Kinship is a term that is used to describe how people relate to one other in different cultures. In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, the concept of kinship is complex, and has wide implications in Indigenous life and social structure.

Kinship determines how everyone relates to each other, as well as their roles, responsibilities and obligations regarding one another, the environment and ceremony.

There are three primary foundations of kinship: moeity, totems, and skin names.

Moeity

Accordng to moeity, everything is split in half. This includes you and your environment. Each half of these entities are a mirror of each other. To understand the whole universe, the two halves must come together to form a whole.

You can share the same Moeity as other people. If you do share the same moeity, you are considered siblings, and thus, are forbidden to marry. Having the same Moeity also means having a duty to reciprocally support one another.

A moiety system exists across many groups in Australia. Most language groups also use a section or subsection system with four to eight ‘skin names’. An individual gains a ‘skin name’ upon birth based on the skin names of his or her parents, to indicate the section/subsection that he/she belongs to.

Today, there are more and more ‘wrong skin’ marriages, where people who would traditionally be prevented from marrying become partners. Consequently, families will attempt to accommodate the contradictions this presents for the kinship system.

While not all First Australians follow kinship structures, some rules are still strongly adhered to. These include certain ‘avoidance relationships’, like that of the relationship between a mother-in-law and her son-in-law. This relationship requires a social distance, such that they may not be able to be in the same room or car together. It's important to be aware of the potential conflicts that may arise, and how it might unfold in day to day life.

Totems

Another foundation of kinship is totem systems. Each Aboriginal person is given at least four Totems; their personal, family, clan and nation totem.

Totems link a person to the physical universe: to land, water, geographical features, and animals. Although family, clan and nation totems exist before a person is born, an individual totem will recognise personal weakness or strength. Individuals are accountable to their totems and must ensure these totems are protected and passed on to future generations.

Skin Names

Another foundation of kinship are skin names which work in a similar way to a surname. They inform how people are linked to one another and their obligations to one another. Unlike the system of using surnames, an individual won't have the same skin name as their parent's, nor would a husband and wife share the same skin name. It is a sequential system based off the mother’s name (in a matrilineal system), or the father’s name (in a patrilineal system), and has a naming cycle.

"It's a culture. A skin name you're actually born with it. You don't get given it" - Warren H Williams, Arrernte musician from Central Australia

The 'Dreaming' or the 'Dreamtime' is an Indigenous-Australian oral history of the world and its creation. Passed down through generations, these stories commonly feature characters who display undesirable behaviours, and face retribution because of it. In this way, the Dreaming illustrates rules for living and interacting with the natural environment.

Jukurrpa

'The Dreaming' is an English approximation of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander concept. This is known as Jukurrpa in the Warlpiri language, though has different titles for different language groups. Dreamtime stories are linked to specific places, for example landmarks, bodies of water, and the stars.

'The Dreaming' is considered a vastly inadequate translation of Jukurrpa, a concept which is foreign to English-speakers due to its complexity and non-finite nature.

Indeed, in his 1956 essay 'The Dreaming', the Australian anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner says:

"A concept so impalpable and subtle naturally suffers badly by translation into our dry and abstract language."

Moreover, labelling it 'the Dreaming' may evoke fantastical imagery, disrespecting the complexities of the original concept:

"These tales are neither simply illustrative nor simply explanatory, they are fanciful and poetic in content because they are based on visionary and intuitive insights into mysteries; and, if we are ever to understand them, we must always take them in their complex content."

Everywhen

The Dreamtime did not only take place at the beginning of time - it encompasses the past, present, and future. As a holistic philosophy grounded in the very earth itself, it cannot be consigned to a past people. It is an integrated way of life that the Warlpiri people believe in to this day.

Stanner coined the term 'everywhen' to describe this idea:

“One cannot ‘fix’ The Dreaming in time: it was, and is, everywhen.”

Narratives

The stories may differ from place to place, but they have common features. For example, many genesis narratives feature Ancestral Beings, who created everything - animals, plants, rocks, and land formations - as they moved through the land in human form. They also created a system of relationships between the individual, the land, animals, and other people. The Ancestral Beings are models for human and non-human activity, behaviour, ethics and morality.

Stanner explains that there is a:

"Constant recitation of what was done rightly and wrongly in the Dreaming, the ways in which good men should, and bad men will, act.

The Dreaming is:

A 'key' or guide to the norms of conduct, and a prediction of how men will err."

These stories display a deep knowledge of country. They contain key information about flora, fauna, and laws to obey in order to survive in micro-environments. During pre-contact days, these stories were an integral and memorable way in which to impart knowledge from one generation to the next to ensure survival.

The Ancestral Beings are often compared to the Greek gods, as they are flawed characters used as negative exemplars. However, while the stories are structurally similar, the Dreaming is not a religion and the Ancestral Beings are not gods.

By displaying less favourable qualities such as greed, violence, and lust, these Ancestral Beings are models of appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. In practice, this outlines forbidden behaviours or activities condemned by the Indigenous community.

Storylines

A Dreamtime story can include inanimate objects, as well as Ancestral Beings, animals, insects and flora. For example, food is a common theme in many Dreamings, as shown in artworks featuring 'bush tucker' like yams, bush bananas, witchetty grubs, and sugar bags. These dreamings often encompass and give context to the natural world through stories of water, stars and specific landmarks.

Many dreamtime stories have been recorded, and we have included a number of these for you to watch. Take a look at the 'culture' section on the watch page and navigate some of the songlines that correspond to a 'dreaming'.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, Indigenous, Aboriginal, Aborigine, Blackfella, First Nations or First Australians?

These terms have come to take on different meanings to different people, wrapped in the history and politics of the time. While there's not a unanimous view, some words are more appropriate to use than others. It's helpful to understand why that's the case.

Working through the history of colonisation and academia regarding Fist Australian people, it becomes clear why some words are more appropriate than others.

Many Aboriginal groups prefer 'Aboriginal — or better yet, 'Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' — over any name. Despite this, the term 'Indigenous' is more widely used than other more appropriate names.

'Aboriginal' and 'Torres Strait Islander' peoples

'Aboriginal' and 'Torres Strait Islander' refer to different groups of peoples. Aboriginal refers to the original peoples of mainland Australia. Torres Strait Islander refers to the original peoples of the 274 islands located north of Australia, in the Torres Strait.

The term Aboriginal has been in the English language since at least the 19th century, formed from the 16th century term, Aborigine, which means "original inhabitants". It derives from the Latin words 'ab' (from) and 'origine' (origin, beginning). The word was used in Australia to describe the original inhabitants of the land as early as 1789. Since colonisation it has been employed as the common name to refer to both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

When referring to either 'Aboriginal' or 'Torres Strait Islanders', however, it's important to include 'People' at the end, as in isolation the terms could be considered adjectives, and not humanised.

Aborigine

'Aborigine' is a noun, while 'Aboriginal' is an adjective sometimes employed as a noun. The distinction is important as the term 'Aboriginal' recognises that there are hundreds of diverse Aboriginal groups and languages throughout the nation, not just one mob.

For this reason, most now deem the term Aborigine as outdated and inappropriate. It also has connotations of colonial Australia, and the injustices afflicted upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from that time on.

Indigenous

In Australia, Indigenous has come to be used a catch-all term to describe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. However, the true definition of the term means 'belonging or occurring naturally in a particular place' (Oxford Dictionary), so is employed throughout the globe to cover all first peoples (native people) and even flora and fauna. Because of these global interpretations, it does not respect the unique and diverse cultures of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People.

The term is often used to condense 'Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people' to one term, particularly by Australian governments, bureaucrats and writers. While this can be practical, it reduces distinct cultures into a homogenous group, and many take issue with this approach.

It is important to note that 'Aboriginal' and 'Indigenous' do not mean the same thing.

Black

In headlines of stories about Aboriginal people, the word 'blacks' often appeared in colonial media. This term is considered outdated and highly offensive by many people across Australia.

It is important to recognise that this expression is often used by Aboriginal people amongst ourselves, but many would find it offensive for a person who is not Aboriginal to use this expression. The context of the use of this term is integral to deeming how appropriate its use may be.

