in Sydney.

Hundreds of Indigenous Australians served in the Australian armed forces during World War Two – including with the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion and The Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit, which were established to guard Australia's North against the threat of Japanese invasion.

The 1960s was a pivotal decade in the assertion of Aboriginal rights and a time of growing collaboration between Aboriginal activists and white Australian activists. In 1962, Commonwealth legislation specifically gave Aboriginal people the right to vote in Commonwealth elections. A group of University of Sydney students organised a bus tour of western and coastal New South Wales towns in 1965 to raise awareness of the state of Aboriginal health and living conditions. This Freedom Ride also aimed to highlight the social discrimination faced by Aboriginal people and encourage Aboriginals themselves to resist discrimination. In 1966, Vincent Lingiari led a famous walk-off of Indigenous employees of Wave Hill Station in protest against poor pay and conditions (later the subject of the Paul Kelly song "From Little Things Big Things Grow"). The landmark 1967 referendum called by Prime Minister Harold Holt allowed the Commonwealth to make laws with respect to Aboriginal people, and for Aboriginal people to be included when the country does a count to determine electoral representation. The referendum passed with 90.77% voter support.

In the controversial 1971 Gove land rights case, Justice Blackburn ruled that Australia had been terra nullius before British settlement, and that no concept of native title existed in Australian law. In 1971, Neville Bonner joined the Australian Senate as a Senator for Queensland for the Liberal Party, becoming the first Indigenous Australian in the Federal Parliament. A year later, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy was established on the steps of Parliament House in Canberra. In 1976, Sir Douglas Nicholls was appointed as the 28th Governor of South Australia, the first Aboriginal person appointed to vice-regal office.

In sport Evonne Goolagong Cawley became the world number-one ranked tennis player in 1971 and won 14 Grand Slam titles during her career. In 1973 Arthur Beetson became the first Indigenous Australian to captain his country in any sport when he first led the Australian National Rugby League team, the Kangaroos. In 1982, Mark Ella became Captain of the Australian National Rugby Union Team, the Wallabies. In 1984, a group of Pintupi people who were living a traditional hunter-gatherer desert-dwelling life were tracked down in the Gibson Desert in Western Australia and brought in to a settlement. They are believed to be the last uncontacted tribe in Australia. In 1985, the Australian government returned ownership of Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock) to the local Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal people.

In 1992, the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in the Mabo Case, declaring the previous legal concept of terra nullius to be invalid. A Constitutional Convention which selected a Republican model for the Referendum in 1998 included just six Indigenous participants, leading Monarchist delegate Neville Bonner to end his contribution to the Convention with his Jagera Tribal Sorry Chant in sadness at the low number of Indigenous representatives. The Republican Model, as well as a proposal for a new Constitutional Preamble which would have included the "honouring" of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders, was put to referendum but did not succeed.

In 1999 the Australian Parliament passed a Motion of Reconciliation drafted by Prime Minister John Howard in consultation with Aboriginal Senator Aden Ridgeway naming mistreatment of Indigenous Australians as the most "blemished chapter in our national history".

In 2000, Aboriginal sprinter Cathy Freeman lit the Olympic flame at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, and went on to win the 400 metres at the Games. In 2001, the Federal Government dedicated Reconciliation Place in Canberra.

In 2004, the Australian Government abolished the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission amidst allegations of corruption.

In 2007, Prime Minister John Howard and Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough launched the Northern Territory National Emergency Response, in response to the Little Children are Sacred Report into allegations of child abuse among indigenous communities. The government banned alcohol in prescribed communities in the Territory; quarantined a percentage of welfare payments for essential goods purchasing; dispatched additional police and medical personnel to the region; and suspended the permit system for access to indigenous communities. In 2010, a United Nations Special Rapporteur, found the Emergency Response to be racially discriminatory, and said that aspects of it represented a limitation on "individual autonomy". Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin disagreed, saying that her duty to protect the rights of children was paramount; the Opposition questioned whether Anaya had adequately consulted; and indigenous leaders like Warren Mundine and Bess Price criticised the UN findings. The Intervention has continued under the Rudd/Gillard Labor Government.

On 13 February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a public apology to members of the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Australian Government.

In the general election of 2010, Ken Wyatt of the Liberal Party became the first indigenous Australian elected to the Australian House of Representatives.

On 23 December 2010 the federal government appointed a panel comprising Indigenous leaders, other legal experts and some members of parliament (including Ken Wyatt) to provide advice on how best to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the federal constitution. On 16 May 2010 the panel issued a discussion paper and launched a website, under the heading "You Me Unity". These invited submissions and participation in consultation sessions. More than 3,500 submissions were received and more than 200 public consultations and other meetings were held, including meetings in remote communities. An interim communiqué in December 2010 indicated majority support for constitutional recognition and for removing the sections of the federal constitution that permit discrimination on the basis of race. The panel provided the final report to the federal government in January 2012. The panel made a number of recommendations for constitutional reform. The recommendations included the deletion of Section 25 of the Constitution of Australia which permits any State to disqualify "persons of any race" from voting (and excluding those people when "reckoning the number of the people") and Section 51(xxvi) which empowers the federal parliament to make special laws for people of any particular race. The repeal of these sections would remove the word "race" from the Constitution of Australia entirely. It was also recommended that three new sections be included: sections 51A, 116A and 127A to ensure meaningful recognition and further protection from discrimination. The Federal Government is not bound by the panel's recommendations and their adoption will depend on whether they receive the necessary political and public support for success at the proposed 2013 Referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Constitution.

On 23 November 2011, the Stronger Futures policy legislation was introduced to the Parliament by Jenny Macklin, the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. The policy intends to address key issues that exist within Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory such as unemployment, school attendance and enrolment, alcohol abuse, community safety and child protection, food security and housing and land reforms. The policy has been criticized by organizations such as Amnesty International and Concerned Citizens of Australia. The Stand for Freedom campaign leads the public movement against this legislation and criticizes many measures of the legislation since they maintain "racially-discriminatory" elements of the Northern Territory Emergency Response Act and continue the control of the Australian Government over "Aboriginal people and their lands." However, several prominent members of the Australian Government continue to voice support for the Stronger Futures policy.