Good ‘Mourning’ Australia
First Fleet Officer Collins encountered an ‘uncommonly fine’ day when he first arrived at Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788.
Officer Collins watched Captain Arthur Philip anchor HMS Sirius at Sydney Cove, plant the Union Jack flag smack bang in the middle of the dirt and, with his Officers, toast to the success of King and his colony of 11 ships - 6 containing convicts.
So there they were, 1480 of the first Europeans at Sydney Cove, ready to make a new life for themselves. For them, this was terra nullius - nobody’s land.
Another five ships arrived the following year. 730 very sick people. Diseases such as smallpox and scurvy were brought to Australia.
More businessmen came and they claimed land that was beyond the governed radius and became known as ‘squatters’.
It’s said that the around 750,000 Indigenous lived in Australia before the Europeans settled. Just in the Sydney Basin alone after one year, the population of 140,000 living there was reduced by half.
All up, 160,000 convicts were sent to Australia up until 1868 and once they did their time, they were encouraged to stay by the government in settlements and cultivate land. If they were prepared to marry and have children they could have more. Fair go mate.
58,000 people migrated to Australia between 1815 and 1840. They disliked the squatters because they couldn’t divvy up the land properly, but they disliked the Aboriginals more, so they forced them off their homeland and a lot of the time massacred them.
Fast forward fifty years from 26 January 1788 and you’ll find the shores of Sydney Harbour teeming with activity in a very different way.
The Australia Day Regatta was brought in as a way to celebrate a ‘day for everyone’. Bandicoots were replaced with bands, canoes - yachts, kangaroos with large parties of ladies, and the fish, whales and sharks watched on as competitors try and win their place in a clean healthy sport befitting a young Australian.
But these celebrations which were synonymous with alcohol were not and are still are not a celebration for the Indigenous.
Australia Day is a day of mourning for the Indigenous. I think this is why.
The Aboriginal people were dependent on the land for 50,000 years before the settlers came. Almost immediately they were dispossessed of the land and hunting areas that nourished them for so long and over time they had to become dependent on white food.
There were reports of poisoning of Aboriginal people on ‘Tarrone’ near Port Fairy, West Melbourne and ‘Kilcoy’ north-west Moreton Bay. Flour was poisoned and left in shepherds’ huts on ‘Kilcoy’ in the expectation that Aboriginal people dispossessed of hunting grounds would take it.
There were a number of large scale killings as conflict over dispossession of land and erosion of hunting rights. Settlers were ordered to shoot Aboriginals on site and as they spread out across Australia, brutal things were happening on both sides. Wars across Australia continued.
Regulation to control the movement of Aboriginal people was brought in. No Aboriginal person is to appear armed within a mile of any settlement and no more than six Aboriginal people are allowed to ‘lurk or loiter near farms’.
Aboriginal people were given passports or certificates if they “conducted themselves in a suitable manner”, to show they are officially accepted by Europeans.
The Aboriginal population was declining rapidly due to violence, dispossession and disease. Families, communities, language, knowledge, and memory - on the way to extinction.
There were many massacres. Some we know of but many we don’t.[2]
There was even a massacre on Australia Day at Waterloo Creek, also known as Slaughterhouse Creek.
In 1838, a bunch of police boys attacked the Kamilaroi people and although reports spoke of between 12 and 80 Kamilaroi people were killed, Major James Nunn boasted that 200–300 were killed. Worse than his boasting and the murder of a people is that the Kamilaroi people were wiped out.
Over at Sydney Harbour, the colonists were getting pissed watching the Regatta.
Australia Day could never be celebrated by the Indigenous, certainly not after that.
Black memories
“My mother would sit and cry and tell me this; they buried our babies in the ground with only their heads above the ground. All in a row they were. Then they had tests to see who could kick the babies’ head off the furthest. One man clubbed a baby’s head off from horseback.
They then spent the rest of the day raping the women, most of whom were then tortured to death by sticking sharp things like spears up their vaginas till they died.
