At the current trajectory, severe climate change will become a reality and many of the island nations in Oceania, especially atoll countries, will need to find new, sustainable places to live. Some may move internally within Oceania, but others will search for homes in larger nations with greater security and opportunity. The most logical destination for those who decide to leave the region would be Australia or New Zealand. To ensure adequate preparation for this large-scale movement of people, anticipated hosts must examine the economic and physical challenges of welcoming these communities as well as the myriad of social implications from bringing different groups of people together. In this context, race will play a large role in how these islanders are accepted into the larger social fabric of the countries to which they move and what resources will or will not be made available to them. This is two-part blog examining race relations in Australia; Part I, serving as a historical analysis, and Part II, as a contemporary overview of the situation, will be condensed and explained below.
Part I: Historical Analysis of Race in Australia
Pre-World War II Colonialism
The indigenous people of Australia, often referred to as Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people, had lived in Australia for thousands of years before the British arrived in 1778 and removed them from their historic land under the terra nullius doctrine. For almost two centuries the indigenous population was stripped of full citizenship rights and immigration laws were adopted to favor the incoming white population over the Aboriginal community. Similar to the reaction of the natives in the Americas, many indigenous tribes fought against colonial rule and the seizure of land. These battles became known as the Frontier Wars and plagued the Australian frontier for generations as the British expanded across the continent.
By the late-19th century, many of the indigenous tribes that remained were moved onto reservations where different tribes were thrust together, and various diseases claimed much of the population. Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey captured the brutality of life for the indigenous population when he wrote, “In a thousand isolated places there were occasional shootings and spearings. Even worse, smallpox, measles, influenza, and other new diseases swept from one Aboriginal camp to another… The main conqueror of Aborigines was to be disease and its ally, demoralization.”
In conjunction to these Frontier Wars, beginning in the 1830s, the Australian government created the office of the Chief Protector of Aborigines whose main purpose was to extend government policy to the indigenous population. Christian churches were used to convert, assimilate, and further colonize the indigenous people through peace and welfare efforts. The Australian lawyer and lands rights activist Noel Pearson opined that the churches “provided a haven from the hell of life on the Australian frontier while at the same time facilitating colonization.” In other words, life on the frontier was so terrible for the indigenous population that the only reprieve was through the acceptance of Christianity.
Outright violence from white Australians toward the indigenous population dwindled beginning at the turn at the century, but systemic oppressions became the norm. The White Australia Policy and the beginning of the child removal policy that created the “Stolen Generation” shifted the oppression of the white Australians from strictly violent to mental and emotional.
The White Australia Policy was a collection of policies that forbade people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia; thereby ensuring a majority white population that controlled the land and the economy of the nation. The child removal policy was part of the larger Victorian Aboriginal Protection Act 1869 which authorized the systemic removal of Aboriginal children who were “at risk” of molestation, drug exposure, poverty, etc. by their parents. All children taken were considered “half-caste,” or mixed race, with both white and Aborigine. The idea was that these half-castes would learn how to live and work in white Australian society, would marry white Australians, and after generations the Aboriginal population would assimilate into the larger white society. There have been multiple examinations of this “Stolen Generation” and the problems they faced as a result of forcibly leaving their parents, so this blog will not focus specifically on them. It merely shines a light on the systemic problems that existed in Australian race relations.
Mid-late 20th Century Race Relations
In 1938 the Australian Aborigine Advancement League held a “Day of Mourning” protest to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the British First Fleet that landed in Australia and officially began its campaign for complete citizenship rights for the Aborigine people. However, during and directly after WWII the government maintained a permit system that restricted the mobility and job opportunities for most Aborigines.
Most race relations changed from the 1950s onward. The White Australia Policy was slowly dismantled in the decades following the Second World War. The postwar government undertook legal reforms that reinstated land rights and Native Title to the indigenous people.
The government pushed policies of indigenous assimilation and sought to give full citizenship to Aborigines. But through this the government also pushed the indigenous population to adopt the customs and norms of white Australians; which usually meant the suppression or forced rejection of a community’s individual cultural identity.
The 1960s were the true decade of change for official race relations in Australia. 1962 introduced the Commonwealth Electoral Act which stated that all indigenous people should have the right to vote in federal elections. Prior to this legislation, only the state of Southern Australia allowed Aboriginals to vote– men since the 1850s and women since the 1890s. In Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory they were deemed wards of the state and not given the right to vote.
In addition, Australia experienced its first freedom rides during this time. One of the first Aborigines to graduate from the University of Sydney, Charles Perkins, helped organize and lead the rides. The organizers adopted the idea from the U.S. Civil Rights Movement as a way to shine a light on the inequalities still plaguing certain parts of Australia.
All of these changes culminated in the famous 1967 Referendum, which was a collection of two major amendments to the Australian Constitution that removed all discriminatory references to the indigenous population. The referendum received 90% approval, passed in all six Australian states, and became the basis of all civil rights conversations throughout Australia.
Conclusion
While this referendum changed things de jure in Australia- Aborigines began to hold public office in the 1970s and Parliament passed the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, there were still numerous racial problems de facto. Contemporary Australia continues to grapple with these problems today. Part II will address them.