The Impact of Historical Events on the Relationship between Indigenous People of Australia and the Wider Australian Society

Name: Kelly Camm
Student no: 94041211
Unit: IKC101 Indigenous Australian Cultures, Histories and Contemporary
Realities
Course: 1416SW - Bachelor of Social Science (Social Welfare)
Coordinator: Kirsten Locke
Assessment Three
Submission Date: 13 May 2019
Word Entry: 1,442

As opined by Coombes (2017), the attitude of the European settlers in the nation of
Australia towards Aboriginal people of Australia has undergone a substantial amount of
change over the years in conjunction with the developments in the field of learning and the
cultural framework. Waller and McCallum (2018) are of the viewpoint that the change in
attitude of the European settlers that had taken place over the years can be ascribed to the
different policies or the historical events in the historical timeline of the concerned nation in
the last century. In this regard, two of the most important events that have substantially
shaped the history and the manner in which Indigenous people of Australia were being
treated in the nation are “National campaign launched by The Federal Council for Aboriginal
Advancement” (1962) and the handing back of the Uluru region to its owners (1985)
(McNiven, 2017). These two events in the historical timeline of the nation had wielded a
substantial amount of influence on the manner in which Aboriginal people in the nation of
Australia perceive themselves and the Australian society around them. This essay will
analyse the manner in which the two above-mentioned events in the historical timeline of the
nation of Australia have influenced Australia’s first people in Australia to perceive
themselves and their wider society.
The Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement in the year 1962 designed a
National Campaign, the primary goal of which was to advocate for the “equal citizenship
rights for Indigenous people” (Buchan, 2015). More importantly, it was seen that the
concerned campaign gained nationwide popularity and a substantial amount of pressure was
being placed on the national government to offer equal citizenship rights to
Indigenous/Aboriginal people of Australia (Fiske, Hodge & Turner, 2016). This becomes
important from the perspective that Indigenous people in the nation of Australia since the
arrival of the European settlers had to face not only oppression but at the same time
discrimination and different kinds of social injustice that in turn adversely affected that their
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long-term growth or development (Furniss, 2017). Furthermore, in the face of the mounting
pressure from the different people of the concerned nation, its Prime Minister Holt approved
the concerned referendum in the year 1964 and in the year 1967 the referendum to offer equal
citizenship rights to Indigenous people was held (Cronin, 2017).
Malaspinas et al. (2016) are of the viewpoint that despite the fact that the referendum
was primarily intended for the welfare of Indigenous people in the nation of Australia, very
few Indigenous people or their representatives were actually included in the decision-making
process or the designing of the referendum. This, in turn, became another example of the
‘outsider’ status that Indigenous people in the nation of Australia had held for a long time
which over the years had become their social status in the concerned nation (Macneil, 2017).
As a matter of fact, the European settlers since the time of settlement in the nation of
Australia had perceived Indigenous people as ‘other’ rather than considering them as people
(Moran, 2011). This, in turn, resulted in the different kinds of racism, oppression, suppression
and other kinds of problems faced by Indigenous people over the years, thereby were being
deprived of their basic citizenship rights in the nation of Australia (Larkin, 2017). It was
precisely this aspect of the society of Australia or for that matter the relationship between
Indigenous Australians and the wider Australian society that concerned referendum sought to
change.
The basic goal of this referendum was in contradiction to the positioning of
Indigenous people in Australia or for that the nature of the relationship that Indigenous
people shared with the wider Australian society (Gale & Bolzan, 2013). For example, it had
been seen that over the years the wider Australian society had tried to supress Indigenous
people and thereby coerce the maximum amount of benefit from them (Gordon, 2018).
However, the best aspect of this referendum was the fact that it sought to transform this status
quo which had been prevalent and thereby provide equal citizenship right to Indigenous
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people as to bring about the much-needed change within the societal framework (Donaldson,
2017). It is seen that the history of the concerned nation consists of various incidents wherein
Indigenous people have been deprived of their land as well as basic rights. This referendum is
important not only because of the benefits that it sought to offer Indigenous people of
Australia but from the perspective that it enabled the other people of Australia to realise the
fact that Indigenous people of the concerned nation are a member of Australia and thereby
should have access to the same kind of rights. This is one of the major factors which had
contributed to bring about the much-needed change within the societal framework wherein
the wider Australian society and Indigenous people were able to learn about the cultural
traditions and other aspects of each other and thereby lead their lives in a harmonious manner
in the concerned (Cronin, 2017). Thus, I would say, this referendum was important due to the
fact that it facilitated the inculcation of cultural competency on the part of Australia’s first
people and other people of Australia and thereby greatly helped in the mutual co-existence of
the two groups of people.
In the year 1985, the national government of Australia decided to give back the land
of Uluru to Australia’s first people which was forcefully taken from them by the national
government in 1920 when the Uluru and Kata-Tjuta were included in the South West Reserve
(Rubenstein, 2018). The primary goal of this event or initiative of the national government of
Australia was to redeem the great injustice that they had committed over the years towards
Indigenous people of the nation of Australia who had resided in the concerned nation for
more than 60,000 years (Larkin & Galloway, 2018). In this regard, it needs to be said that
prior to this Indigenous people of Australia were basically considered to be outsiders or
‘others’ in Australia despite the fact that the referendum of 1967 tried to offer equal
citizenship rights to them (Moran, 2009). That event or incident tried to rectify the mistakes
the national government of Australia had committed against Indigenous people over the
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