Council For Aboriginal Affairs
In 1967, the Prime Minister Harold Holt invited Stanner to join H. C. Coombs and Barry Dexter to form the Council for Aboriginal Affairs and advise on national policy. Stanner held that position through successive political regimes, including the Whitlam Government, which began to implement much of the program Stanner, Coombs and Dexter endorsed: land rights, the movement to outstations, increased social welfare and community-based economies.
Stanner brought to this policy package an anthropologist's sensitivity to the importance of ceremony and ritual. In particular, at the handover of the first native title grant to the Gurindji people at Wattie Creek in the Northern Territory in 1975, Stanner recommended Prime Minister Gough Whitlam should perform the memorable symbolic act of pouring earth through the hands of Gurindji leader, Vincent Lingiari.
Read more about this topic: William Edward Hanley Stanner
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