Blackfella

As Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people we often use 'Blackfella' amongst ourselves, but one should be very careful using the term as a whitefella, as some people might take offence.

First Australians

In recent years, 'First Australians' has emerged as a name that recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the first peoples of Australia. Where 'Aboriginal' and 'Indigenous' fail to represent the unique cultures of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups, using the name 'First Australians' can overcome this. While its use is less popular than many of the other terms described above, many have recognised it as their preferred term for respectfully referring to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. However, some take issue with the reference to 'Australia', as it compromises sovereignty for the first people that existed before 'Australia' came to be.

First Nations People

Similar to above ('First Australians'), 'First Nations' recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the sovereign people of this land. It goes further than 'First Australians' as it recognises various language groups as separate and unique sovereign nations. It is widely used to describe the First Peoples in Canada and other countries across the globe. Given this, it fails to provide uniqueness to the Australian context and therefore is only used by a minority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. However, it is still a better choice than many outdated and offensive terms described above.

I am not an Aboriginal, or indeed Indigenous, I am ... [a] First Nation’s person. A sovereign person from this country. - Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, Anmatyerr woman from Central Australia

Local terms

Across Australia, local terms are used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to describe people from a particular region.

"Anangu" (from Central NT)

"Yolngu" (from top end NT)

"Koorie" (From NSW and Victoria, some parts of TAS)

"Murrie" (from Queensland and some NSW)

“Noongar” (from WA and SA)

"Palawa" (from TAS)

Check out the You Can't ask that clip, which asks Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for their opinion on the most appropriate terminology to use.

When a group of urban University students are asked, “What springs to mind when you think of Aboriginal Australia, past and present?”, a mostly ignorant but well-intentioned chorus respond with those familiar ramblings related to “nomadic life”, conjuring colonial visions of the primitive Other.

Architecture, land cultivation and land management, enterprise and the practice of astronomy, mathematics and physics existed long before Europeans settled. For many years, the sophistication of Aboriginal cultures across Australia remained a secret history, one that was hidden away so not to undermine the legitimacy of our true foundational doctrine, terra nullius (land belonging to no one).

People tread carefully around issues that typify the stereotype of contemporary Aboriginality. Earlier historical textbooks for white Australians utilised language of primitivism surrounding Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal lives defined by a lack of cultural industrialism and therefore evolutionary inferiority.

These texts books were wrong, or at least conveniently misinformed. In fact, a lot of what non-Aboriginal Australia knows about its Aboriginal history, from before and after European settlement is often misinformed.

Myths are powerful. They influence the way we think about things of which we might not have direct experience. The most difficult relationship is not between black and white people but between white Australians and the symbols created by their predecessors. Most Australians do not know how to relate to Aboriginal people. They relate to stories told by former colonists.
Marcia Langton Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies, University of Melbourne

There is not a single kind of Aboriginality in Australia. Not before white settlement, or after it. There are over 250 different language groups that stretch across this vast continent. Like the distance between Yolngu peoples of the top end and the Wiradjuri of the South, the difference in culture and practices is immense. For example, pre-colonial Aboriginal architecture was diverse and dependent on local climates. In some areas, small townships and campsites were occupied throughout the year, while in less hospitable climates, camps were transient and occupied at the right time of year.

Disproving the primitive narrative

The remnants of these ancient architectural foundations are still present at Tyrendarra in Victoria, where thousands of Gunditjmara people lived all year round for millennia. These homes exist alongside some of the oldest hunting mechanisms in the world, where the Gunditjmara people lived in villages and hunted for eel. Contrary to the static image of the ‘hunter gatherer” perpetuated in the Australian narrative for centuries, hunting mechanisms are complex, and had been crafted and perfected over time. For thousands of years these eels were cured in Mallee gum smoke and traded for flint. Here the intersection of the hunt, of enterprise and of architecture demonstrates complexity in culture, which does not align with the colonial narrative of primitive and simple nomadism.

The myth of the “hunter-gatherer Aborigine” was constructed to suit the imperialist agenda of eighteenth century British colonials. Questioning the colonial narrative even lightly reveals some serious plot holes, which strongly suggests ulterior motives. Unless pre-colonial Aboriginal inhabitance of Australia was painted as backward and primitive, terra nullius could not be enforced and upheld in a way that sanctioned British colonisation.

In Dark Emu Bruce Pascoe skillfully tackles the colonial narrative and explores the agricultural practices undertaken by Aboriginal people long before white settlement. Pascoe examined early white explorers’ journals and found that Aboriginal people had not only been irrigating, growing and harvesting grain, but had ground it into flour – potentially being the first people on earth to bake bread. Brewarrina was one of the largest aquaculture systems in the world and, according to some scientists, it is the oldest human construction on earth.

The use of 'agriculture' in relation to Australian Aboriginal people is not something many Australians would have heard. However, if we go back to the country's very first records of European occupation we discover some extraordinary observations which provide a picture of what the Australian explorers and pioneers witnessed and how that contests the notion that Aboriginal people were hunter-gatherers

In a colonial account from Victoria, evidence of vast yam pastures treated as crops further deconstructing the over-simplified portrayals of First Australians. The following sketch from 1835 depicts a line of Wathaurong women digging for Murnong (yams - a sweet potato that was a staple vegetable) across a stretch of field that had been cleared of timber and managed to ensure a prosperous crop.

Further, in the diary of George Grey, explorer of Western Australia (1839), there are reports of evidence of large buildings of 'very superior construction';

We passed two native villages, or as the men termed them, towns - the huts of which they composed differed from those in the southern districts, in being built, and very nicely plastered over the outside with clay, and clods of turf, so that although now uninhabited they were evidently intended for fixed places of residence.

Throughout Dark Emu - Black Seeds Agriculture or Accident? Pascoe explores many more examples of grain stores, alongside inhabited buildings built all across Australia prior to colonisation.

In his book The Biggest Estate on Earth, Bill Gammage highlights the complexity of Aboriginal land management that existed before European invasion. The land was managed in a way that ensured sustainability and was abundant in harvest.

what the ecosystem needed, it got

Astronomy, physics and mathematics

Astronomy, physics and mathematics were not confined to the realms of western technology either. Yolngu people knew how the tides were connected to the moon, and Euahayi people used the stars to navigate their way across Australia for trade. Mathematical patterns and relationships were utilised in everyday life, demonstrated in the complexities of various kinship systems that exist to this day. These patterns were a form of governance. The boomerang represents an incredible feat of physics using aerodynamics that had not yet been mastered by great European minds.

This shouldn’t be Australia’s secret history, it should be common knowledge. The concept of the “nomadic Aborigine” has been disproved time and time again. It’s time to acknowledge this truth and pay homage to the people who cared for this land and for themselves for millennia before settlement.

Land is of great significance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples - but the connection we feel to country can be a difficult concept for non-Indigenous people to grasp. The living environment goes beyond physical elements, and is fundamental to our identity.

For First Australians, “country” encompasses an interdependent relationship between an individual and their ancestral lands and seas. This reciprocal relationship between the land and people is sustained by the environment and cultural knowledge.

The land is the mother and we are of the land; we do not own the land rather the land owns us. The land is our food, our culture, our spirit and our identity
Dennis Foley, a Gai-mariagal and Wiradjuri man, and Fulbright scholar.

When people talk about country it is spoken of like a person: we speak to country, we sing to country, we worry about country, and we long for country.

To not know your country causes a painful disconnection, the impact of which is well documented in studies relating to health, wellbeing and life outcomes... It is this knowledge that enables me to identify who I am, who my family is, who my ancestors were and what my stories are. We are indistinguishable from our country which is why we fight so hard to hang on.”
Catherine Liddle, Arrente and Luritja woman, and Aboriginal activist

The interdependence between Indigenous people and the land is based on respect - while the land sustains and provides for the people, people manage and sustain the land through culture and ceremony. It is because of this close connection, we see that when the land is disrespected, damaged or destroyed, there are real impacts on the wellbeing of Indigenous people.

The land is a link between all aspects of Indigenous peoples existence - spirituality, culture, language, family, law and identity. Each person is entrusted with the cultural knowledge and responsibility to care for the land they identify with through kinship systems. Rather than owning land, people develop strong intimate knowledge and connection for a place that is related to them. The intimate knowledge of a place forms this strong connection that is inherent to Indigenous identity.

