The University of Queensland

When the colonies federated in 1901 control of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs was retained by the states (although Northern Territory Aborigines came under direct federal control from 1911). Government approaches to 'protecting' indigenous populations varied widely, even within the one jurisdiction.

As Anna Haebich explains, "a diverse range of policies were grouped together under the rubric 'protection' — segregation, assimilation and eugenic programs to 'breed out' Aboriginality altogether." ⁵  Children became a particular target of these policies.

Thousands were removed from their Aboriginal families and placed in church or state run institutions where they were raised as whites for a life of useful labour in white communities. Many never saw their families again.

In the late 1940s a superficial reformulation of policy began. In the shadow of the Holocaust, eugenicist ideas of racial hierarchies and selective breeding were no longer an acceptable basis for policy on Aboriginal affairs.

Whereas pre-war rhetoric had emphasised race biology and the idea of Aborigines as a "dying race", in the postwar era the notion of assimilation came to refer more to culture, or 'manner of living', as Minister for Northern Development Paul Hasluck called it.

Under this formulation, the assimilationist agenda aimed to lift Aborigines from a state of backwardness into the civilised ways of white men.

In practice, little changed. For most Aborigines it was still a life of controlled subjugation, dominated by extreme poverty, lack of basic services, poor housing, ill-health and relentless surveillance, control and intervention by state and church authorities. Infant mortality remained high, life expectancy low, and only a few managed to beat the odds and obtain a decent education.

It has been estimated that in 1963 the Aboriginal population of Australia was around 100,000, and the Torres Strait Islander population about 7,300. ⁶

In the name of assimilation, these members of one of the oldest continuous civilisations on earth were denied rights taken for granted by non-indigenous Australians.

Across the country the laws differed from state to state but in all jurisdictions the themes were the same: discrimination, persecution, oppression.

The Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (FCAA) offered the following summary of this complex and bleak situation:

... the position in 1963 is that an Aboriginal or part-Aboriginal person may be in a position where he is allowed to drink alcohol in one State, but not in another; he may be forced to vote in State elections in one State, but prohibited from voting in another; he may move freely in one State, but not in another; he may be free to marry whom he desires in one State, but not in another; he may mix freely with non-Aborigines in one State, but not in another; he may have full rights in a court of law in one State, but not in another; and so on. ⁷

Image 5A: Cover of government publication "Our Aborigines", 1962

Image 1I: Flier produced by FCAA as part of the 1963 petition campaign, drawing attention to the lack of uniform rights for Aborigines across state jurisdictions.

By the eve of the 1967 referendum many of these particular forms of discrimination had been removed and the principle of equal pay had been won for Aborigines in primary industry, although ultimately at the cost of Aboriginal jobs as pastoralists opted to replace them or mechanise rather than pay higher wages.

But many other forms of economic disadvantage, cultural repression and legal discrimination persisted.

In the lived experience of many Aborigines little had changed for the better.

As the electorate prepared to vote, the legacy of colonial and post-colonial history weighed heavily on indigenous Australia.