Native Title and Indigenous Australians
Added on 2020-04-07
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Running head: INDIGENOUS RELATIONSHIPS IN AUSTRALIA AND NATIVE TITLE INDIGENOUS RELATIONS AND THE NATIVE TITLEName of the Student:Name of the University:Author’s Note:
1INDIGENOUS RELATIONSHIPS IN AUSTRALIA AND NATIVE TITLE Thesis statement –The difference between indigenous relationships to the country and nativetitle as western legal system is analyzed in the essay, also the ways the western legal systemsurrounding the native title maintained or undermined the racial privilege in Australia isanalyzed in the essay.IntroductionThe British settlers arrived in Australia in 1788 and since 40,000 years indigenous peoplelived in Australia. These indigenous people include the Aboriginal and people of Torres Straightislanders. The British colony seized land from the indigenous people. Though the rights ofcitizenship was deprived from the indigenous people in most states of Australia, but before theperiod of post war, the western legal system that had discriminators laws against indigenouspeople was dismantled. In the year 1967,a referendum was passed in the western legal system toprotect the rights of the Aboriginal people and the 90 % approval was achieved from theelectorate . After the post- war period, a policy of multiculturalism was prevalent in Australiaand there was increasing immigration from Eastern and Southern Part of Europe. In the 21stcentury reforms, the western legal system has acknowledged the land rights of the Aboriginalcommunity. The western legal system in Australia has evidence of racism towards the Aboriginalcommunity. The land was seized from the community, health of the community continued todeteriorate and in the year 2008, apology was presented by the western legal system forseparating Aboriginal children who had mixed ethnicity from their parents. The Western legalsystem has passed several acts like the Racial Discrimination Act of 1975, racial hatred act of1995 and Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act of 1986 which had policiesagainst racial discrimination still the rights of the Aboriginal people are not fully recognized inthe Western legal System (Glaskin and Weiner 2013).
2INDIGENOUS RELATIONSHIPS IN AUSTRALIA AND NATIVE TITLE Discussion The British invasion in Australia in 1770 and the settlement of the Europeans in thecountry has deprived the indigenous community of their land rights. The first 100 years ofcolonization has imposed serious threats to the Aboriginal community and very few of themsurvived. Humanitarian societies took active steps to protect the Aboriginal community andlobbied with the Australian government to formulate laws in favor of the Aboriginal communitywhich was already considered as a dying race by the middle of the nineteenth century. TheAboriginal communities were afflicted to atrocities and adverse circumstances by the white ruralsettlers. These settlers wanted the Aboriginal communities detested the presence of theAboriginal community in their towns, public places, schools and neighborhood. The Aboriginalcommunity was considered as a visible ‘’problem” for ministers and members of the governmentand for the state and colonial officials. However, the Australian government formulated a vividnetwork of administration and Western Legal System related to and dealing with the rights of theAboriginal community. The indigenous people had to continue living in remote places and werenot in physical contact with the white people, Aborigines had to hunt to earn their livelihood.The Western Legal System was also concerned about the growing population of the “half-caste”,“octoroon” and ‘’ quadroon’’ and the groups of half castes who were mixture of Asiatic blood orNegro and the Aboriginals were a cause of concern for the Western Legal System. The halfcastes were considered to be neglected and destitute and they posed serious threats to the cultureand race of pure white Australians. This was reflected from the beginning of the nineteenthcentury in records of the parliament and the Western Legal System which were concerned withthe Aboriginal issues (Glaskin and Weiner 2013).The 1936 Act clearly reflects that the intentionof the Western Australian government to plan for biological absorption. The Aboriginal problem
3INDIGENOUS RELATIONSHIPS IN AUSTRALIA AND NATIVE TITLE could be resolved by the biological absorption process and the Western Legal system coulduphold a white Australia by the process. The Western Legal System continued with efforts toculturally assimilate the Aborigines. The different states of the Northern Territory adopteddifferent process of cultural assimilation which was influenced by the Western legal system,administration, jurisdiction and policy of different states and the conditions of life of theAboriginal community in those states determined the nature of the cultural assimilation process.The Western Legal System formulated policies and schemes for educating the Aboriginalcommunity and there was evident effort to train and employ the members of the Aboriginalcommunity. The Western Legal System also demonstrated efforts of proving housing facilitiesfor the Aboriginal community into the neighborhoods of the White Community. The policies ofthe Western Legal System also demonstrated efforts of adoption of aboriginal children by thewhite families. Though the Western Legal system made consistent effort to remove any referenceto race in the law and regulations which deal with the Aboriginal community, but the whitecommunities frequently resisted the process of assimilation especially the efforts of thegovernment to develop the education and the housing system (Moreton-Robinson 2015).Therewere many members of the Aboriginal activists who supported the process of culturalassimilation because of the true desire of some Australians to support the Aboriginal communitywho were living under poor condition of unemployment, poverty, diseases and were subjected todiscrimination and prejudices. However , the motives of the Australian government behindcultural assimilation was not only humanitarian, the Western Legal system had mixed intentionof preventing the resistance of the Australians towards cultural assimilation as well as to dealwith the problems of racism and the Western Legal System focused on the improvement of thenational community as a whole(Koch 2013).
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