Land sustains Aboriginal lives in every aspect, spiritually, physically, socially and culturally. The notion of landscape as a second skin is central to a lot of Aboriginal Art, whether it be theatre, dance, music or painting.

Looking After Land

“Caring for country” means participating in interrelated activities on Aboriginal lands and seas with the objective of promoting ecological, spiritual and human health. It is also a community driven movement towards long-term social, cultural, physical and sustainable economic development in rural and remote locations, simultaneously contributing to the conservation of globally valued environmental and cultural assets [^2].

The following article speaks to the impact and significance of a continuing relationship with country.

Happiness born of connectedness lifts up Aboriginal Australians

Larissa Behrendt, University of Technology Sydney

This article is part of a series, On Happiness, examining what it means and how it might be achieved in the 21st century.

I recently spent some time on an outstation in the Northern Territory. Unless you have been on one, it is hard to understand the level of poverty that some Aboriginal people live in – sleeping on concrete floors, little money, no luxuries. Life is supplemented with bush tucker and everyone works together and shares what they have.

Among the basics of life, there is resilience. But there is also something else that is perhaps even more surprising. As I sat around the campfire in the evening, what rose up into the night sky amid the smoke was laughter.

This is a community surrounded by tragedy and hard social problems. This is a community with deep concerns about the impact of mining on sacred sites, about access to education, feelings of being disenfranchised and the stresses of having very little money to survive on. In nearby towns, there are issues of substance abuse and violence. So it is easy to fall into cliché and to see this laughter as being cathartic, an important release.

But there is something deeper than just the fleeting laughter that comes at the end of a funny story, a witty comment or a parody. It always strikes me in a close-knit community that something much more profound is at work. Around a campfire with shared resources – food, clothes, blankets, utensils, even shoes – there is a deep sense of contentment, a profound happiness.

Maybe the generosity of spirit creates a deeper contentment, a deeper happiness. Or maybe it is the happiness that gives a person a more generous spirit, a larger heart.

How do you take the pain of the past, whatever your background, and make it something that doesn’t cripple you? How do you stop it from being a barrier to happiness?

Happiness knows no cultural barriers or bounds. But I wonder what can be learnt about true happiness from the Aboriginal women on the outstation who can illuminate the world of the rest of us.

Connected to community and country

The first lesson from my friends around the campfire is the way they look at the world around them. They see its riches.

They look at the sky and understand its meanings. They look to the land and sea around them and see additional sources of food. They look at the people who make up their family and community and they see the blessings in what they do have.

They tell stories of their fishing and hunting trips, of great romances and funny anecdotes. Their world is full of rich stories, of songlines, of music, of dance. It is impossible not to be struck by the deep interconnectedness that they have with each other and with the world around them.

When you have so very little, you are reliant on the people around you. You rely on them to share resources, to help you get from one place to another (you have to share vehicles and find a way to pay for petrol), to join together to confront a school that is not working with the community or a land council that has not been negotiating properly. And through this meaningful reliance on each other – where you don’t just take but give what you have – there is deep, meaningful human connection.

This interconnectedness with other people seems to provide a strong grounding in one’s own identity, one’s own value, one’s own place in the world. This grounding is essential for a sense of self and a sense of self-worth.

How can you be happy when you are uncomfortable with who you are? How often do we see people struggle with their identity in a way that causes them distress and misery? There is none of that among people who are deeply rooted in their community and have a strong sense of their place.

There is also interconnectedness to the natural world. The women on the outstation have been hunting turtles and fishing in the waters since they were small girls. They know which plants are edible and they know what fruit is edible.

They also know the stories about the creation of the world around them, how the constellations in the sky were formed and the songlines about great trips across the country. In the world around them, there are stories and legends but there is also knowledge of the seasons and an ability to read the landscape and the weather.

Research shows that people who live on the outstations have better health than those living in town. These are alcohol-free communities but their diets are also better as a result of the richness of the food found in the land and sea, which supplements the processed, unhealthy food.

In these remote areas, fresh food is expensive. Lollies, soft drink and processed foods are cheap. Diets are poor and health is poor as a result. So on the outstations, where fruits, vegetables, fish, turtles and other bush food supplement diets, it is easy to see why people are healthier.

Lives enriched by creativity

So it is easy to see how the interconnectedness to country is also a source of a contented life. But there is something else that engages the women here, something that is linked to their culture but also seems to be a basic element in fundamental happiness. They have a very rich creative life.

The women of this community – and some of the men – are gifted painters. They translate the stories told by their parents and grandparents into vivid canvasses. They express themselves as eloquently through their brush strokes as they do with their words.

In addition to their painting, they have their traditional songs, their songlines and their dance. They are creative performers of their cultural traditions and they not only perform but teach the children the same songs and dances.

And between the painting, the dancing and the music is a rich traditional of storytelling as old as the culture. These women are natural storytellers. Although they have not written the stories, they perform them in the way they tell them. They are the expression of the vibrancy of the world’s oldest living culture.

Living in close proximity to others is not easy and this is a community where there is overcrowding. On fine nights, people sleep under the stars, but there are not enough rooms for the number of people here and so people share concrete floors when they have to.

So life is not without its arguments and disagreements, its jealousies and bickering and all of the other things that happen between people who live closely. But the generosity and openness of the women who have the moral leadership in this community is defined by the love they have for their families, especially their children.

There is no romance in being poor, but there is happiness to be found when you can find the richness in life. That is the abiding lesson I learn from my visits to this other way of life.

And as the laughter rings around the campfire, and I listen to the women, all sisters, sing their songs, teach the children to dance, tell their ancient stories, gently tease each other – and me – it is a reminder that there are ties that are deeper than blood and that lightness of spirit is the measure of happiness.

This article is based on an essay in the collection On Happiness: New Ideas for the Twenty-First Century (UWA Publishing, June 2015).

You can read other articles in the series here.

Larissa Behrendt, Professor of Law and Director of Research, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, University of Technology Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

(1) Rose D. Nourishing terrains: Australian Aboriginal views of landscape and wilderness. Canberra: Australian Heritage Commission, 1996.

(2) Morrison J, Caring for country. In: Altman J, Hinkson M, editors. Coercive reconciliation. Stabilise, normalise, exit Aboriginal Australia. Melbourne: Arena Publications Association, 2007: 249-261.

In 2002 Big Bill Niedjie passed away, and Indigenous Australian’s lost an outstanding leader. Among the many eulogies voiced by people and organisations across the nation, Northern Land Council chairman Galarrwuy Yunupingu said Big Bill’s constant endeavour to bridge the cultural and historical divide between black and white Australians was his greatest gift. He was the last speaker of Gadju language. With his death, the language has ceased to exist in the spoken form.

It is yet another in a long line of Aboriginal languages that have vanished under the impact of white settlement – with many more teetering on the brink of extinction throughout Australia. This is the unspoken tragedy underlying the history of Aboriginal dispossession

When you lose your land at least you can fight back to reclaim it. But when you lose your language, a whole way of being, a whole cultural universe is lost forever.

600 Aboriginal languages were spoken around Australia at the time of white invasion, with many dialects within each language group. Perhaps just 100 of these still survive, but many are expected to die within the next generation.

In the Northern Territory the picture isn’t nearly as bleak, with about 61% of Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islander people speaking language at home. There are more than 20 ‘healthy’ languages being spoken in the NT, meaning they are being learnt by children.

More traditional languages are being replaced by new Aboriginal languages; Aboriginal English, Pidgin and Kriol.

Aboriginal English is a form of English that reflects Aboriginal languages. It contains some speech patterns of standard English as well as
characteristics and words originating from Aboriginal languages.

Kriol grew out of Pidgin English which was used in early settler interactions, and incorporates traditional language words, meanings and sounds. Linguists regard Kriol as a language in its own right, with established grammar and vocabulary. The movement of groups of Aboriginal people onto other people’s land over the past 100 years has led to a mixing of many languages.

To learn more about these post colonial languages read this article from the Conversation.

