M2 - Learner Manual

Since the European invasion until very recently, government policy relating to Aboriginal people has been designed and implemented by non-Aboriginal people. The common justification for most policies for Aboriginal people was that they were ‘for their own good’. There have been policies of protection, assimilation, self-determination and reconciliation. It is now clear that none of these policies have actually made the condition of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples any better than it was prior to the invasion.

When the six Australian colonies became a Federation in 1901, white Australia believed that the Aboriginal people were a dying race and the Constitution made only two references to them. Section 127 excluded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from the census (although heads of cattle were counted) and Section 51 (Part 26) gave power over Aboriginal people to the states rather than to the federal government. This was the situation until the referendum of 1967 when an overwhelming majority of Australians voted to include Aboriginal people in the census of their own country. The referendum finally recognised Aboriginal people as citizens in their own land. (Author Anita Heiss)

Racism was institutionalised throughout these policies making the very lives of Aboriginal people harder, with many attempting to escape often with severe repercussions, such as jail and or separations from family and country.