Changing values, changing nation - Saint Ignatius' Moodle Community

Resource sheet 5
Changing Indigenous rights
Source 1: The impact of the 1965 Freedom Ride
In 1965, some students from Sydney University formed a
group called Student Action for Aborigines (SAFA). Inspired
by the civil rights movement in the United States of
America, particularly the ideas of Reverend Martin Luther
King, they hired an old bus and organised a ‘Freedom
Ride’ around NSW country towns. Their aim was to draw
attention to discrimination against Aboriginal people. Here
Ann Curthoys, one of the original Freedom Riders, assesses
the effects of the Ride.
In retrospect, it seems that the Freedom Ride, limited
though the students’ understanding of the issues and ideas
about the future may have been, placed the issue of ‘rights’
more firmly on the public agenda than it had been before.
It created a social tension on Aboriginal issues which had
mixed short-term consequences, but which did indeed
make possible the emergence of something new. It insisted
that Aboriginal conditions and demands raise moral and
economic questions which white Australians had, at last,
to face. And it stimulated a new kind of Aboriginal politics,
with far reaching consequences.
Curthoys, Ann 2002, Freedom Ride: A Freedom Rider Remembers, Allen &
Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, p 239
Source 2: The origins of the Aboriginal flag, 1971
It was a sequence of events which led to me being the
designer of the Aboriginal flag. When I look carefully at
what the Aboriginal flag looks like, it comes from the
simplicity and power of Aboriginal art itself. Simple colour,
choice of colour, and a simple design. It’s powerful, and
the colours are important. And it took some time to think
about it – red ochre, the red soil – the country of Australia
is all red.
Source 3: The 1967 referendum
Most Australian referendums have not been carried
(see http://www.aec.gov.au>When>Referendums>
Referendum Dates and Results 1906 – Present). However
in 1967, 90.77 per cent of Australians registered a ‘Yes’
vote to change sections of the Australian Constitution that
discriminated against Indigenous people. All major political
parties supported the proposed changes and both Houses
of Parliament passed the proposed Act unanimously;
consequently a ‘No’ case was not even submitted.
The campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote in the 1967 referendum
suggested that the Aboriginal cause had gained a high
degree of support, for although the changes were quite
mechanical, being simply the granting of a concurrent
power to the Commonwealth to make laws for Indigenous
people, as well as being able to include Indigenous
Australians in national censuses, most campaigners chose
to talk in terms of morality:
Vote ‘Yes’ for Aborigines, they want to be Australians
too
Vote ‘Yes’ to give them rights and freedoms just like me
and you
Vote ‘Yes’ for Aborigines, all parties say they think you
should
Vote ‘Yes’ and show the world the true Australian
brotherhood.
Sydney Morning Herald, 19 May 1967
Bennett, Scott 1999, White Politics and Black Australians, Allen & Unwin,
Crows Nest, NSW, p 22
Why did I choose the sun? Because it’s another colour
that is used commonly in Aboriginal art – yellow ochre.
But the sun is a great symbol for all people. When we look
carefully at the colour black, which is an interesting one,
it’s more of a political inclusion, rather than a spiritual,
Aboriginal concept. The black represents the pride of
being black in Australia. Because, at the time, black pride
came into Australian culture – during the ’60s and ’70s
– influenced by Black American pride of their culture. If
this is going to be an Aboriginal flag, it has to have black,
because it represents the black people of the continent.
Extract from Dimensions in Time, Ep 7, ‘Harold Thomas - Creator of
the Aboriginal flag’, first broadcast 25 March 2002, is reproduced by
permission of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC Online
© 2002 ABC. All rights reserved. A full copy of the article can be found at:
http://www.abc.net.au/dimensions/dimensions_in_time/Transcripts/s513731.
htm
Values for Australian Schooling – Teaching and Learning Units ©Commonwealth of Australia
Later adolescence – Changing values, changing nation
167