Aboriginal Tent Embassy Aboriginal Tent Embassy 1972: Aboriginal Tent Embassy established in front of Parliament House, Canberra John Newfong, Identity, 1972: With its flags fluttering proudly in the breeze, the Aboriginal Embassy on the lawns opposite Federal Parliament has been one of the most successful press and parliamentary lobbies in Australian political History. Land rights struggle Since European settlement, Indigenous Australians have been fighting to retain the rights to their traditional lands. In 1966, 200 Gurindji stockmen, domestic workers and their families walked off Wave Hill Station, beginning a strike that would last seven years. The 1967 referendum, in which Aboriginal Australians were finally recognised as citizens, also provided more momentum to the land rights struggle by raising the profile of Indigenous issues with the wider Australian public. The 1971 Milirrpum v Nabalco Northern Territory Supreme Court case also highlighted the issue of land rights. Beginning Growing support After 1972
Timeline: Aboriginal Tent Embassy The theme of this year's NAIDOC Week is the 'Spirit of the Tent Embassy: 40 years on'. Our timeline has the history of the protest, which has come to symbolise the campaign for equal rights for Indigenous Australians… January 1972 - Four Aboriginal men - Michael Anderson, Billy Craigie, Bertie Williams and Tony Coorey - set up the Aboriginal Tent Embassy opposite the then Parliament House in Canberra overnight on Australia Day, 26th January 1972. They put a beach umbrella in the ground as a symbolic first stake proclaiming Australia as Aboriginal land, in protest at the refusal of the Liberal William McMahon government to recognise Aboriginal land rights. It had ruled that land could only be leased, and without any rights to mineral or forestry resources. The four camped under the umbrella and the protest quickly grew to at least a dozen tents with up to 2,000 supporters at one point. July 1972 - Police moved in after the government banned squatting on parliamentary lawns.
ABC Online Indigenous - Programs Coming Up Thursday 6:50pm 28 May 2012 ABC1480: MABO The Mabo case Eddie Koiki Mabo won his way into history when the highest court in the country ruled in his favour and disproved the legal doctrine of Terra Nullius. About 480: MABO 480: MABO celebrates the 20th anniversary of the High Court decision of the MABO case. In the lead up to the premiere of the telemovie MABO, 480 takes a look back over the history of Land Rights, MABO the Man and the court case as well as the legacy it has created for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Land Rights. Contact We would love to hear from you! ABC TV Indigenous Department ABC Television GPO Box 9994 SYDNEY NSW 2001 Send us an email
Collaborating for Indigenous Rights 1957-1973 We want land rights, not handouts Alan Sharpley with placard, Bob Perry in a Ningla-a-Na T-shirt and John Newfong with hands on hips at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra. The Pitjantjatjara expression Ningla-a-Na is translated as 'we are hungry for our land'. Source: Ken Middleton collection, National Library of Australia Late on Australia Day 1972, four young Aboriginal men erected a beach umbrella on the lawns outside Parliament House in Canberra and put up a sign which read 'Aboriginal Embassy'. Over the following months, supporters of the embassy swelled to 2000. This political action was initiated and implemented by Aboriginal activists.
Collaborating for Indigenous Rights 1957-1973 Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Canberra [The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is] by far the most successful Aboriginal action of the 20th century. — Gary Foley, Aboriginal activist What led to the creation of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy? In the 1970s, inspired by the Black Power movement in the US, Aboriginal people were politically very active. Land rights were considered the key to economic independence, and land the base to generate resources and employment. To many it came as a shock when in April 1971 the Northern Territory Supreme Court decided against Aboriginal people and in favour of a mining company to have access to Aboriginal land. Aboriginal people travelled to Canberra to ask the Prime Minister of the time, William McMahon, to give them title to their land, royalties from the mining operations, a right to consent to or reject further development on their land, and the land to be returned once mining operations finished. If people think this is an eyesore, well it is the way it is on government settlements. Fact
Sorry Day and the Stolen Generations Warning. This article may contain the names and images of Aboriginal and Islander people now deceased. It also contains links to sites that may use images of Aboriginal and Islander people now deceased. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, report. The first was held on 26 May 1998 - one year after the tabling of the report May 1997. The about the removal of children was marked by intense since the mid-to-late 1980s. Documentation of forced removal of children The Bringing them Home report acknowledged that 'Indigenous children have been forcibly separated from their families and communities since the very first days of the European occupation of Australia' by governments and missionaries. Their motives were to 'inculcate European values and work habits in children, who would then be employed in service to the colonial settlers' (Ramsland 1986 quoted by Mason 1993, p.31). Aborigines Welfare Board, children doing exercises at Bomaderry Children's home, established 1909. Reappraisal