“What you have around Alice Springs is the formation of a new Aboriginal language which, unlike Kriol to the north, is based almost entirely on Aboriginal words from a number of different Central Australian and Western Desert languages” - Robert Hoogeenrad (linguist from the Alice Springs region)

Although Big Bill may have been the last speaker of Gagadju, the last fluent speaker was Peggy Balmana who died several years before him.

Communities around the world are losing their Indigenous tongue at an unprecedented rate. The grimmest predictions suggest up to 90% of the world’s languages will have disappeared by the end of this century.

Greg Dickson, a linguist at the University of Queensland specialising in Indigenous Australian languages, explained to SBS that it can often be “ongoing historical pressures that contribute to people shifting away from a traditional language."

Learning Language

To ensure the survival of endangered languages, linguists and community members around the country are working tirelessly to record languages and provide resources and programs to encourage language learning.

We created our languages map to allow people to engage with a First Australian Languages.

An example of another resource is My Grandmother’s Lingo – an interactive animation that highlights the plight of Indigenous languages by exploring Aboriginal culture and the endangered Aboriginal language of Marra.

The Stolen Generations refer to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were removed from their families by Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missions between 1910 and 1970 through a policy of assimilation.

Under this policy, the forcible removal of First Australian children was made legal. Assimilation was based on a belief of white superiority and black inferiority, and presumed that "full-blood" Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would naturally die out. It proposed that children with Aboriginal and white parentage, who were termed "half-caste" (now considered an extremely derogatory term), should be assimilated into white society. It was believed these children would be more easily assimilated due to their lighter skin.

Children were separated from their families and forced to adopt a white culture, unable to speak their traditional languages or refer to themselves by the names that they were given by their parents. Most children were placed in institutions where neglect and abuse was common, while some children were adopted by white families throughout the country.

The impact was felt both by the families who had their children taken away, and by the children themselves.

Impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their families:

The forced removal of children created significant grief and trauma for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families for a number of reasons, the impact of which is still being felt today.

In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, children are considered sacred and kinship systems ensure that communities are very closely knit. Being separated from kin and witnessing the abuse of children was devastating for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia.

Further, the removal of generations of children disrupted transfers in knowledge and oral culture between generations, and thus cultural knowledge was lost.

Many children from the Stolen Generations suffered extreme physical, psychological and sexual abuse living under state care. Where children were forced to reject their culture, they often felt ashamed of their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage as they were forced to adopt a new identity. In some cases, children were told that their biological parents had given them up or died and were unable to find out who their families were as children were intentionally sent far away from their homelands. The intergenerational trauma felt by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of the stolen generation has been confirmed by medical experts who note a high incidence of post traumatic stress, depression, anxiety and suicide among those who have been affected by assimilationist policies.

Further, due to the separation of parent and child, many individuals never experienced healthy family situations, the effects of which are still being felt today as these children start their own families.

Stolen Wages

During the stolen generation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children who had been removed from their families received a very low level of education, as they were expected to work as domestic servants and manual labourers at a very young age. A Report of the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee Inquiry published in 2006 named Unfinished Business, recorded these atrocities and recommended that Indigenous people be compensated where there is evidence of stolen wages.

Servant or Slave is an emotional and confronting feature film that gives insight into the history and legacy of the domestic servitude enforced upon Aboriginal girls in Australia, told through the stories of five women. Watch it Here

Top Image: 1928 National Archives Australia: A268, The Bungalow, Alice Springs

Culture, not colour, is the heart of Aboriginal identity

Victoria Grieves, University of Sydney

All too often the matter of Australian Aboriginal identity is decided superficially – by looking at a person’s face and general appearance. Colour is often the measure of Aboriginality, since the original peoples were black or brown, depending on their location in the country.

But, given recognition and identity are areas of acute importance to Aboriginal people, this bears closer scrutiny. I write here with insider knowledge: I am Warraimay from the mid north coast of New South Wales.

Questions about the right of people of mixed-race to identify as Aboriginal are often raised by the settler colonial society. The most notorious example was in 2011 when Andrew Bolt wrote a column in the Herald Sun questioning the claims to Aboriginality of several high profile light-skinned Aboriginal people – who then successfully brought legal action against him.

That was a classic case of questioning the identity of Aboriginal people of mixed-race because they did not “look like” the stereotype of an Aboriginal person.

It’s not only white people who have formed families with Aboriginal people to produce children of mixed race. People of South Asian, Middle Eastern and African descent, among others, have done so from the early 19th century to the present. Those people, while of mixed race, can seem to be “more Aboriginal” because they are of a darker colour.

Who decides on identity?

The task of deciding who is Aboriginal is increasingly that of state-based organisations, such as universities and government departments. All too often the important subject of identity is decided by subjective assumptions and outdated stereotypes.

The all-important research-base for Aboriginal descent and connection is seldom considered. Understanding the history of the Aboriginal family provides us with a better way to approach the complex issue of Aboriginal identity.

Findings about Aboriginal identity are an important aspect of the research that has been undertaken as part of the ongoing ARC-funded project – More than Family History: Race, Gender and the Aboriginal family in Australian history – of which I am the lead researcher.

The people now known as Aboriginal were known as Australians until the 1830s. The term “Australian” was co-opted by settler colonials to describe themselves, while “Aboriginal” was used to homogenise what was even then a very diverse population, covering an immense geography. Already by that time there were generations of mixed-race people in this community.

Life histories

Evidence collected from more than 200 Aboriginal biographies and autobiographies, such as Aileen Morgan’s The Calling of the Spirits (2000), Harold Hunt’s Memoirs from the Corner Country (2006) and Marty Dodd’s They liked me, the horses, straightaway (2000), indicate that, unlike white people, the way in which Aboriginal people define themselves has little to do with race.

Those life histories cover a vast geography and time-frame. They give us the opportunity to understand the development of Aboriginal identity. Aboriginal people in this study describe themselves in 50 different ways that mostly indicate their mixed racial background.

Many Aboriginal people have more ancestors in the last two or three generations who are not “Aboriginal” than who are.

The inadequacy of “race”

Being of Aboriginal descent is crucial because this is our link to country and the natural world. But at the same time, Aboriginal people do not rely on a race-based identity. In fact, while those people writing their life stories and their family histories are often interested to acknowledge non-Aboriginal ancestors, they do not identify with them.

They continue to be Aboriginal.

Western scientific thought has reached a point at which the notion of human difference based on race being meaningful in any way is rejected. As Darren Curnoe, evolution specialist has asserted, the idea of “race” was never scientific to begin with.

The majority of people who identify as Aboriginal in Australia today are of mixed-race. So, on what basis do they do so?

Culture as the basis of Aboriginal identity

The answer to this is culture, more particularly the intangible aspects of culture that are transmitted through families and kinship systems.

A person is Aboriginal when they have living Aboriginal relations; this is the primary aspect of cultural connectedness. Aboriginal bureaucrats recruited into the new Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs in the early 1970s sat down together to develop the “government” definition of an Aboriginal person.

Those Aboriginal leaders were thinking of kinship when they developed the three items that form the basis of this identity: descent, identification and acceptance as an Aboriginal person.

Family, kinship, relatedness and connectedness are the basis of Aboriginal world-views and the philosophy that underpins the development of Aboriginal social organisation.

When we meet each other, in whatever circumstance, we talk genealogies, relationships and connectedness. This is common to indigenous people around the globe and is recognised as the basis for knowledge production – in New Zealand, the Maori people call it whakapapa.

In English, the word “genealogy” is inadequate to explain the import of genealogical connection to not only people but place, through time. In Aboriginal languages for example, the word “tjukurrpa” of language groups in Central Australia encapsulates all of this.

And so it is that continuing cultural values and practice are the true basis of Aboriginal identity in the whole of Australia today.

Understanding the true nature of Aboriginal identity gives us an opportunity to begin to make decisions on who has the right to claim Aboriginality. And Aboriginal people must be active in this, to define and establish what it means to be Aboriginal.

