Australian History X
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thesoretoothsayer
Joined: 26 Apr 2017
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How dare you challenge the legitimacy of indigenous oral history.
If you were at my work you'd be hauled off to a HR interrogation room and whipped with rainbow-themed lanyards. |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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^
At the time, I was head of HR for the organisation. 
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| 1000 in binary. |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| stui magpie wrote: | | Pies4shaw wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | But it is to re-write history and teach falsehoods to others |
History is revised and adjusted constantly. It’s the nature of the beast. What are the falsehoods you think of? |
I've heard and read a number, several of them related to the 1967 referendum and spread by indigenous people, I assume accidentally because they just believe what they've been told.
Some of these include that prior to the 67 referendum:
Aboriginals were considered fauna. (this was actually taught at cross cultural training to a white woman who's kids are indigenous)
Aboriginals didn't have the vote
Aboriginals weren't Australian citizens.
All of these are false and can be quickly proven so, yet they are regurgitated en masse (to attract sympathy or enhance the perception of victim hood I assume). As I said to the woman referred to above when I corrected her about the Fauna, enough bad stuff happened, we don't need to make shit up. |
The exact purpose and consequences of the 1967 referendum might be widely misunderstood, but that doesn't mean that there's no truth to the claims made above – Aboriginal people were actively barred from voting in WA and Queensland until the 1960s (1962 and 1965, respectively), and Aboriginal citizenship seems to have been optional, and treated more as "theoretical" than real until the 1960s. See the page below:
http://indigenousrights.net.au/civil_rights/albert_namatjira_and_citizenship,_1958-59
As for the "fauna" thing, that may well be mostly false, but it is stated (in one of the pages that debunks that myth) that Aboriginal affairs were previously handled by government bodies dealing with flora, fauna and wildlife. That's probably where the myth originated.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/myths-persist-about-the-1967-referendum
Of course, the most important thing is that Indigenous people were treated as second-class citizens up until a series of parliamentary acts culminating in the 1967 referendum, with substantial restrictions on who they could marry, what they could drink, where they could travel to and so on, and it's clear that they were treated (in many senses) as being "separate" from Australian society. It's important that these things aren't embellished; but, equally, we shouldn't use embellishments and urban legends that have arisen over the years to discredit the spirit of the claims, which is largely correct.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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The story isn't quite as simple as that. Citizenship wasn't automatically conferred to Aboriginal people under that act, and came with considerable strings attached. Here's a bill, for instance, that was passed in WA in 1944 (and wasn't affected by the 1948 act – it was only repealed in 1971):
https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/guide/wa/WE00416
| Quote: | The Natives (Citizenship Rights) Act 1944 (023 of 1944 (8 & 9 Geo. VI No. 23)) had the full title 'An act to provide for the acquisition of full rights of citizenship by aborigine natives'. This law made it possible for Aboriginal people to make an application to a magistrate for citizenship, as long as they met a range of conditions. Once citizenship was granted, the person was no longer considered a 'native or aborigine'. As the 'Collaborating for Indigenous Rights' website states: 'it was impossible to be both an Australian citizen and an Aboriginal person'. The Act was repealed by the Natives (Citizenship Rights) Act Repeal Act 1971.
Under the Natives (Citizenship Rights) Act 1944, in order to be judged a 'fit and proper person to obtain a certificate of Citizenship', the applicant had to provide a statutory declaration that he or she had 'dissolved tribal and native association' for a period of at least two years. In effect, a person making an application under the Act had to make a choice between citizenship and their extended family and culture. The law stated that the person could maintain contact with their own children, parents and siblings, but had to demonstrate that he or she had 'adopted the manner and habits of civilised life'.
Before granting citizenship, the magistrate also had to be satisfied that the person was 'of industrious habits, and of good behaviour and reputation', free from a range of diseases, be able to speak and understand English, and be 'reasonably capable of managing his own affairs'.
Section 7 of the act provided that citizenship, once granted, could be revoked by a magistrate if he was satisfied that the person was 'not adopting the manner and habits of civilised life'; had been convicted of an offence under the Native Administration Act 1905-1941 or of habitual drunkenness; or had contracted 'leprosy, syphilis, granuloma or yaws'. |
The full bill can be read here:
https://www.legislation.wa.gov.au/legislation/prod/filestore.nsf/FileURL/mrdoc_12046.pdf/$FILE/Natives%20(Citizenship%20Rights)%20Act%201944%20-%20%5B00-00-00%5D.pdf?OpenElement
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| I hear you. |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Sorry, citizenship was automatically conferred by the federal act.