They tied the men’s hands behind their backs, then cut off their penis and testicles and watched them run around screaming until they died. They killed in other bad ways too.” [1]
These are the stories that I’ve been reading today. There are stories of girls as young as eight who were kidnapped and raped and infected with syphilis. Teenage girls were kept for sex and chained up at night to stop them running away.
Protector of Aboriginals
There were some genuine concerns about the questionable behaviour and treatment towards the Indigenous after the European settlement.
A government report recommended that Protectors of Aborigines should be engaged. A protector would need to learn the Aboriginal languages, watch over them and their rights, guard against encroachment of their property and protect them from oppression, injustice and cruelty.
So a guy by the name of George Augustus Robinson thought, “I can do that,” and he did.
In 1839 George Augustus Robinson became the Chief Protector of Aborigines and was assigned Protector of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). He was a builder, and he was interested in religious stuff. Nope, he wasn’t a priest, just interested in Christianity.
All up, 21 Protectors were assigned duties in different ‘settlements’ across Australia.
George arrived in Hobart in 1824 and as he was a builder, he conveniently set up as a builder. Within a year he was employing several men and had accumulated £400.
Since he was also interested in religion, he joined the committee of the Auxiliary Bible Society.
But as Protector of Aboriginals, he had to find natives and get to know them as well as find a good spot to build a ‘settlement’, so off he went.
He found Flinders Island which is a little piece of land just above Tasmania and there he created his little settlement.
George collected the Indigenous and sent them to Flinders to ‘civilize’ them, teach them Christian principles even though wasn’t a priest, teach them English and adopt European habits and till the soil of a potato ground.
Every expedition was done by boat and along the coast of Tasmania to bring in more natives and resettle them from the mainland to Flinders Island. He had his two sons with him and an escort of convict porters and servants, and a following of at least a dozen friendly natives. When they encountered a tribe, the friendly Aboriginals came to the front of the boat and the Europeans were in the back. They would persuade the tribe to come forward and then give them presents and food.
By 1834 the Aboriginal problem for the colonists of mainland Tasmania was gone. Most of the natives bar a dozen were moved from the mainland of Tasmania to Flinders settlement.
George finished his expeditions and returned to the Flinders settlement only to find that the commandants he left to look after the settlement were enforcing gaol-like conditions, so he took control and began to provide adequate food and housing; but his greatest change was to root out Aboriginal culture and replace it with his own version.
Schools were established in which the natives and their children were taught to read and write.
Christianity became prominent, and attempts were made to ‘civilize’ the natives in other ways: markets were held where they were taught to buy and sell in hope that they would come to realize the value of property; they were given new names and taught to elect their own native police. So much for upholding the role of Protector of Aboriginals where one would understand their language, their ways, protect them and guard their rights.
Looks like George was more interested in money then protecting the Aboriginals. He refused a job to become Protector of Aboriginals in South Australia because the salary was less than he thought he deserved. When he was given the offer of Protector at Port Phillip, he took it - the salary was good enough.
George struggled at Port Phillip because unlike the Tasmanian tribes the Victorian Aboriginals, were free to come and go as they pleased. He tried to ‘civilize’ them but it didn’t work.
This is when the government thought that taking children would work, since adults are harder to keep under control, children might be easier.
An Aboriginal’s personal property remained under the control of the government’s chief protector of Aborigines. The protector, not the children’s parents, was the legal guardian of the children.
Towards the end of the 19th century, 100 years after the Europeans arrived, authorities started to take children away without a legal framework. A framework was established in 1909 with the Aborigines Protection Act.
They did this because like George, they wanted to ‘civilize’ them.
Children were taken away from their mothers and never, ever seen again by them.
As young as babies, they were stolen from their families to be placed in girls and boys homes, foster families or missions. At the age of 18 they were ‘released’ into white society, most scarred for life by their experiences.
During the 1960s the child removal process slowed down but continued well into the 1970s. Some of the schools and missions who held the Stolen Generations did not close until the early 1980s (e.g. Bomaderry Children’s Home in NSW).[3]
Children continued to be taken away from the families for 100 years.