Victoria Grieves, ARC Indigenous Research Fellow, University of Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Demographics

"The obsession with distinctions between the offensively named 'full-bloods' and 'hybrids' or 'real' and 'inauthentic' Aborigines, continues to be imposed on us today. There would be few urban Aboriginal people who have not been labelled as culturally bereft, 'fake' or 'part Aborigine' and then expected to authenticate their Aboriginality in terms of percentages of blood or clichéd 'traditional' experiences." Professor Mick Dodson AM, Australian of the Year 2009

Below is an infographic that illustrates some of the statistics and demographics of Indigenous Australia. Two things that are often unknown regarding demographics are the following: the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population is increasing, and many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people live in urban areas.

Deaths in custody: 25 years after the royal commission, we've gone backwards

Thalia Anthony, University of Technology Sydney

It has been almost three decades since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody tabled its national report.

With five volumes of research, investigative accounts of 99 deaths in custody, and 339 recommendations, the report was meant to be a blueprint for reducing the disproportionate incarceration of Indigenous Australians and deaths in custody.

But a quarter of a century later, the situation is actually worse.

The impetus

In March 1987, the now-defunct Committee to Defend Black Rights began counting Aboriginal deaths in custody as part of a national campaign. It found one Indigenous person died while incarcerated every 11 days.

The 16th person to die from that date – also the last death before the royal commission was announced – was Lloyd James Boney, a 28-year-old man from Brewarrina in northwest New South Wales. The circumstances of Boney’s death and its aftermath were consistent with the pattern of Aboriginal deaths in custody.

On August 6, 1987, Boney was violently arrested by three police officers for breach of bail. He was found dead 90 minutes later, hanging by a football sock in a police cell.

The Police Internal Affairs Branch conducted the investigation into Boney’s death. No attempt was made to separate Boney’s arresting officers between interviews, providing them opportunities for “collusion and reconstruction”.

The local Aboriginal community was suspicious of the police for their role in the death. They believed it to be physically impossible for Boney to have killed himself the way he died due to his intoxicated state.

But the coroner found Boney had committed suicide with “no suggestion at all of foul play”. This led to widespread protests by the community in Brewarrina, as well as Aboriginal organisations nationally.

Four days later, the prime minister, Bob Hawke, announced a royal commission into the deaths of Aboriginal people in custody. The commission began its work in 1989 (after debates defining its terms of reference, including what constituted custody).

The remit

The commission was asked to examine 99 deaths between 1980 and 1989. It had to consider how and why each person died, including underlying social factors.

The total included 63 people who had died in police custody and 33 in prison, including three in juvenile detention; 88 males and 11 females; and an age range of 14 to 62 years. Half of these people had been removed in childhood from their families by child protection agencies.

The commission investigated each life and the circumstances of each death. It described previous police and coronial inquiries into the deaths as “perfunctory” and “narrow” in focus.

Its final report, tabled on April 15, 1991, found Indigenous people were more likely to die in custody because they were more likely to be in custody. Their over-representation in police and prison custody was described as “grossly disproportionate”.

The commission saw the issue as twofold: problems in the criminal justice system; and the reasons for Indigenous people coming into contact with that system. But its dichotomy is false.

The reason many Indigenous people come into contact with the criminal justice system – as identified by the commission itself – is due to how that system defines crime, polices Indigenous people and seeks to “protect” them by placing them in custody (for intoxication, as an example).

Nonetheless, the commission sought to explain Indigenous contact in terms of disadvantage and disempowerment. And many of its recommendations sought to promote Indigenous self-determination in order to strengthen communities and provide services more appropriate to the needs of Indigenous people.

Prejudice and a lack of care

In its first task, the commission examined each stage of the criminal justice system. It found Indigenous disadvantage arose from:

• prejudicial policing, especially for minor crimes relating to public order;

• the police tendency to caution, charge and arrest Indigenous people, rather than issue warnings or court attendance notices;

• police and courts not granting bail to Indigenous people; and

• courts sentencing Indigenous people to prison rather than handing down non-prison sentences.

Accordingly, a series of the commission’s recommendations sought to decriminalise minor offences, uphold the right to bail and ensure arrest and imprisonment were sanctions of last resort.

The commission also found incidents of a lack of care of Indigenous people in custody, as well as police mistreatment and abuse.

Commissioners found sufficient evidence to instigate disciplinary or prosecutorial processes against officers for eight of the investigated deaths. They recommended these cases for referral to the police commissioner to determine appropriate action. No prosecutions ensued.

The first prosecution of a police officer was for the 147th death in custody following the royal commission. In 2007, Sergeant Chris Hurley was charged with causing the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island. He was controversially acquitted.

Changing the paradigm

Indigenous incarceration and police custody rates have actually increased since the royal commission tabled its report.

In 1991, Indigenous people constituted 14% of the prison population (1,100 for every 100,000 Indigeous people in the national population). Today they make up 27% (2,300 for every 100,000). There has been an equivalent increase in unsentenced Indigenous prisoners in remand.

Despite the misconception among some criminologists that the commission’s recommendations were implemented and failed, its suggestions regarding decriminalisation of minor offences and self-determination were never realised.

Minor public order offences, such as offensive language, continue to be punished. Police powers in relation to public drunkenness and arrest have been extended. The right to bail has been undermined with increasing exceptions (for property offences as an example). Maximum prison penalties and mandatory prison sentences have escalated.

In relation to self-determination, the tendency of the federal government since the mid-1990s has been to: increasingly mainstream services for Indigenous people; defund Indigenous-run organisations that have expertise in Indigenous safety and well-being; impose top-down policies; and penalise vulnerable Indigenous people (by removing children from their families, criminalising youth and women victims of family violence, and locking up the mentally ill).

The commission’s lessons are more pertinent today than they were in 1991 because the majority of its recommendations remain unimplemented. Its report called for a holistic and systemic approach, but there have only been ad-hoc and provisional piecemeal changes. Unsurprisingly, they’ve had negligible overall effect on reducing deaths in custody.

The 25th anniversary of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody reminds us that nothing less than a paradigm shift will ensure that we won’t be marking another anniversary with even more Aboriginal deaths in custody, as we do this one.

This article is part of a special report marking the 25th anniversary of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Check out the rest of the package.

Thalia Anthony, Associate Professor in Law, University of Technology Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

To move forward on reconciliation, Australia must recognise it has a race relations problem

Daphne Habibis, University of Tasmania; Maggie Walter, University of Tasmania, and Penny Taylor, Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation

We know a lot about what Australia’s non-Indigenous population thinks of Indigenous people, but not much is known about what Indigenous people think of the non-Indigenous population, or of how they experience race relations. This is an obstacle for reconciliation which, by definition, must be a reciprocal process.

Our research in Darwin shows most Indigenous people feel judged, stereotyped and disregarded by white people. Rather than always asking what Indigenous people can do to change the relationship, we need to start asking non-Indigenous people to:

• consider how their attitudes and behaviour impact on Indigenous people;

• be open to the possibility that not everything in white culture is desirable or good; and

• consider what they need to do to engage in equal and respectful relationships.

Early analysis of our interviews and survey with a representative sample of Aboriginal residents of Darwin has found more than 90% of our 474 survey respondents say non-Aboriginal people talk to them as if their views don’t matter. A similar number say white people judge them by stereotypes.

Nor is the relationship improving. Three-quarters of survey respondents say race relations are not very good or bad. And nearly 60% rated race relations as worsening over the last decade.

These findings challenge assumptions that racism in Australia is a thing of the past, or is something that only happens elsewhere.

While Australians might comfortably compare themselves with the US, this misunderstands the nature of racism today. Whereas “old racism” was based on arguments about biological differences and manifested in violence and verbal abuse, “new racism” rests on notions of cultural inferiority and is manifested in everyday disregard.

Living with disregard

Indigenous peoples live in societies where their sense of cultural worth is constantly undermined.

Interview respondents described Darwin as a place where there is only room for white culture, with little or no space to do things their way and practise culture on their terms.

They valued aspects of white culture, but were critical of its individualism and materialism – which they saw as creating loneliness and damaged communities. Many contrasted their strong sense of identity and the enduring, connected nature of Indigenous culture with the shallowness and disconnection of white culture.

Assumptions about the superiority of white culture and white people have multiple dimensions. This hits the headlines when it involves the public mistreatment of well-known Australians such as Adam Goodes and Larissa Behrendt, but is also present in the way white Australia understands the place of Indigenous peoples within Australian society.

