White Australia policy

Australia is a multicultural society with 2.5% identified as Indigenous (ABS, 2012). When Europeans colonized Australia in 1788 they called it ‘terra nullius’, which means empty land. The Indigenous Australians were denied any legal claims to the land and classified as part of the fauna. They had to deal with disease, violence, forced relocations and their children were taken and adopted out to white families. It took until 1967 to be recognized as citizens and receive the right to vote.…

The suburb of Cabramatta has long been known as a highly populated area by Indo-Chinese migrants and influenced manifestly by their culture since the influx of refuges from the Vietnam War and Australia’s change in past migration policies. Cabramatta has been the centre of academic debates and literature since the 1990’s due to the ethnic residential concentration within the one area. Ethnic residential concentration is the large migration of one group from a particular culture to another…

Indigenous Australians are grossly over-represented in the criminal justice system. However, the true extent of this over-representation differs between individual areas. Despite indigenous Australians only making up two per cent of the population, they accounted for over twenty seven per cent of the total prison population in 2014 (ABS). This high rate of imprisonment is not due to indigenous people being more likely to commit crime than other Australians, but rather indigenous Australians are…

tonight on NAIDOC week, I speak on behalf of Indigenous Australians as we dig deep into their history and uncover the cruel and tyrannous acts that were faced by the aborigines. Throughout this speech we will learn more about the colonisation of Australia (especially the effects on Indigenous…

Vincent Lingiari, the elder of the Gurindji people, who promoted the Wave Hill Strike in 1966. In 1992, Eddie Mabo, on behalf of the Murray Island people, successfully overturned the concept of ‘terra nullius’ in the High Court as they ruled that Australia was occupied at the time of British settlement. In due course, this decision led to the creation of the Native…

further marginalise Indigenous culture. Taleisha Hunkin investigates reality along with political rhetoric, privileged through modern cinema. The filmic representation of the Indigenous throughout Australia is highly biased due to the lack of films produced, with majority of Aboriginal feature films starring white actors who lack a genuine understanding of the culture, to perpetuate known stereotypes, to further marginalise the Aboriginal race. A large proportion of filmic representations of…

Contemporary Australian identity can be regarded as an invention (White 1981) or a product of its own history. A multitude of identities, like mate-ship, fair go and larrikinism, be it a stereotype or a true reflection, resonates among the Australians. Of which, egalitarianism is one identity that is distinct yet debatable in today’s context. Today’s Australia is not a nation where everyone is equal as there are indeed, clear differences in wealth, clearly defined hierarchies in its…

Strait Islander peoples have been subject to numerous practices and policies by the governments of the time. This essay examines government policies primarily in Queensland of segregation and integration of Queensland’s Indigenous peoples and how this led to the removal of Indigenous children from their families (Stolen Generations). Crucial to the understanding of the colonisers’ actions are the ideologies that underpinned their policies known as scientific racism. In Queensland the…

One of the things that caught my attention during this week was a type of documentary about The Stolen Generation, where many indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families as a result of various government policies in Australia. Thus, in this documentary or kind of film called Rabbit Proof Fence is possible to come up with the concept of Transculturation. I didn't know nothing about Australian's history so this is very interesting for me; when I watched Rabbit proof fence, I…

curriculum, education about the history and effects of forcible removal’ will be discussed (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission [HREOC], 1997). Some of the most important policies and procedures…