Impact Of Assimilation Policy On Indigenous People

Since World War Two there have been many improvements and changes to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues but also some setbacks and bad policies. The assimilation policy made many issues for Indigenous people as their children were taken away and denied anything to do with their culture. The self determination policy was a step in the right direction, allowing Indigenous people more control over their lives yet the years of 1980’s and 1990’s consisted of many setbacks and struggles. Reconciliation involved coming together as one nation and this was helped by Kevin Rudd’s sorry speech. Over time issues for the Indigenous people of Australia have dramatically improved however along the way there have been a few hurdles.

Assimilation

These children became know as the stolen generation. The government took Aboriginal children, especially those who were half indigenous and half white. They were placed in institutions, foster homes or adopted out to teach them white ways and beliefs. In the institutions, girls were taught to be domestic servants for white people and boys were made to do farming and other hard manual tasks. These homes often denied any contact with the children’s families and did not teach them anything about their culture or heritage. An extract from the Bringing Them Home Report 1997 says, “As a child I had no mother's arms to hold me. No father to lead me into the world. Us taken away kids only had each other. All of us damaged and too young to know what to do.” From c.1950 - 1960 around 17% of Indigenous children were up for adoption and in 1950, in New South Wales, 300 children were put into foster care. They “weren't given the same love” and “were always treated different[ly].” These actions broke up families and created generations of Indigenous people who did not have any connection to anything, they did not know where they came from or who they were. The assimilation policy has created deep scars in the

However these were rarely implemented, creating great struggle and setback for the Indigenous people. There were some cases that gave Indigenous people their land back and two famous ones were the Gurindji stockmen from Newcastle Waters and Wave Hill cattle Stations and Eddie Mabo from Murray Island in the Torres Strait. Even though land was given back in these cases, in total not much land was returned to its traditional owners. South Australia gave back 103,000km2 of land to its traditional owners however the rest of the country did not follow. In New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland only 2% of land was given back or leased to Indigenous people with two thirds of this being infertile desert that the whites did not want. If Indigenous people ever wanted to get their land back there were many rules and regulations to make it hard for land to ever be given back. The land must have been vacant and the Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islander people had to prove continual occupancy of the land and traditional use. This was extremely hard for a lot of people because they had been taken away through the assimilation policy. Therefore they could not say they had continually occupied the land meaning they could not have it back. These rules were placed in the Native Title Act 1993 which actually gave Indigenous people less power