Indigenous Representation in Australian Society

Running Head: INDIGENOUS REPRESENTATION IN AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY
Indigenous Representation in Australian Society
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1INDIGENOUS REPRESENTATION IN AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY
The relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous people in Australia is one
that has been traditionally characterized by pain, antagonism, hostility, inequality and
resistance. Indigenous people in Australia do not feel adequately represented. They are more
often than not, treated as inferior to their white counterparts and their identity in Australian
society is that of a marginalized group of people. Based on the lectures I have attended in
class, I will analyze how the issue of inadequate political and social representation has
contributed to Australian aboriginal identity being so incongruous with white Australian
social identity until now. I conclude that significant efforts must be made on the part of the
Australian administration to make the indigenous people believe that they form an intrinsic
part of Australian social and political life.
Indigenous people in Australia were systematically excluded from citizenship rights
as well as entitlements from as early as the 1900’s right up to the late 1960’s and early 1970’s
through an extensive range of administrative practices and legislative provisions. Even the
passing of the landmark Nationality and Citizenship Act of 1948 which created legal status
for Australian citizens for the very first time, I believe, had little or no impact on the effect of
practices and legislations that discriminated against the aborigines. The constitutional
changes that were brought about by the 1967 referendum gave the Australian Commonwealth
the power to not only to create laws for the advantage of indigenous Australians but also for
their disadvantage (Ozdowski 2013). It was only after Australia signed the UN Convention
on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that a Racial Discrimination Act was introduced
by the Australian Federation in the year 1975 (Short 2016). Aborigines had to fight inequality
in wages until1965, when a process began, to introduce equal pay for the Australian
aboriginal workers under the Queensland Station Hand’s Award, Cattle Station Industry
Award in the Northern Territory and the Pastoral Industry Award offered by the Federal
government. It was declared under these awards that aborigines would be paid the exact same