Frommer's Australia from $50 a Day 13th Edition - To Parent Directory

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APPENDIX . AUSTRALIA IN DEPTH
Within a few years, some 10,000 Aborigines and 1,000 Europeans had been
killed in Queensland alone, while in Tasmania, a campaign to rid the island entirely
of local Aborigines was ultimately successful, with the last full-blooded Tasmanian
Aborigine dying in 1876. By the start of the 20th century, the Aboriginal people
were considered a dying race. Most left alive lived in government-owned reserves or
Church-controlled missions.
Massacres of Aborigines continued to go largely or wholly unpunished into
the 1920s, by which time it became official government policy to remove lightskinned
Aboriginal children from their families and to forcibly sterilize young
women. Many children of the “stolen generation” were brought up in white foster
homes or church refuges and never reunited with their biological families—
many with living parents were told that their parents were dead.
Today, there are some 283,000 Aborigines living in Australia, and in general a
great divide still exists between them and the rest of the population. Aboriginal life
expectancy is 20 years lower than that of other Australians, with overall death rates
between two and four times higher. A far higher percentage of Aboriginal people
than other Australians fill the prisons, and despite a Royal Commission into Aboriginal
Deaths in Custody, Aborigines continue to die while incarcerated.
A landmark in Aboriginal affairs occurred in 1992 when the High Court
determined that Australia was not an empty land (terra nullius) as it been seen
officially since the British invasion. The “Mabo” decision resulted in the 1993
Native Title Act, which allowed Aboriginal groups, and the ethnically distinct
people living in the Torres Strait islands off northern Queensland, to claim government-owned
land if they could prove continual association with it since
1788. The later “Wik” decision determined that Aborigines could make claims
on Government land leased to agriculturists. The federal government, led by the
right-leaning Prime Minister John Howard, curtailed these rights following
pressure from farming and mining interests.
Issues currently facing the Aboriginal population include harsh mandatory
sentencing laws (enacted in Western Australia and the Northern Territory state
governments in 1996 and 1997, respectively), which came to international
attention in 2000. The Aboriginal community believes such laws specifically
target them. When a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy allegedly committed suicide
less than a week before he was due to be released from a Northern Territory
prison in early 2000, and a 21-year-old Aboriginal youth was imprisoned for a
year for stealing A$23 (US$15) worth of fruit cordial and biscuits, Aboriginal
people protested, activists of all colors demonstrated, and even the United
Nations weighed in with criticism.
Added to this was the simmering issue of the federal government’s decision
not to apologize to the Aboriginal people for the “stolen generation.” In March
2000, a government-sponsored report stated there was never a “stolen generation,”
and according to respected researchers on both sides of the fence, went on
to markedly underestimate the number of people personally affected.
Prior to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, a popular movement involving
people of all colors and classes called for reconciliation and an apology to the
Aboriginal people. In Sydney, an estimated 250,000 people marched across the
Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Liberal (read “conservative”) Government refused
to bow to public pressure. Despite threats of boycotts and rallies during the
Olympics, the Games passed without major disturbance, and a worldwide audience
watched as Aboriginal runner Cathy Freeman lit the Olympic cauldron.