Indigenous people are celebrated only when they fit the model of the “good Aboriginal” who conforms to the demands of neoliberal citizenship and whose cultural practices are limited to art and entertainment.

Even then, they experience racial disregard. Of survey respondents who hold a bachelor degree or above, around 70% reported they had been disrespected because they were Aboriginal.

Disregard and the lack of space for Indigenous culture are deeply damaging for Indigenous peoples. This impacts on all Australians by contributing to Indigenous disadvantage and social exclusion, as illustrated in these comments by interview respondents:

When I go out I just want to go to that place and come straight back … It’s how people are raised … to be against Indigenous mob.

Democracy … gives you the illusion that you’re being heard and … respected … I don’t like the word Australia because it doesn’t include us … I’m not in that Aussie dream.

The survey shows similar segregation between black and white Australians: 60% say they do not think white people choose to be around Aboriginal people much, and 45% say they themselves are not around white people much. More than three-quarters of respondents agreed voting is a waste of time – because things never change for Indigenous people.

Disregard has direct impacts on well-being. More than 80% of survey respondents agreed that the way white people behave makes them sick and tired of everything. Interview respondents described their daily experience as one of loss and failure – where the odds are stacked against them no matter what they do.

One respondent said:

We’re fighting, fighting all the time, and none of us mob are winning. You get asked, ‘Where’s the fair go?’ There is no more fair go.

What now?

While it is essential to maintain programs to tackle Indigenous disadvantage, what is missing from the picture is an understanding of the problems caused by white attitudes.

White Australia must consider the damage that disregard generates, and understand that from the Aboriginal perspective, white ways are not the only ways, or necessarily the best ways.

Many of our survey respondents expressed a willingness to improve the relationship. But so long as white Australia is resistant to Indigenous inclusion on any terms but its own, it’s hard to see how progress can be made.

Daphne Habibis, Director, Housing and Community Research Unit, University of Tasmania; Maggie Walter, Professor of Sociology, University of Tasmania, and Penny Taylor, Head Researcher, Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Mabo decision and Native Title

On June 3 1992, the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in the long-running case of Eddie Koiki Mabo and his compatriots from the Torres Strait island of Mer. Together they challenged the authority of the Queensland government to claim not just sovereignty but also ownership of the land comprising their ancestral home.

What happened?

Queensland annexed the Murray Islands through the Queensland Coast Islands Act of 1879. The court had to determine the effect of this annexation on the rights of the Meriam people to their land.

In its argument, the state claimed that on becoming sovereign over this territory, it derived ownership of all the land comprised in it – including the island of Mer.

This concept, known as universal and absolute beneficial crown ownership, was derived from the idea that Australia was “terra nullius”. According to international law, this implied that a territory was uninhabited. Consequently, England could lawfully claim sovereignty over that territory.

Similarly, under English law, Australia was deemed to be “settled and uninhabited”, and therefore English law was fully imported into the new territory.

A feature of this law was that the Crown was the absolute owner of all land — a relic of English feudalism. If, by law, the Crown was the absolute owner of all land, there was simply no possibility of recognising any other type of landholding, including that of Eddie Mabo.

By contrast, Mabo argued that, despite the state’s claim to sovereignty, he and his people retained ownership over the land. The basis of this argument is the well-known reality that Australia was not uninhabited at the time of colonisation. To maintain a law based on this outdated fiction would be unjust.

The court agreed. Although it could not upset sovereignty, the fact of sovereignty could no longer support the state’s claim for absolute ownership of all land. It recognised a new category of territory – one that was “settled but inhabited”.

As an inhabited territory, the original inhabitants – including Mabo and his community – retained ownership of land.

However, the state did have the power as sovereign to extinguish pre-existing ownership rights. But the Anglo-Australian legal system would continue to recognise those rights until they were extinguished. This is known as native title.

What was its impact?

Although in the early days the Mabo decision generally seemed welcome, it was not long before it became increasingly divisive.

Many celebrated a huge victory for justice for Indigenous Australians. Some of this enthusiasm foresaw a new age of reconciliation, perhaps even a new republican constitution.

But, increasingly, in the months after the decision, many opposed what they saw as the decision’s support for the “white guilt industry”. Mining companies asserted that a “flood” of land claims would inhibit mining in Australia contrary to the national interest. The Australian Mining Industry Council (now the Minerals Council of Australia) took out full-page advertisements to that effect.

Adding to the panic, Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett claimed that Australian backyards were under threat from Aboriginal land claims – he has since admitted he was wrong.

The decision has remained important to Indigenous communities throughout Australia, notably because Anglo-Australian law now officially recognises the prior existence of Indigenous peoples. No longer is Australia “terra nullius”.

However, there have also been Indigenous voices expressing criticism of the decision. Noted scholar Irene Watson observes:

Post-Mabo most people believe we have gained justice. We are still working for the same goal, land rights and self-determination, but we are also working harder than ever before, for now we are also working on unmasking the illusion; the illusion that “the blacks have got it all”.

What are its contemporary implications?

The decision had a huge impact on Australian life. However, regardless of which side of the debate you might be on, it is clear that our institutions and society can cope with such apparently enormous shifts.

Some suggest the Mabo decision did not go far enough to achieve real justice. This indicates that, despite the perhaps inevitable argument that follows profound change, we can afford to be aspirational in embarking on reform efforts.

It is also clear that divisive language, such as that of the debate that followed the Mabo decision (and since), is unnecessary. Knowing that our institutions can withstand the “shock” of change surely means we can engage in a well-modulated and respectful public discussion to achieve it.

Finally, we clearly cannot be complacent following even apparently significant advances in the law’s approach to Indigenous Australians’ claims for justice. There remains work to be done; any single advance will not be sufficient.

To fulfil the promise of Mabo, to advance justice for Indigenous Australians, we need a suite of reforms embracing law, policy and the economy.

Kate Galloway, Assistant Professor of Law

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Ten years on, it's time we learned the lessons from the failed Northern Territory Intervention

Diana Perche, UNSW

Ten years ago this month, the then prime minister, John Howard, and his indigenous affairs minister, Mal Brough, launched the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) into remote Indigenous communities.

With no warning, and no consultation, the federal government moved swiftly to seize control of many aspects of the daily lives of residents in 73 targeted remote communities. It implemented coercive measures that would have been unthinkable in non-Indigenous communities.

What happened?

By deploying uniformed members of the Australian Defence Forces into the communities to establish logistics, the Intervention was designed to send a clear message of disruption and control. The government’s suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act raised further cause for concern.

Township leases were compulsorily acquired over Aboriginal-owned land by the Commonwealth for a five-year period. And the permit system administered by Aboriginal land councils to control access to Aboriginal land was revoked.

Medical teams were flown in to conduct compulsory health checks on children. Signs were posted declaring bans on alcohol and pornography in township areas.

Income management was applied to all community residents receiving welfare payments, and income support payments were linked to satisfactory school attendance.

The successful Community Development Employment Projects program was abolished, and employees were forced onto unemployment benefits. The police presence was increased in prescribed communities. And customary law was no longer allowed to be considered in bail applications and sentencing in criminal court cases.

Political implications

The trigger for the Intervention was the release of the Little Children are Sacred report. The NT government commissioned the report in response to public allegations of rampant child sexual abuse and violence in Aboriginal communities.

As in many earlier reports, the authors pointed to a range of complex social issues – including poverty, overcrowded housing, lack of educational and employment opportunities, and alcohol and substance abuse. They also emphasised the need for community-driven solutions.

The Howard government nevertheless used the report to declare a “national emergency”. The report gave the government political cover to introduce coercive and unpopular measures it had developed over the previous decade but not implemented. These included the abolition of the permit system, township leases, and welfare quarantining.

In political terms, the Howard government faced little opposition to the Intervention. Cabinet was not consulted, and the government was able to take advantage of its Senate majority to push through the legislation.

With a federal election around the corner, Labor leader Kevin Rudd saw no electoral advantage in criticising the Intervention, framed as it was in terms of deviance, dysfunction and abuse of vulnerable children. He chose to focus on other issues that had greater salience in the electorate.