The Land Indigenous people have occupied Australia for at least 60 000 years and have evolved with the land. NSW Bark canoe E045964 Photographer: Stuart Humphreys © Australian Museum Changing it and changing with it. "I feel with my body. For Indigenous Australians the land is the core of all spirituality and this relationship has been deeply misunderstood over the past 200 years or so. When European colonisers first arrived in Australia they encountered an unfamiliar land occupied by people they didn't understand. Land Rights "It is my father's land, my grandfather's land, my grandmother's land. The history of the struggle for land rights goes back to the earliest days of the European occupation of Australia. The struggle for land rights continues today through the legal and political systems. Native Title What is Native Title? "It is imperative in today's world that the common law should neither be nor be seen to be frozen in an age of racial discrimination." Eddie Mabo The fight for Land Rights
Mabo - a timeline Posted It has been 20 years today since High Court handed down its decision on Mabo v Queensland (No 2), the landmark case known as Mabo, which paved the way for recognition of native title in Australia. News Online takes a look at the lead-up to the decision and how it changed the face of Australian society: Torres Strait Islander Eddie Koiki Mabo, who is at the time working as a gardener at James Cook University in Townsville, finds out he does not own the land back on Murray Island where he grew up. A land rights conference is held at James Cook University where Mr Mabo makes a speech outlining the land ownership and inheritance system on Murray Island. A lawyer at the conference suggests there should be a test case on claiming land rights through the court system. Central to the case is challenging the concept of terra nullius - that land claimed by Europeans on white settlement was uninhabited. Sadly Mr Mabo is not present to celebrate the victory.
Mabo v Queensland (No 2) [1992] HCA 23; (1992) 175 CLR 1 (3 June 1992) You are here: AustLII >> Databases >> High Court of Australia >> 1992 >> [1992] HCA 23 [Database Search] [Name Search] [Recent Decisions] [Noteup] [Context] [No Context] [Help] Mabo v Queensland (No 2) [1992] HCA 23; (1992) 175 CLR 1 (3 June 1992) AND OTHERS v. QUEENSLAND (No. 2) [1992] HCA 23; (1992) 175 CLR 1 F.C. 92/014 Aborigines - Constitutional Law - Real Property High Court of Australia Mason C.J.(1), Brennan(2), Deane(3), Dawson(4), Toohey(5), Gaudron(3) and McHugh(1) JJ. Aborigines - Native title to land - Whether extinguished by annexation by Crown - Reception of common law in Australia - Effect on native title - Terra nulius - Whether doctrine applicable in Australia. Constitutional Law (Q.) - Reception of common law in settled colony - Effect on title of indigenous people - Annexation of territory by colony - Terra nullius - Whether doctrine applicable in Australia - Power of Parliament of Qeensland to extinguish native title. Canberra, 1991, May 28-31; 1992, June 3. 3:6:1992 2. 3.
Pangerang Country with Freddie Dowling In this story Freddie Dowling, Pangerang Elder, introduces us to several Pangerang stories and sites. The Pangerang people were a nation of sub-clans who occupied much of what is now North Eastern Victoria stretching along the Tongala (Murray) River to Echuca and into the areas of the southern Riverina in New South Wales. Their land includes the Wangaratta, Yarrawonga and Shepparton areas through which the Kialla (Goulburn) and Torryong (Ovens) Rivers flow. The approximate boundaries are south to Mansfield, west to Echuca, east to Chiltern and north to near Narrandera in New South Wales. Freddie Dowling learnt the stories of the indigenous people of this area from his grandmother, Annie Lewis, and his father, Frank ‘Munja’ Dowling. The Pangerang words used in this story were written down by Annie Lewis in 1900. The word Pangerang is often written and known as Bangerang, and Banerang, 'because, in our language, "puh" and "buh" sound similar' (Freddie Dowling).
Collaborating for Indigenous Rights 1957-1973 Land rights march in Melbourne, 1968 Students, Aboriginal activists and others respond to Cabinet's refusal to make tribal lands available to the Gurindji of Wave Hill.Source: Courtesy Melbourne Sun, 13 July 1968 Land rights for Aborigines caught the public imagination, especially within the counter-culture, among students and among city-based Aboriginal activists beginning to flex their political muscles. More unusually, religious leaders critical of church hierarchies which had turned a blind eye to the injustices experienced by Aboriginal Australians, public intellectuals and politicians spoke out for land for Aboriginal people. A National Missionary Council pamphlet published in 1963 states unequivocally: It must never be forgotten that, for the most part, Australia was taken from the Aborigines by force without payment or compensation or recognition of their inherent title to the land. [1]