AUSTRALIA Flashcards
Australian Deferation
1901
What does “Stolen Generations” mean?
1910-1970 (roughly)
The Stolen Generations refers to a period in Australia’s history where Aboriginal children were removed from their families through government policies. This happened from the mid-1800s to the 1970s.
In the 1860s, Victoria became the first state to pass laws authorising Aboriginal children to be removed from their parents. Similar policies were later adopted by other states and territories – and by the federal government when it was established in the 1900s.
For about a century, thousands of Aboriginal children were systematically taken from their families, communities and culture, many never to be returned. These children are known as the Stolen Generations survivors, or Stolen Children.
These children were taken by the police; from their homes; on their way to or from school. They were placed in over 480 institutions, adopted or fostered by non-Indigenous people and often subjected to abuse.
The children were denied all access to their culture, they were not allowed to speak their language and they were punished if they did. The impacts of this are still being felt today.
Describe the multiculturalism tendency and immigration waves in Australia
1788-1868
Thousands of Chinese people came to Australia during the 1850s gold rushes. When the gold was exhausted many took up market gardening or established businesses such as restaurants or laundries. In the second half of the 19th-century South Sea Islanders were recruited to work on Queensland sugar plantations, Afghan cameleers played a vital role in the exploration and opening up of the Australian outback, and Japanese divers contributed to the development of the pearling industry.
White Australia
From 1788 to 1868 Britain transported more than 160,000 convicts from its overcrowded prisons to the Australian colonies, forming the basis of the first migration from Europe to Australia. When these first Europeans arrived they did not find an empty land as expected.
White Australia Movement
Immigration Restriction Act (1901)
White Australia policy, in Australian history, fundamental legislation of the new Commonwealth of Australia that effectively stopped all non-European immigration into the country and that contributed to the development of a racially insulated white society.
The Australian colonies had passed restrictive legislation as early as the 1860s. This was directed specifically at Chinese immigrants, but later a popular cry was raised against the increasingly numerous Japanese—especially after Japan’s victory over China in the 1894–95 Sino-Japanese War—and against South Asians and Kanakas (South Pacific islanders) as well.
Fear of military invasion by Japan, the threat to the standard of living that was thought to be presented by the cheap but efficient Asian labourers, and white racism were the principal factors behind the White Australia movement.
Bicentenary
1988 - the celebration of 200 years
The event triggered debate on Australian national identity, Indigenous rights, historical interpretation and multiculturalism.
The event was widely viewed as controversial. Planning for the event raised issues of national identity and historical interpretation.
Some wanted to remember the colonisation as an invasion, while others wanted it to focus on historical re-enactments. The Uniting Church in Australia wanted people to boycott the event unless Aboriginal rights were recognised. Anglican Church of Australia bishop George Hearn described the celebrations as an “historical absurdity” for its ignorance of 40,000 years of Aboriginal life and culture.
The official slogan was “Living Together” which emphasised the theme of multi-culturism.
James Cook
The final secret goal was to continue the search for the Great South Land.
Cook reached the southern coast of New South Wales in 1770 and sailed north, charting Australia’s eastern coastline and claiming the land for Great Britain on 22nd August 1770.
‘Mabo’ Decision
On 3 June 1992 the High Court of Australia recognised that a group of Torres Strait Islanders, led by Eddie Mabo, held ownership of Mer (Murray Island).
In acknowledging the traditional rights of the Meriam people to their land, the court also held that native title existed for all Indigenous people.
This landmark decision gave rise to important native title legislation the following year and rendered terra nullius a legal fiction.
Native Title
Australian Federation
1901
Before establishing the Federation of Australia, it was 6 separate British colonies. Then they became the states of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Bringing them Home Report
1997
This report is a tribute to the strength and struggles of many thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people affected by forcible removal. We acknowledge the hardships they endured and the sacrifices they made. We remember and lament all the children who will never come home.
Conclusions: “indigenous families and communities have endured gross violations of their human rights. These violations continue to affect indigenous people’s daily lives. They were an act of genocide, aimed at wiping out indigenous families, communities, and cultures, vital to the precious and inalienable heritage of Australia”.
The Apology (The National Apology)
2008
On 13 February 2008, the Parliament of Australia issued a formal apology to Indigenous Australians for forced removals of Australian Indigenous children (often referred to as the Stolen Generations) from their families by Australian federal and state government agencies. The apology was delivered by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and is also referred to as the National Apology, or simply The Apology.
Autonomous Australia
In short, the Commonwealth of Australia was born in 1901 with Britain controlling foreign policy. Independence was offered in 1931 and taken up in late 1942.
From federation until World War 2, foreign policy was controlled by Britain, and Australia was expected to fight alongside Britain (as it did so in both world wars).
Despite becoming a country in 1901, it was not until 1940 that Australia established its first diplomatic mission outside Britain. It was not until the later 1930s that Australia’s external affairs department went from mainly focussing on trade and immigration, to that of the conventional diplomatic autonomy that exists today.
Uluru Statement (2017)
Native name for the monolith previously known as Ayers Rock