What different states did in the way they restricted things was up to them.
The point of my argument isn't to try to say that Aboriginal lives were all sunshine and rainbows and that all the bad things are just lies. They were actively discriminated against and treated as second class citizens. Lots of bad things happened.
However, trying to advance their cause by spreading falsehoods to embellish what a hard time they had is counterproductive as, as soon as 1 claim is proven false, it casts doubt on others, most of which are legitimate and true.
The statement that "Australian Aboriginals were not citizens of Australia until after 1967" is a blatant falsehood no matter how you try to spin it.
That they didn't have the right to vote in federal elections (as all other citizens did) until Menzies amended the Electoral act in 1962.
Limitations on their rights to vote in state elections and other restrictions placed on them were the results of various state legislations that needed to be modified or repealed to restore their rights and were not impacted by the referendum or other federal legislation.
Unfortunately all of this is much to complex and involved for the current sound byte generation, so oversimplify things to the level of slogans and memes often at the cost of factual accuracy, and that is what started this whole discussion, as that is re-writing history.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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100% correct, and the fact that so many prominent people have perpetuated this myth is disturbing.
Tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth.
| Quote: | The most comprehensive dismantling of the myth was undertaken by University of Canberra tutor Samuel Byrnand, who devoted an honours project to the topic in 2015.
Mr Byrnand told Fact Check he was compelled to set the record straight because allowing Aboriginal people to believe they were once classified under a flora and fauna act risked perpetuating "transgenerational trauma".
"There are enough horror stories in Aboriginal Australia; real, actual stories that need to be addressed. We don't need to be making it up," he said. |
100% agree.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| stui magpie wrote: | Sorry, citizenship was automatically conferred by the federal act.
What different states did in the way they restricted things was up to them.
The point of my argument isn't to try to say that Aboriginal lives were all sunshine and rainbows and that all the bad things are just lies. They were actively discriminated against and treated as second class citizens. Lots of bad things happened.
However, trying to advance their cause by spreading falsehoods to embellish what a hard time they had is counterproductive as, as soon as 1 claim is proven false, it casts doubt on others, most of which are legitimate and true.
The statement that "Australian Aboriginals were not citizens of Australia until after 1967" is a blatant falsehood no matter how you try to spin it.
That they didn't have the right to vote in federal elections (as all other citizens did) until Menzies amended the Electoral act in 1962.
Limitations on their rights to vote in state elections and other restrictions placed on them were the results of various state legislations that needed to be modified or repealed to restore their rights and were not impacted by the referendum or other federal legislation.
Unfortunately all of this is much to complex and involved for the current sound byte generation, so oversimplify things to the level of slogans and memes often at the cost of factual accuracy, and that is what started this whole discussion, as that is re-writing history. |
Not sure about the first bit. It seems to me that the 1948 law conferred citizenship in name only. See here:
http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/ALRCRefJl/1999/5.html
| Quote: | The settlement of non-Europeans was prevented until 1966 through the administration a racially discriminatory migration policy. Indigenous Australians, who also were neither ethnically nor culturally British, were prevented from participating in the community of the nation both by excluding them from Commonwealth legislation that endowed non-Indigenous Australian citizens with social, political and civil rights, and by State legislation that deprived them of such rights.
From 1844, the naturalisation laws of the Australian colonies were directed towards aliens and, with the exception of Western Australia, made no mention of Aborigines. Prior to 1921, Indigenous Australians denied citizenship under colony or State law had to apply to become naturalised British subjects in Australia in the same way as aliens. Under the Nationality Act 1920 (Cth), all Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders born after January 1, 1921 gained the status of British subjects. In 1949, therefore, they automatically became Australian citizens under the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 (Cth).
[...]
Australian citizenship was a pure formality for Indigenous Australians. They had none of the rights and responsibilities of Australian citizenship as laid down in Commonwealth legislation. Section 51(xxvi) of the Australian Constitution empowered the Commonwealth parliament to make laws in respect to “the people of any race, other than the aboriginal race in any State for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws”. Until 1955, the Commonwealth administration took the view that it had no power to make laws giving social rights to Aborigines living in the States. That year the federal Attorney-General, Sir Garfield Barwick, interpreted this section as allowing general laws, such as those giving social service benefits, not to be regarded as ‘special laws’.