The stolen generation as they are called, suffered sexual abuse, physical abuse, psychological abuse and created a generation pain to be passed down forever.
Aboriginal author Sally Morgan wrote about her experiences in her book ‘My Place’ if you are interested in understanding the Stolen Generation in detail.
Northern Territory Emergency Response Act (NTER) — “The Intervention”
Fast forward to 2006 and up to the Northern Territory (NT) where the government commissions research into allegations of serious sexual abuse of children in Aboriginal communities.
An inquiry was established to find out how children could be protected better and a report in 2007 was released called Little Children are Sacred. This report prompted an intervention two weeks later in military style.
Army troops were sent to NT to respond to the ‘Emergency’. The Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) was an ‘Intervention’.
Once again, without consultation the Aboriginal peoples’ lives were heavily regulated, and many felt ashamed and angry.
Like George Robinson, the need to ‘civilize’ Aboriginals continues.
Legislation called the NTER Act was in place.
Intervention (NTER Act) changes
Legislation passed by both major parties of Australian Government (Labour and Liberal)
- removed the permit system for access to Aboriginal land,
- abolished government-funded Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP),
- subjected Aboriginal children to teaching in a language they don’t speak for the first four hours at school,
- quarantined 50% of welfare payments,
- suspended the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA),
- expected Aboriginal people to lease property to the government in return for basic services,
- compulsorily acquired Aboriginal land and
- subjected Aboriginal children to mandatory health checks without consulting their parents, and against the sacred oath of doctors.
Despite wide-spread protests the intervention was extended until 2022.[4]
Unfortunately it seems that the Act has nothing to do with kids and everything to do with business. Even though the report is about children, the word ‘child’ isn’t found in the body of the report but the word ‘land’ is all over the place.
It’s an unfortunate thing but miners need access to Aboriginal land and the Act has a lot of reference to land in it, so they seem to have done it through this Act. Do it through a legal framework and it’s okay apparently, especially when the Australian Constitution couldn’t even protect Aboriginals even if it wanted to.
The Australian Constitution
The power to legislate on the grounds of race: Section 51 (xxvi)
Aboriginal leaders have been calling for a review of the Australian Constitution for their people to be recognised and protected.
Essentially, this would mean that all races could be protected in Australia. This should be a big deal for everyone, not just the Aboriginal people.
Section 51(xxvi) of the Australian Constitution enables the Commonwealth to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to… the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws.
Basically, the NTER Act was able to be pushed through because the Constitution allows for special laws to be made to people of any race.
We have discrimination protection in Australia with the Racial Discrimination Act but it’s not very effective if the Constitution allows you to make a special law to any race.
The protections under Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) 1975 (Cth) designed to ensure equality of treatment of all people regardless of their race have been removed on three occasions with another legislation: each time it has involved Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues.
So, when the NTER legislation was written up, the protection and power of the RDA was specifically removed because it’s deemed a ‘special measure’ as per the power of the Constitution.
Yet again, the Aboriginals in the Northern Territory have been discriminated against, and the law that was supposed to be there to protect them, was simply written over.
On May 27, 2017 our Government will call for Referendum to vote on changes to the Constitution under Section 51 (xxvi) and other sections which have been suggested for repeal.
An article by Tanya Hosch Joint Campaign Director of RECOGNISE asks us Australian’s some important questions: “what should we expect of ourselves in the 21st century? What should we tell our children to say if an overseas visitor asks: Is it true your Constitution lets governments discriminate against people based on race?” [5]
I hope that all Australian’s can get involved in this debate for the good of all but first, can we please listen to all the minds and hearts from the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander communities first.
They have been listening to us for 227 years, it’s time that we listen to them.
Today, I’m not celebrating. I’m not toasting. I’m not sending “Happy Australia Day” snaps to my friends.
Today, I’m thinking about how we should stop repeating history.
Sources:
[1] http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/myall-creek-massacre-1838
[2] http://treatyrepublic.net/node/523
[3] http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/politics/a-guide-to-australias-stolen-generations
