The legal fiction upon which Australia was founded refers to the British doctrine, “terra nullius”. The phrase translates to “land without ownership”. When Australia was founded, even though the colonisers acknowledged the presence of the Indigenous they considered the Aboriginals too primitive to be actual owners. The Aboriginals were considered too primitive with no identifiable hierarchy or political structure. This legal fiction had a significant impact on Australia with the widely known Mabo Case. In May 1982, Eddie Mabo and four other plaintiffs of the Murray Islands pursued confirmation of their traditional land rights in the High Court of Australia. Their claim had been that Murray Island (Mer) had been previously inhabited and had been possessed by the Meriam people with their own social and political organisations. After 10 years and the death of Mabo, on June 3 1992, the High Court ruled that the lands of Australia were not terra nullius when European settlement occurred and the Meriam people were entitled to the lands of Murray Island. Then in December 1993, the Native Title Act was produced as part of the Commonwealth’s response to the High Court’s decision to protect the native lands of Aboriginals. The legal fiction has therefore had a major impact on Australia’s legal history with the introduction of the Native Title Act where the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were compensated for the dispossession of their lands.…
In 1788 the colonization of Australia commenced. With the arrival of British and European settlers to Australia Terra Nullius was declared. With the declaration of Terra Nullius this meant that every that all native Aborigines to Australia no longer had the right to any land, animals and to a greater extent the very way that government themselves. There are…
An Indigenous person, who legitimately works for payment, gets less as a result than a white person does for literally doing nothing. From this example, it can be inferred that in some cases the Indigenous were used as a resource for the Europeans gain, even at the expense of the Native’s livelihood. Additionally, another example of othering within the 1905 act comes from section 12; “Ministers can dictate where Aboriginals in terms of reserves and boundaries”. Ironically enough, this section is one of the primary forces of conflict driving the play, the gentrification of the Indigenous reserve in order to benefit white authority figures in a political sense. The othering of Indigenous Australian’s predates the 1905 act and is even evident at the very roots of the Australian nation through the establishment of the Australia constitution, section 51, part 26 states; “the people of any race for who it is deemed necessary to make special laws”. Furthermore, it is clear that the marginalisation of the Australian Aborigines came from a systematic, institutionalised sense through the 1905 act, and indirectly through the Australian…
Following the recent apprehension of a young Aboriginal boy over the theft of a single chocolate Freddo frog, must media debate has been sparked. An opinion piece written in The Age on the 18th of November, 2009, Australian Justice is Coloured, was written by Chris Cuneen in response to this incident. Cuneen contends that the Aboriginal Youths are currently suffering at the injustices of the Australian justice system. Appealing to those with a keen interest in the justice system and human rights, employs a prudent and credible tone to position readers align with his contention that Aboriginal youths are currently suffering at the injustices of the Australian justice system.…
Despite being the “traditional custodians of the land”, Aboriginal people greatly suffered from lack of human rights, especially between 1901 and the 1960’s. In 1962, NSW was the only state in Australia that gave Aboriginals the right to have control over their children. This meant that government organisations were given the authority to take children away from Aboriginal families. The Aboriginal Protection Board is an example of a government organisation that used this authority to breed out Aboriginals in Australia. The Protection Board would infiltrate Aboriginal communities and take away half-caste children because they could be taught the “white ways.”…
In 1788, nearly 1000 Europeans arrived to Australia. From this year, conflicts between Aboriginals and Europeans continued until 1860. Before colonization, indigenous people were struck down by diseases introduced by Europeans. Indigenous people had no immunity to new diseases, so the common cold, sexually transmitted disease and smallpox resulted in a rapid decline of their population. In 1856, the British government authorized the appointment of a “Protector of Aborigines” to settle problems such as people’s illness, language and occupation. In 1860, the Victorian government established the Aborigines Protection Board. In 1910, Australia government forcibly took more than 100 000 Aboriginal children from their families and placed in church or state based institutions. (Jupp,J 2001, p.9).…
The mistreatment of indigenous people started when the European’s took over Australia, and escalated over time. They were considered to be second class citizens. By the time of federation, in 1901, aboriginal people were not included in the constitution or the census and were excluded from society which was known as protectionism. The white Australians believed that they were helping the Aborigines by using the protection policies. But in reality these policies isolated them from their families, traditional land and removed them from their natural heritage and culture. The Aborigines were taught to live like the white Australians so the could assimilate into the white society and were often trained to be slaves for White People. Charles Perkins was an aborigine who like many was taken from his family and land. He was however treated well compared to what most Indigenous…
