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Sharing Indigenous culture

Our nation is home to the oldest continuous living culture in the world.

That is something we can all take pride in as a nation.

 

Upper body of Indigenous Australian man
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There is an Australia that we all know and love. But too often the story of our nation does not look at our history with honesty.

Learning more about Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples is important for moving forward and for all Australians to share in our national identity. It means understanding the past and looking to the future.

Building a nation for us all

  • 45,000 years ago | Longest living culture

    Rock engravings in South Australia suggest evidence of land inhabitancy making Aboriginal Australians the longest living culture in the world

  • 1869-1897 | Protection

    'Protection' laws in Victoria, NSW and Queensland oversee the lives of Aboriginal people.

  • 1901 | Not counted

    Australia becomes a 'Federation' under the Australian Constitution. Under the Constitution, Aboriginal people will not be counted in the census and the Australian Government can make laws about people of any race except Aboriginal people. This means that state laws continue to apply to Aboriginal people.

  • 1905-1915 | Laws removing children and moving people

    Laws in Western Australia, New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory enable the forced removal of children and moving Indigenous people to and from reserves.

  • 1937 | Assimilation is the goal

    Assimilation is adopted as the national policy: the destiny of the natives of aboriginal origin, but not of the full blood, lies in ultimate absorption … with a view to their taking their place in the white community on an equal footing with the whites.

    In 1951, the third government conference on 'native welfare' confirmed assimilation as the aim of 'native welfare' measures.

  • 1940 | NSW begins to undo damage

    The NSW Aborigines Protection Board loses its power to remove Indigenous children. The Board is renamed the Aborigines Welfare Board and is finally abolished in 1969.

  • 1967 | Vote yes for Aborigines

    A national referendum is held to amend the Constitution. Over 90% of voters say yes. Legally this means that Australians give power to the Australian Government to make laws for Aboriginal people and Aborigines are included in the census for the first time.

    But the 1967 referendum is more than legal changes; it is about all Australians coming together to recognise past wrongs and to move forward together.

    Read more about this

  • 1969 | No more removal for 'protection'

    All states repeal legislation allowing for the removal of Aboriginal children under the policy of 'protection'. In the following years, Aboriginal and Islander Child Care Agencies are set up to challenge removal applications and provide alternatives to the removal of Indigenous children from their families.

  • 1972 | Tent Embassy

    The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is pitched outside Parliament House in Canberra to demonstrate for land rights.

  • 1975 | Race discrimination is illegal

    The Australian Government passes the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

  • 1976 | Land rights begins

    The Australian Government passes the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. This law provides for recognition of Aboriginal land ownership, granting land rights to 11,000 Aboriginal people and enabling other Aboriginal people to lodge a claim for recognition of traditional ownership of their lands.

  • 1980 | Link-Up

    The Link-Up (NSW) Aboriginal Corporation is established. Link-Up provides family tracing, reunion and support for forcibly removed children and their families.

    It is followed by Link-Up (Brisbane) in 1984, Link-Up (Darwin) in 1989, Link-Up (Tas) in 1991, Link-Up (Vic) in 1992, Link-Up (SA) in 1999, Link-Up (Alice Springs) in 2000, and Link-Up (WA) in 2001.

    Read more about Link-Up

  • 1992 | The terra nullius lie

    The High Court of Australia makes its landmark Mabo v Queensland decision that Australia was never terra nullius, or empty land and that native title exists over some land.

  • 1993 | Native Title

    The High Court of Australia makes its landmark Mabo v Queensland decision that Australia was never terra nullius, or empty land and that native title exists over some land.

    Read more about Native Title

  • 1997 | Sorry

    The parliaments and governments of Victoria, Tasmania, ACT, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia all issue statements recognising and publicly apologising to the Stolen Generations.

  • 2000 | People's walk for reconciliation

    Hundreds of thousands of Australians walk for Reconciliation on 28 May in state and territory capital cities.

  • 2004 | Reconciliation

    The Australian Government establishes a memorial to the Stolen Generations at Reconciliation Place in Canberra.