Opposition from Indigenous leaders and organisations received little attention in the mainstream media. And the lack of a single co-ordinated voice following the abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission put Indigenous opponents at a considerable disadvantage.

The NT Labor government, led by Clare Martin, was overwhelmed by the unprecedented intrusion into territory affairs. It was widely blamed for its own ineffectual response to the crisis.

Once in government, Rudd and then Julia Gillard continued all key aspects of the Intervention, and ultimately extended it for a further decade – to 2022 – in the form of Stronger Futures. Welfare quarantining, school attendance measures, and penalties for alcohol and pornography use were all expanded. This was despite a lack of evidence that these measures were effective.

The Gillard government attempted to consult with affected communities in preparing Stronger Futures. However, the consultation process was strongly criticised as inappropriate, partisan and discriminatory.

A failed experiment?

Many different bodies have evaluated the Intervention over the past decade.

Most of the policy measures were not evidence-based – and outcomes have been generally very poor. The cautious hopes for increased resources flowing into remote communities in terms of health, education and housing services have turned to disappointment.

The Intervention’s health impact has been assessed as severe. This is because of the psychological damage caused by the punitive nature of measures such as welfare quarantining, stigmatisation of community residents through links to dysfunction and child abuse, loss of autonomy, and imposition of culturally inappropriate policies.

The UN special rapporteur on human rights, James Anaya, strongly criticised the Intervention for its breaches of international human rights obligations, racially discriminatory policies, and failure to respect the rights of indigenous peoples to self-determination.

The Intervention was already recognised in 2007 as a critical moment in Indigenous affairs. The Howard government brought an end to the longstanding Commonwealth government approach of supporting Indigenous self-determination, valuing Indigenous cultural difference, and diversity of choice. It replaced it with a new paternalism, or guardianship, where “government knows best” and Indigenous difference is understood as a negative, or a deficit which must be reformed.

A decade on, the lack of engagement with Indigenous voices and knowledge in designing and implementing the Intervention has prompted renewed demands by many Indigenous people for meaningful change in the relations between First Peoples and the government. This is most evident in the debates about constitutional recognition and Indigenous policy more generally.

In the 50 years since the 1967 referendum, Indigenous affairs has been marked by many crises and panics – but rarely by substantive engagement between governments and First Peoples. A decade after the Intervention, it’s time for a new approach.

Diana Perche, Senior Lecturer and Academic Coordinator, Nura Gili Indigenous Programs Unit, UNSW

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Happiness born of connectedness lifts up Aboriginal Australians

Larissa Behrendt, University of Technology Sydney

This article is part of a series, On Happiness, examining what it means and how it might be achieved in the 21st century.

I recently spent some time on an outstation in the Northern Territory. Unless you have been on one, it is hard to understand the level of poverty that some Aboriginal people live in – sleeping on concrete floors, little money, no luxuries. Life is supplemented with bush tucker and everyone works together and shares what they have.

Among the basics of life, there is resilience. But there is also something else that is perhaps even more surprising. As I sat around the campfire in the evening, what rose up into the night sky amid the smoke was laughter.

This is a community surrounded by tragedy and hard social problems. This is a community with deep concerns about the impact of mining on sacred sites, about access to education, feelings of being disenfranchised and the stresses of having very little money to survive on. In nearby towns, there are issues of substance abuse and violence. So it is easy to fall into cliché and to see this laughter as being cathartic, an important release.

But there is something deeper than just the fleeting laughter that comes at the end of a funny story, a witty comment or a parody. It always strikes me in a close-knit community that something much more profound is at work. Around a campfire with shared resources – food, clothes, blankets, utensils, even shoes – there is a deep sense of contentment, a profound happiness.

Maybe the generosity of spirit creates a deeper contentment, a deeper happiness. Or maybe it is the happiness that gives a person a more generous spirit, a larger heart.

How do you take the pain of the past, whatever your background, and make it something that doesn’t cripple you? How do you stop it from being a barrier to happiness?

Happiness knows no cultural barriers or bounds. But I wonder what can be learnt about true happiness from the Aboriginal women on the outstation who can illuminate the world of the rest of us.

Connected to community and country

The first lesson from my friends around the campfire is the way they look at the world around them. They see its riches.

They look at the sky and understand its meanings. They look to the land and sea around them and see additional sources of food. They look at the people who make up their family and community and they see the blessings in what they do have.

They tell stories of their fishing and hunting trips, of great romances and funny anecdotes. Their world is full of rich stories, of songlines, of music, of dance. It is impossible not to be struck by the deep interconnectedness that they have with each other and with the world around them.

When you have so very little, you are reliant on the people around you. You rely on them to share resources, to help you get from one place to another (you have to share vehicles and find a way to pay for petrol), to join together to confront a school that is not working with the community or a land council that has not been negotiating properly. And through this meaningful reliance on each other – where you don’t just take but give what you have – there is deep, meaningful human connection.

This interconnectedness with other people seems to provide a strong grounding in one’s own identity, one’s own value, one’s own place in the world. This grounding is essential for a sense of self and a sense of self-worth.

How can you be happy when you are uncomfortable with who you are? How often do we see people struggle with their identity in a way that causes them distress and misery? There is none of that among people who are deeply rooted in their community and have a strong sense of their place.

There is also interconnectedness to the natural world. The women on the outstation have been hunting turtles and fishing in the waters since they were small girls. They know which plants are edible and they know what fruit is edible.

They also know the stories about the creation of the world around them, how the constellations in the sky were formed and the songlines about great trips across the country. In the world around them, there are stories and legends but there is also knowledge of the seasons and an ability to read the landscape and the weather.

Research shows that people who live on the outstations have better health than those living in town. These are alcohol-free communities but their diets are also better as a result of the richness of the food found in the land and sea, which supplements the processed, unhealthy food.

In these remote areas, fresh food is expensive. Lollies, soft drink and processed foods are cheap. Diets are poor and health is poor as a result. So on the outstations, where fruits, vegetables, fish, turtles and other bush food supplement diets, it is easy to see why people are healthier.

Lives enriched by creativity

So it is easy to see how the interconnectedness to country is also a source of a contented life. But there is something else that engages the women here, something that is linked to their culture but also seems to be a basic element in fundamental happiness. They have a very rich creative life.

The women of this community – and some of the men – are gifted painters. They translate the stories told by their parents and grandparents into vivid canvasses. They express themselves as eloquently through their brush strokes as they do with their words.

In addition to their painting, they have their traditional songs, their songlines and their dance. They are creative performers of their cultural traditions and they not only perform but teach the children the same songs and dances.

And between the painting, the dancing and the music is a rich traditional of storytelling as old as the culture. These women are natural storytellers. Although they have not written the stories, they perform them in the way they tell them. They are the expression of the vibrancy of the world’s oldest living culture.

Living in close proximity to others is not easy and this is a community where there is overcrowding. On fine nights, people sleep under the stars, but there are not enough rooms for the number of people here and so people share concrete floors when they have to.

So life is not without its arguments and disagreements, its jealousies and bickering and all of the other things that happen between people who live closely. But the generosity and openness of the women who have the moral leadership in this community is defined by the love they have for their families, especially their children.

There is no romance in being poor, but there is happiness to be found when you can find the richness in life. That is the abiding lesson I learn from my visits to this other way of life.

And as the laughter rings around the campfire, and I listen to the women, all sisters, sing their songs, teach the children to dance, tell their ancient stories, gently tease each other – and me – it is a reminder that there are ties that are deeper than blood and that lightness of spirit is the measure of happiness.

This article is based on an essay in the collection On Happiness: New Ideas for the Twenty-First Century (UWA Publishing, June 2015).

You can read other articles in the series here.

Larissa Behrendt, Professor of Law and Director of Research, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, University of Technology Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Listening to the heart: what now for Indigenous recognition after the Uluru summit?

Harry Hobbs, UNSW

Delegates at the First Nations Constitutional Convention at Uluru have issued a powerful “statement from the heart”. They called for the establishment of a “First Nations Voice” enshrined in the Australian Constitution, and a commission to progress treaty-making between governments and Indigenous people.

The Uluru statement reflects long-held Indigenous aspirations. But, in rejecting symbolic constitutional recognition, it puts pressure on Australia’s political leaders. Will they – and non-Indigenous Australians – listen?