Despite this ruling, Indigenous Australians were still marginalised and excluded from the social rights granted to Australian citizens. The Social Service Consolidation Act 1947 (Cth) granted age or invalid pensions and maternity allowances only to those Aborigines who had applied to be exempted from State legislation governing Aborigines (that is, had renounced their Aboriginality and isolated themselves from their communities). In States that did not provide for exemption, Aborigines had to satisfy the Director-General that “by reason of the character and the standard of intelligence and social development of the native, it is desirable that a pension should be granted to him”. This assessment of worth (and of assimilation) also determined the payment of unemployment or sickness benefits. Even when granted, pensions and allowances were not paid personally to Indigenous applicants but to “an authority of a State or to some other authority or person the Director-General considers suitable for the purpose”. Child endowment was not paid to nomadic Aborigines or those dependant on the Commonwealth or State for support. Despite the Attorney-General’s 1955 ruling, the Social Services Act 1959 perpetuated these inequities. The situation was not remedied until s. 51 (xxvi) of the Constitution was amended following the 1967 referendum, when Australian citizens voted overwhelmingly to allow the Commonwealth to legislate for the benefit of Aborigines as well as other Australians. |
So it's fair to say that, while the 1967 referendum didn't confer citizenship, it did (together with the legislation from preceding years) confer full citizens' rights.
I'm still not sure how this affected state laws such as the WA one I posted above, which still seems to have been in force after 1948, and I'm not sure when the restrictions in the 1920 bill (to people born after 1921) were dropped. Anyone else know?
Edit: It seems the WA law I referred to was about giving full citizenship rights to Aboriginal people – i.e. they were already citizens in a sense, but there was a significant difference between being classed as a "native" or a "citizen of the State" (perhaps referring to an actual state rather than Australia as a whole) in terms of what rights they had access to.
Some more on these exemption applications (known colloquially among Indigenous people at the time as "dog licences") below:
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/01/31/3935994.htm
And here's why 1967 is important:
| Quote: | | In May 1967, an overwhelming majority of Australians voted yes in a national referendum to recognise Aboriginal people in the census, and afford the Federal government the power to override discriminatory state laws and practices toward Aboriginal people. |
Let's not forget that, in the US, too, much discrimination in the Civil Rights era was enforced by individual states rather than the country as a whole. So it was a crucial step to be able to end those states' rights to do so, and it cannot be said that African-Americans (or, in this case, Aboriginal Australians) in the country were equal until it was done.
Edit 2: more on the clash between the WA legislation and the 1948 act. Note the killer line in the fourth paragraph:
| Quote: | | The word "citizenship" in the Western Australian use does not refer to the same quality or attribute as does the Nationality and Citizenship Act. |
Try getting your head around that one!
http://indigenousrights.net.au/resources/documents/attorney-general_garfield_barwick_to_gordon_bryant,_member_for_wills,_on_aboriginal_citizenship
_________________
All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
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| Do high-school students actually study Australian history? I don't think they did in my school. I think in primary school, history was more of the Burke and Wills stuff, not details of citizenship acts. By 11th and 12th grades, studying (almost) any subject is optional, but of all the different history courses, Australian history was regarded as the "veggie" course. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Will that accomplish your objective? |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Yep, David, you've proved it was complicated. 
All of the varying state laws were a dogs breakfast. Pre federation in 1901, may states allowed Aboriginals to vote, several later changed that.
My understanding of how the legislation would work is that prior to the Citizenship act on 1948, there was no such thing as an Australian Citizen in the legal sense, regardless of what terms states used. Everyone was basically a British citizen.
Once the 1948 act came in, Aboriginals were Australian citizens, but their rights were still administered by the states as the Federal Government did not have the authority under the constitution to make laws for Aboriginal people until after the 1967 referendum. Following that, my understanding is that Federal Law would over ride state law where there was any inconsistency.
My point (for the 3rd time I think) is not to try to argue that Aboriginals didn't have a hard time. The 1967 referendum was indeed a watershed moment. We should look back with pride that the No campaign was virtually non-existent and that it recorded the highest ever yes vote in a referendum with 90.77% of the vote. Not bad for a country of racists.
BTW, I would suggest that the prevailing attitude toward Aboriginals for a long part of our history fit the true definition of 'racist', ie they were considered inferior, rather than the current way overused definition which seems to be "If you say anything bad about a race, you're a racist"/
For the main though, the attitude (as I think you've said previously) was one of almost extreme paternalism rather than antagonism or hatred.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Do you mind if I tell other people. Is that among the best things you can say? |
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