  • 2008 | The Apology

    On 13 February 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, on behalf of the Australian Parliament, makes a historic national Apology to the Stolen Generations. The Apology acknowledges the past mistreatment of Indigenous peoples and recognises the grief, suffering and loss inflicted on the Stolen Generations.

    Watch more

  • 2009 | International declaration

    The Australian Government formally endorses the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Declaration specifically recognises that even though everyone is equally entitled to human rights, Indigenous people have not always enjoyed those rights.

    Read more about the Declaration

  • 2010-Now | Recognising Indigenous Australians

    The Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is established. The Panel’s job is to hear from Australians about the best way to recognise indigenous people in our Constitution.

    Do you have ideas?

You can learn more about the best way that our most important legal document can be a source of pride and recongnise our rich Indigenous culture. Click here to learn more.

82% of Australians want to recognise Indigenous peoples in the Australian Constitution.

What can I do?

Listen to a local Aboriginal radio station

Tune in to your local Aboriginal radio station and hear directly from your Indigenous community. Click here to find your local station.

Volunteer with an Indigenous community

Get to know Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and use your skills to develop communities and build great relationships. Find out more at Indigenous Community Volunteers.

See what else you can do

Discuss this issue

4 comments
Sarah McCormick
Posted on 21 December 2011
I would like to preface this comment with the assertion that I am a great admirer of the work that the AHRC does and I have a deep respect for its commissioners. This particular topic, however, does seem rather disingenuous, given that successive governments have seemed bent on destroying the world's oldest continuous living culture as exemplified by some of the practices of the northern territory intervention - for example, shutting down services to communities and making it impossible for people to live in their homelands, cutting out bilinual teaching in schools and then punishing families whose children no longer wish to attend as a result through income management, taking the dignity and freedom away from people by a blanket application of measures such as income management, refusing to consult effectively with individual communities and so on. While i understand that it is difficult for the Commission to comment on political issues such as this, I do think there has to be some acknowledgement that the more recent policies of our governments have not focused on respecting and valueing our oldest living culture but rather on assimilation.
Lou Dingle
Posted on 16 January 2012
Celebrating difference and diversity is fabulous and something the govt. is working with currently in indigenous affairs. This has been a great accomplishment in the last decade breaking away from sameness and what it really means to be indigenous, individual and culturally diverse. I believe the next natural progression would be to show all Australians the true key to what makes great relationship. That is, the capacity to constantly find what it takes as a nation to meet within one another's difference. If we can do that we are a great nation indeed.
MattC
Posted on 13 July 2012
To compare aboriginal cave paintings to the pyramids seems to me to be quite absurd. I am a great fan of equality, an equal opportunity for all to pursue their own happiness fairly and freely. The pyramids may be younger than the cave artwork, possibly by half but are substantially more amazing, the complexity and logistics of such a marvelous human achievement is mind boggling. Dot painting and spitting on hands is also an achievement in its own right. The Egyptian culture and peoples that poroduced the pyramids are nothing more than a step on the evolutionary stair case of human society. I am impressed the aboriginal cultures resisted the urge to develop with the patchwork of arab, european, african, asian and american cultures and peoples upon whose simple and insignificant collective progress the modern world is built. Importantly, should all cultures have followed the lead of the "traditional owners" of this great nation; then the "current owners" and the rest of the "developed" world would probably not suffer such horrible things as say "white guilt", faith in "climate change", "The Australian Greens", and given the inability to cause any form of harm through the evolution of organised religion and modern weaponry there would probably be no need for "asylum seekers" either. I wish we all just painted dots and lived in humpies. Oh wait if that was the case, then there would probably be no need for an NBN, so Labor would truly have nothing to crow about for the next election. I guess thats not such a bad thing either.
Commission
Posted on 14 July 2012
It's a simple statement of fact MattC. The petroglyphs are older than the Pyramids. Also, they aren't paintings in caves, but rock engravings which date back to the last Ice Age. You can find out more about the value of the art at: http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/ahc/national-assessments/dampier-archipelago/index.html

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