The statement

The Uluru statement is not a unanimous view. Seven delegates walked out in protest on Thursday, concerned that any reform would lead to a loss of sovereignty. Not all returned.

However, the statement reflects a strong consensus position of Indigenous Australians. It is the culmination of three days of meetings at Uluru, which followed six months of regional dialogues held across Australia.

Grounded in their inherent right to sovereignty, the statement calls for constitutional reform to empower Indigenous people to take “a rightful place in our own country”. The delegates believe this can be achieved through:

• a national representative body with the power to advise parliament on laws that affect Indigenous people; and

• a “Makarrata Commission” to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations, and undertake a public truth-telling process.

Makarrata is a Yolngu word meaning “a coming together after a struggle”.

These are long-held aspirations.

A rightful place

Indigenous Australians have long fought for their rightful place in their own country.

In 1937, William Cooper, secretary of the Aboriginal Advancement League, gathered 1,814 signatures in a petition to King George V that called for Indigenous representation in the federal parliament. The petition was passed to Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, but cabinet refused to forward it to the king.

In 1963, the Yolngu people in eastern Arnhem Land sent a series of bark petitions to the parliament. In these they called for recognition of their land, resource and cultural rights, and their sovereignty.

The government had transferred their land to a bauxite mining company without consulting them. The Yolngu people explained that that land “has been hunting and food-gathering land for the Yirrkala tribes from time immemorial”, and the:

… places sacred to the Yirrkala people, as well as vital to their livelihood are in the excised land.

They expressed their concern that:

… their needs and interests will be completely ignored as they have been ignored in the past.

A few years later, in 1971, more than 1,000 Indigenous Australians signed a petition organised by the Larrakia people. They described themselves as “refugees in the country of our ancestors”, and called for land rights, a treaty, and political representation. Their voices went unheard.

In 1979, the National Aboriginal Conference, an elected Indigenous body advising government, passed a resolution calling for a “Makarrata”. This resolution sparked talk of a treaty within the federal parliament.

Four years later, a Senate committee delivered a report on the idea of a treaty. It recommended constitutional change to implement a “compact”. That report was also ignored.

In 1998, the Barunga Statement called on the federal parliament to:

… negotiate with us a treaty recognising our prior ownership, continued occupation and sovereignty and affirming our human rights and freedom.

Prime Minister Bob Hawke promised to negotiate such a treaty by 1990. But no treaty was forthcoming, and it dropped off the political agenda.

This week Indigenous leaders have again called for a voice in their country. The central concern is an oft-repeated one: that, as a small minority, dispersed across the continent of their ancestors, and continuing to resist the legacy of colonialism, Indigenous Australians have almost no say about legislation that affects them.

Treaty now?

A constitutionally enshrined national representative body is an important proposal, but the Makarrata Commission is more significant.

The statement records that a:

Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda.

For Indigenous people, it:

… captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.

Treaties are accepted globally as the means of reaching a settlement between Indigenous peoples and those who have colonised their lands. They are formal agreements, reached via respectful negotiation conducted in good faith, that recognise an inherent right to some level of sovereignty or self-government.

Treaties have been achieved in the US and New Zealand, and are still being negotiated in Canada. In contrast, no treaty between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians has ever been recognised.

Indigenous Australians are willing to negotiate. But are non-Indigenous Australians ready to enter into respectful negotiations? Or will they, once again, ignore the invitation?

Next steps

The Uluru summit was organised by the Referendum Council, a body set up by Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten to advise on the path toward a referendum.

Through the Uluru statement, Indigenous people have invited non-Indigenous Australians to walk together for a better future. The statement is the voice of Indigenous Australians. Now is the time for non-Indigenous Australians to hear that voice.

Harry Hobbs, PhD Candidate, Constitutional Law and Indigenous Rights, UNSW

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

‘Right wrongs, write Yes’: what was the 1967 referendum all about?

Russell McGregor, James Cook University

On May 27, 1967, campaigners for Aboriginal rights and status won the most-decisive referendum victory in Australian history.

The referendum attracted more than 90% of voters in favour of deleting the two references to Aborigines in Australia’s Constitution. Campaigners for a “Yes” vote successfully argued those references were discriminatory and debarred Aboriginal people from citizenship.

Ever since, and as we approach the 1967 referendum’s 50th anniversary, it has been popularly remembered as the moment when Aboriginal people won equal rights – even the right to vote. In fact, the referendum did not secure those outcomes.

By 1967, all Aboriginal adults already held the right to vote in federal, state and territory elections. Racial discriminations had been removed from the statute books at the federal level and in all states and territories except Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. And even those three laggards were moving toward legal equality.

So what was achieved?

Constitutionally, the 1967 referendum secured the amendment of Section 51 (xxvi) and the deletion of Section 127.

The former section specified the federal parliament could make laws with 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.

The words “other than the Aboriginal race in any state” were deleted.

The latter section stipulated that in:

… reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a state or other part of the Commonwealth, Aboriginal natives shall not be counted.

Neither section prevented Aboriginal people from exercising the same legal rights as other Australians. The rights of Aborigines were abridged not by the Constitution, but by laws enacted by federal and state parliaments.

How was the campaign run?

Campaigners for a “Yes” vote, however, told a different story. They insisted constitutional change was a necessary precondition for Aboriginal equality.

Yet the campaigners’ ambitions went beyond legal equality. They sought the inclusion of Aboriginal people as respected members of the national community. This had been a principal goal of Aboriginal and pro-Aboriginal activists since the early 20th century.

The 1967 referendum was the culmination of a long struggle for rights and respect, for social esteem as well as equality before the law.

Accordingly, publicity material for the “Yes” campaign did not focus narrowly on the legal implications of constitutional change. More often, it exhorted Australians to welcome Aboriginal people into the fellowship of the nation. As the opening line of a popular campaign song ran:

Vote “Yes” for Aborigines, they want to be Australians too.

Effectively, the proponents of a Yes vote transformed what could have been a dry, legalistic tinkering with the Constitution into a plebiscite on Australian nationhood.

In achieving this transformation, the campaigners held an unusual advantage. Uniquely among Australian referendums, for the 1967 question on Aborigines there was no campaign for a “No” vote. And even the government broke with convention by providing, in the official advice to voters, only the case for “Yes”. Consequently, campaigners could talk up the importance of the changes they advocated virtually unrestrained.

New South Wales campaign director Faith Bandler told voters:

When you write Yes in the lower square of your ballot paper you are holding out the hand of friendship and wiping out nearly 200 years of injustice and inhumanity.

Hyperbole of this kind is not unusual in political campaigns. What was unusual is that there was no organised opposition to contest the claims of the Yes campaigners, or to counter them with equally extravagant rhetoric for the negative.

The lack of a “No” campaign undoubtedly boosted the “Yes” vote. It was equally important in shaping remembrance of the referendum.

Lacking an opposition, the “Yes” campaigners had a virtual monopoly on the narratives about what the referendum meant. Their expansive conception of the referendum as a plebiscite on nationhood prevailed.

A symbolic win

The triumph of the “Yes” vote was primarily a symbolic victory. It did not win rights for Aborigines, and the government of the day did not utilise the extension of Commonwealth powers secured by amendment of Section 51 (xxvi). Nor did Gough Whitlam’s government after it came to power in 1972.

Whitlam did, however, invoke the resounding “Yes” vote of 1967 as a moral mandate for change in Aboriginal affairs.

Symbolic victories are important. Shortly after hearing of the massive “Yes” majority, veteran Aboriginal activist Pastor Doug Nicholls proclaimed it was:

… evidence that Australians recognise Aborigines are part of the nation.

As Nicholls knew from three decades of involvement in Aboriginal politics, recognition of his people as part of the nation was a hard-fought achievement.

Regardless of its slight legal consequences, the 1967 referendum was an important event in Australian history. It was a symbolic affirmation of Aboriginal people’s acceptance into the community of the nation.

Yet the referendum affirmed only the broad principle of national inclusion. On how that principle should be translated into practice – on the terms of inclusion – the referendum was silent.

Russell McGregor, Adjunct Professor of History, James Cook University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.