In the early 20th century it was believed that Aboriginals we unable to care for themselves or make effective decisions as they were considered uncivilised by the Australian public. The protection policy was implemented; therefore the government would control every aspect of an Aboriginal’s life. The Aborigines Protection Act was passed in 1909 to control and restrict the movement of Aborigines across reserves, the money distribution and removing children from their families to ‘educate’ them. The removal of Aboriginal children from their families was known as The Stolen Generation. It was a system used to strip the Aboriginal culture from a child from a young age to bring them up into a civilised, white culture. The Stolen Generation continued through from 1869 to 1969 and in some places, even through till the 70’s. This destroyed many Aboriginal families, some children never saw their parents again and they were taken to reserves or white foster families which only a handful of children received a kind upbringing. This was considered the cruelest act towards Indigenous Australians which time still hasn’t entirely healed.…
1934: Under the Aboriginal Act, Aboriginal people could always apply to a ‘cease to be Aboriginal’, meaning after doing so they would have equivalent rights with whites. Policy of removing children from their families to aid assimilation which was brought about in 1937 became known as “The Stolen Generation”. Aboriginals were forced to give up on their values and cultures.…
Great speeches resonate with an audience because of the powerful and enduring ideas that are expressed in a well crafted oration.…
Terra nullius is a Latin expression deriving from Roman law meaning "nobody's land", which is used in international law to describe territory which has never been subject to the sovereignty of any state, or over which any prior sovereign has expressly or implicitly relinquished sovereignty. Sovereignty over territory which is terra nullius may be acquired through occupation, though in some cases doing so would violate an international law or treaty. (Wiki) Using the expression of Terra Nullius to condone this action Aboriginal people were then forcibly removed off their land. They were uprooted not only from their land but also from resources and control over their lives and movement. Violence and massacres were inflicted on Aboriginal communities. Another way this was done was through the introduction of disease by the Europeans was inflicted upon Indigenous peoples. The next contributing factor is Colonialism which is known as the removal of Aboriginal children from their families, or refers to the imposition of a political, economic and social system onto a sovereign people. Colonialism means to conquer, to dominate, to render submissive. It was the formation of Missions and Reserves. Along with the Denial of Citizenship Rights. There was no acknowledgment in the Australian Constitution. It was in this time that the creation of protection and welfare boards and state Ordinances took place. Colonialism revolved around Cultural, Political and Economic domination. Racism is the final factor associated with the stolen generation. Racism is Discrimination and Exclusion from all sectors of society, such as (education, training, employment,). Non-Aboriginal control of Aboriginal administration and policy. It is based on the notion of cultural and racial superiority. Racism assumes that certain groups are culturally, biologically, genetically, and…
When Australia was colonised, in 1788 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were already on the land, living with political and legal and social systems in a community. Aboriginal land was taken over by British colonists, saying the land belonged to no one, which is referred to as, “Terra Nullius”, but was then taken over by white people. In 1937, the Government held a conference on Aboriginal matters, which agreed that Aboriginal people should be introduced into the wider white population.…
The Australian Aborigines were the first people to live on the continent Australia, being here longer than the White Australians. During that time, the Aboriginal people made a special bond with the land and their kinship to their families. After the invasion of the Europeans settlers, laws were introduced to take away the land traditionally owned. Protectionism was one of the first policies meaning that Aborigines and the European settlers were separated and ‘protected’ for their own good. This was failing and that’s when assimilation was introduced which meant…
The European invasion of Australia in 1780 impacted upon the lives of all the Aboriginal people that lived in and around the invaded areas. When Captain Cook landed in Australia, he declared it as Terra Nullius, and this alone gives a significant insight as to the mentality of the British and their willingness to acknowledge the Aboriginal people and the importance that the land played in their daily lives. As the invaders brought with them their laws, ideals, diseases, livestock and people, the need for land increased and settlers began to venture outwards from the main settlements, the frontier broadened and the Aboriginal population began to shrink. The encroachment upon the land meant that many Aboriginal people were now being forced to come into closer contact with the Europeans. In doing this, the frontier affected the Aboriginal people in ways that ensured that their lives would never be the same and that European ideals affected their lives not only on the frontier but for generations too follow. The invasion of the Australian frontier affected areas in Aboriginal lives such as dispossession, disease, large-scale violence, which led to resistance.…
Beginning in 1910 and ending in the 1970s, Australians Federal and State government agencies and church missions made a policy to forcibly take many aboriginal and Torres Strait children away from their families in an attempt to destroy the Aboriginal race and culture. There was an impact on the aboriginals with a particular policy the Australian Government had introduced, which was the policy of ‘Assimilation’. This policy was to encourage many Aboriginal people to give up their culture, language, tradition, knowledge and spirituality to basically become white Australians. Unfortunately this policy didn’t give the Aboriginals the same rights as white Australians, as a result of discrimination, aboriginals were moved to live in special housing…