1933 - Petition to the King
1938 - Day of Mourning 1939 - Indigenous men enlist 1946 - Pilbara strike 1949 - Aboriginal cooperative begins 1951 - Strikes on Darwin reserves 1958 - National rights council born 1962 - National petition campaign Federal voting rights 1966 - The Wave Hill walk-off 1967 - 27 May referendum 1968 - National land rights campaign 1970 - Victorian land rights won 1972 - The Aboriginal Tent Embassy 1973 - NACC is established Aboriginal Land Rights Commission established 1975 - Land returned to Gurindji 1976 - Land rights act passed 1992 - The Mabo decision Redfern Speech 2008 - The Apology
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Yorta Yorta leader William Cooper, the founder of the Australian Aborigines' League, launches a petition asking for parliamentary representation for Aboriginal Australians. There is no record of it ever being sent.
William Cooper joins forces with William Ferguson and Jack Patten from the Aborigines Progressive Association to plan a day of mourning, describing 26 January 1938 as the '150th anniversary of the whitemen's seizure of our country'. They protest against 'the callous treatment of our people by the whitemen' and called for education, new laws and citizenship status for Aboriginal Australians. Great Britain declares war on Germany signalling the start of the Second World War for Australia. Hundreds of Aboriginal and Islander men enlist in the Australian armed forces between 1939 and 1945 and serve overseas. Aboriginal pastoral workers walk off stations in the Pilbara region. The strike lasts until 1949. The Pindan Cooperative movement is formed from the Pindan pastoral strikers. Aboriginal people make a living as miners of alluvial minerals, with the goal of gaining land tenure. Many activists are inspired by the cooperative movement. Aboriginal inhabitants of Bagot and Berrimah Reserves march on Darwin to protest racially discriminatory laws and wages lower than those of white workers. The protest and publicity it received leads to the formation of the Council for Aboriginal Rights in Melbourne. In Adelaide on the weekend of 15-16 February a new national body is launched - the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement. The Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (FCAA) launches a national campaign for a referendum to change the Constitution. From 1964 various proposals for constitutional amendment are debated until the government led by Harold Holt finally agrees in February 1967 to hold a referendum. Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders receive the right to vote in federal elections. Stockmen and women walk off Wave Hill cattle station owned by British aristocrat Lord Vestey, about 700 kms south of Darwin in the Northern Territory, in protest against intolerable working conditions and inadequate wages. They establish a camp at Watti Creek and demand the return of some of their traditional lands. This begins a seven-year fight by the Gurindji people to obtain title to their land. An overwhelming majority (90.77%) of Australians vote to amend the Australian Constitution by deleting section 127, and amending clause 51 (xxvi). This is the culmination of a decade-long campaign for these changes. The Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) decides to launch a national campaign for Aboriginal land rights. Abschol actively supports the campaign and a petition is drawn up and circulated widely. Passage of the Aboriginal Lands Act in Victoria leads to the presentation of the title deeds to residents of Lake Tyers and Framlingham in July Aboriginal activists outraged by Prime Minister William McMahon's refusal to acknowledge an Indigenous right to land set up their beach umbrella and hang from it a sign 'Aboriginal Embassy'. The protest grows. Footage shown of confrontations with police pulling down the tents swells the numbers of supporters, bringing together urban activists and people from remote communities in the Northern Territory. The National Aboriginal Consultative Committee is set up as a move towards Aboriginal representation. People over 18 who class themselves as Aboriginal, and are recognised as such by their community, are eligible to vote. Its role is only advisory. The Aboriginal Land Rights Commission, headed by Justice Woodward, is set up by the government of Gough Whitlam to establish ways for Aborigines to get land rights in the Northern Territory. As a result of its recommendations the Northern Land and the Central Land Councils are set up. Prime Minister Gough Whitlam returns land to the Gurindji people. More than a decade after the walk-off from Wave Hill station 3300 square kilometres of land are returned to traditional owners. The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act is the first national land rights legislation. Initially prepared by the Whitlam Labor government, it is passed with minor modifications by the Fraser Liberal/National Party government. The Act recognises 'traditional Aboriginal owners' for the first time in Australian law and it provides for 'the granting of Traditional Aboriginal Land in the Northern Territory for the benefit of Aboriginals, and for other purposes'. Although the Act has been amended more than 15 times since 1976 it remains substantially the same as passed in 1976. The High Court of Australia hands down its landmark decision in Mabo v Queensland (Mabo Case, Mabo Decision). It decides that Native Title exists over particular kinds of lands - unalienated Crown Lands, national parks and reserves - and that Australia was never terra nullius or empty land. Prime Minister Keating launches Australian celebration of International Year of the World's Indigenous Peoples, with a speech accepting responsibility for past mistreatment of Aboriginal people by non-Aboriginal Australians and calling for reconciliation. The speech becomes known as the 'Redfern Park Speech'. 13 February: The Australian Parliament apologises to the Stolen Generations. Both the government and the opposition support the apology and say ‘sorry’ to Aboriginal people who were taken away from their families from 1900 to the 1970s. |