Essay Analysis: Historical Treatment of Aborigines in Australia

This essay examines the historical treatment of Aborigines in Australia, focusing on the evolution of government policies from assimilation to integration. It explores the impact of these policies on the indigenous population, including the denial of civil rights, limited representation, and social isolation. The essay analyzes key events such as the extension of voting rights and the 1967 referendum, highlighting the shift towards recognizing indigenous rights. It also discusses the role of historical events in shaping ethical practices for professionals, particularly in engineering, and advocates for inclusive governance, social engagement, and improved access to essential services such as healthcare and infrastructure for the indigenous population. The essay emphasizes the need for understanding past injustices and for creating a more equitable and inclusive society.

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Treatment of Aborigines in Australia
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Treatment of Aborigines in Australia
Australian literature reflecting on the relations concerning the indigenous and non-
indigenous people of Australia has been largely written by the whites. And while reading the
modern material, it is importantly and acknowledgeable that a majority of the authors’ desire is
to personally demonstrate his/her significance to inclination towards racism has had no impact
on how he/she has written or analyzed his/her material (Brady 1995).
This demonstration, that regards to non-racisms personalities in the writing has
characteristically accomplished in two ways. First of all, the essayist put pen to paper of an
unfairness perpetrated upon the indigenous people, such that the writer can criticize (Shaw 1992).
In this fashion, the writer makes it evident that he/she is different from the guilty part of the
unfairness. Then the essayist decides on to writing around some substance where the wrongdoers
are detached from the writer’s peer of the realm cluster and organizations deemed that he/she
works for. This perspective creates a distance between the essayist and any individual
accountability or responsibility by association, such that, the craving to make evident that a non-
racist individuality by disparaging unfairness that is detached from the essayist’s instantaneous
accountability has led to a significant extent of chronological lies that can be made known to be
truthfully imprecise at the most awful and gross misrepresentations at its best (Shaw 1992).
Between the 1940s and 1950s, the Government of Australia’s guiding principle on
Aboriginal individuals transformed to a solitary of assimilation (Brady 1995). This then doomed
that the Aboriginal individuals were articulated to animate as the non-Aboriginal inhabitants
existed. It did not work for the reason that the indigenous society did not intent to be unable to
find their old-fashioned culture.

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Then in the years of 1960s, the guiding principle transformed to integration. Majority of
the menfolk in the Australian nation attained the privilege to cast the ballot although their
Commonwealth voting privileges were not stretched to all Aboriginal Australians till 1962
(Chesterman & Galligan 1997). Therefore, with the integration of both the indigenous and non-
indigenous, the indigenous people acquired civil freedoms although they would still be expected
to become accustomed to non-Aboriginal Australian beliefs. Another transformation came into
force in 1967, when even an excess of ninety per cent of all Australians made a ‘YES’ vote to
permit Aboriginal persons to be add up in the census. Such a poll was a momentous landmark
that exhibited that the huge majority of the Australian people desired that the Indigenous persons
should be encompassed and accorded the same equal civil rights like everybody else (Chesterman
& Galligan 1997).
This articulates to the fact that the past government policy, in actual fact, that the
Australian Government did not have a guiding principle towards the indigenous people in the
years between 1940s and 1950s simply for the reason that it was constitutionally prohibited from
enacting a strategy for indigenous people until the year 1967, with only the state governments
having supremacies to enact laws beleaguered at the indigenous people (Chesterman & Galligan
1997). The laws were also different on a state-by-state basis such that South Australia barred
non-indigenous persons from hanging out with the indigenous ones with the streaming in of
alcoholic drinks to indigenous people and sex transversely across the colour line. In their context,
these guidelines were intended to safeguard the Aborigines from the "immoral" Australian
population but not to assimilate them. In the same time, the states of Tasmania and Victoria did
not have a precise Aboriginal policy.

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Some of lessons learned in this study relating to the treatment of the indigenous people of
Australia is that the majority of the Australian population lived under immense pressure from the
non-indigenous individuals whereby their basic rights were violated such that their right to vote
was not entrenched in the constitution. This translated that their representation in parliament was
determined by the white non-Aborigines, including their right to be counted in the census which
would declare their numbers in the state. Such a treatment resulted into making the indigenous
people felt isolated in their main homeland and separated from the rest of the population. It is
understandable that the indigenous population then lived a life that had no state obligations such
as choosing their representatives in the parliament or even decision making on the welfare of the
Australian nation and would depend on the government which was controlled by the indigenous
people to make decisions on their behalf.
Upon the constitutional changes that occurred in the country aiming to ensure inclusion
of the indigenous people into some major events such as federal voting, the indigenous people
gained some of the rights that they were being denied over the time and men were allowed to
take a head count for the census and were also allowed to vote in parliamentary and referendum
voting.
In my view, the treatment meted on the indigenous Australians was so immense that
would interfere with their social interaction with the non-indigenous people and such a treatment
might have resulted into civil conflicts between the two factions. My view is that the government
should have been a bit more linear to the majority of the population which in this case were the
indigenous people of Australia and try to engage them in matters relating to governance and
social inclinations such as proper attention towards major rights such as parliamentary
representation, medical care, their rights to vote and the inclusion during the census count.

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In this scenario, the indigenous people would feel that they were part and parcel of the
Australian nation when it regards to decision making and other government related functions that
would enhance their welfare. Furthermore, the government of the day should have had inter-
social connections between the two sides to mitigate the drift so that the indigenous population
would not view themselves as isolated or undermined in their home country. Basically, the
government, which was controlled by the non-Aborigines, were reluctant to include the
indigenous people in matters relating to governance and they would enact laws that were
favorable to them, and that would ensure that they oppressed the aborigines.
The history impacts the engineering ethical practice as professions in the field learn much
about how to behave and influence the various stakeholders involved. As an engineer in the
nation, the history helps instill ethics on my professions to help them recommend proper
structures that would enable the indigenous people to access major facilities such as hospitals,
construction of roads (bearing in mind that one of the major reason as to why the indigenous
people were not included in the census was their inaccessibility), necessitating the government to
carry out civic education on matters relating to the importance their inclusion in federal and
referendum votes. Hospitals and all medical facilities accessible by the indigenous population
ought to have had good medical equipment and qualified personnel.
This study has helped focus on the future of nation in such a way that it will help me
encourage my government, social societies and human rights societies to focus on the
weaknesses of the Australian government of the ancient times, so that they may constitute an all-
inclusive parliament where the minor and the majority can share their ideas, rebuilding of the
communication network through social participation, road networks for accessibility to local

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people and enhancement of medical facilities that would serve the whole population without
discriminating on the marginalized and non-marginalized in the nation.
References
Biskup, P. (1968). White-Aboriginal Relations in Western Australia: An Overview. Comparative
Studies in Society and History, 10(4), 447-457.
Brady, M. (1995). Culture in treatment, culture as treatment. A critical appraisal of developments
in addictions programs for indigenous North Americans and Australians. Social Science
& Medicine, 41(11), 1487-1498.
Chesterman, J., & Galligan, B. (1997). Citizens without rights: Aborigines and Australian
citizenship. Cambridge University Press.
Shaw, A. G. (1992). British policy towards the Australian Aborigines, 1830–1850. Australian
Historical Studies, 25(99), 265-285.