Jackie Wolfe on Aboriginal Town Camping

Risk, Responsibility and the Welfare State. Eds. G. …, 2010

Aboriginal History Journal

Almost ten years ago, Denis Byrne noticed that Aboriginal heritage was gradually becoming foundational to our identity as a nation. Australia’s quest for a “longer past” necessitated acknowledgement of the continent’s Indigenous roots (Byrne 1996: 82). However, relatively little attention is being directed to analyzing the heritage of what Rapoport termed the more pragmatic manifestations of Aboriginal presence (Rapoport 1972) – for example, campsites. This paper proposes that considering increasing evidence for Aboriginal camping grounds not only surviving after settlement but became historic camps (‘fringe’ camps or town camps), these entities may have shaped the origin and character of our towns and suburbs to a far greater degree than is usually conceded. Examining the history of several camping grounds in and near Brisbane (Queensland), the author demonstrates their role in the founding of particular suburbs, and how the current location of many parks and reserves is a direct result of their endurance into the 1890s or even into modern times.

Aboriginal History Journal

One fine and warm winter morning in May 1942, the Poonbar, a medium-sized coastal vessel, steamed into the Endeavour River at Cooktown, North Queensland, and berthed at the town's wharf. After she tied up, over 200 Aboriginal people carrying a small amount of personal possessions emerged from a cargo shed on the wharf. The people were herded by about a dozen uniformed Queensland police as they boarded the boat. The loading, completed in just over an hour, was supervised by three military officers, two senior police and a civilian public servant. As the ship cast off, the public servant, who boarded the boat with the Aboriginal people, threw a coin to a constable on the wharf and shouted 'Wire Cairns for a meal!' Unfortunately, the wire did not arrive at Cairns in time, and as a result the party of Aboriginal people was given little food until they reached their destination, 1200 kilometres and two day's travel away. The war between Japan and the Allies was nearing Australia, and this forced evacuation of Aboriginal people was deemed necessary for 'national security' reasons. Although the evacuation has been written about by a number of scholars and Indigenous writers, the reasons for the order have not, I believe, been clearly established. Similarly, the identity of the forces -military or otherwise -that carried out the evacuation have never been conclusively determined. This article addresses these two issues alone. Japanese forces captured Singapore in February 1942, landing in New Guinea soon after. Darwin was bombed for the first time on 19 February, followed by more air raids in March and April. 2 In late March, the Deputy Director of the Queensland Department of Native Affairs, Cornelius O'Leary, wrote to the Home Secretary in Brisbane advising 'the evacuation of Cape Bedford aboriginals may be necessary': It is understood that the military authorities are considerably exercised by reason of the location and control of this Mission, and that representations

"Normalisation" was said to be a fundamental objective of Aboriginal land tenure reform in the Northern Territory between 2006 and 2010, including (most infamously) during the Federal Government's intervention into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities in 2007. In this article, I explore the key characteristics of "normalisation discourse" during this period and consider how these were reflected in the legal structure of the reforms. I find that normalisation discourse initially possessed 'colonial' attributes, including the consistent construction of Aboriginal communities as spatially-segregated, economically stagnant and socially dysfunctional. However, these characteristics became less prominent over time, later focusing on correcting the government's decades-old failure to secure tenure on Aboriginal land and standardising basic services and infrastructure in communities. This shift in rhetoric reflected the change in the legal structure of the reforms.

Aboriginal History, 2018

Traditional Aboriginal camps have been viewed as transient entities that evaporated with European settlement, being replaced by 'fringe camps.' Kerkhove presents evidence for Aboriginal base camps persisting on their original sites into recent historic times, making a vital contribution to local events and local economies. He argues that these entities greatly influenced the siting, design and basic character of our towns, suburbs, and urban green spaces.

In 2006, the Australian Government amended the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth) to enable the grant of township leases over Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory. It was a reform which attracted considerable debate. This article collates information about the two existing township leases, and examines this against the stated aims of township leasing. It is argued that a high level of confusion has characterised the implementation of these reforms, and that one of the risks of township leases is that they give the impression of doing more than they actually do. The article concludes by arguing that the Australian Government needs to pay greater attention to clarifying the rationale for its Aboriginal land reform policies.

In Arnhem Land, when the white people came, they wanted us to move off our homelands, into the missions and government settlements. Some people did, and some people always stayed on their homelands. In the larger communities, there was often fighting between clans because they didn't live like that before. Some of the people who had moved to the communities decided to go back to their homelands … We are very confused by what the Government has been doing to us lately. Has the Government changed its mind again, to stop treating us like people? ... We want both governments [Australian and Northern Territory] to recognise that there is a Land Law here that was here before either of them, and is still here (Our Home, Our Homeland 2009: 5). This quote captures how two Indigenous policy approaches in Australia -'protectionism' in the early 20th century and 'interventionism' in the early 21st century -have sought to contain and settle traditionally mobile peoples.

This report seeks to identify sites that illustrate the nationally significant history of Aboriginal segregation and assimilation in Australia. Government policies of segregation and assimilation policies have had a profound and lasting impact on Aboriginal people, their families and cultures, and this report approaches the task by first identifying stories and themes that emerge from Aboriginal lived experiences of these policies. The theme ‘From Segregation to Assimilation’ highlights the continuous process of colonial intervention in Aboriginal people’s lives from the earliest colonial settlements to the present day. The systematic application of segregation and assimilation policies led to increased levels of control over Aboriginal people through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The formal policies were abandoned in the later part of the twentieth century, but the legacies and scars of these practices remain central in Aboriginal stories and circumstances. This highly significant theme encompasses the most painful episodes in Aboriginal history, and extends into every jurisdiction in Australia.

Australian Journal of Political Science, 2018

Contemporary Australian Indigenous policy changes rapidly and regularly fails to deliver its stated aims. Additionally, political and social relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the Australian state remain complex and contested. This article draws on critical Indigenous theory, alongside the increasingly influential scholarly paradigm of settler colonialism, to draw these two elements together. It highlights the ongoing nature of colonial conflict, and the partisan nature of state institutions and processes. While policy is usually framed as a depoliticised, technical practice of public management for Indigenous wellbeing, I suggest that it also seeks to ‘domesticate’ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, perform their dysfunction and demonstrate state legitimacy. This is especially the case in Australia, which has a long tradition of framing domestic welfare policy – rather than legal agreements – as the ‘solution’ to settler colonial conflict.

In 1939, the Commonwealth of Australia formulated a new policy for ‘native administration’ which mapped a transition from ‘native tribes’ to ‘citizens’, staging a modernising Australia. In this article, I discuss the various processes of subjectivation at each point on the ‘long march’ of colonial ‘progress’ or settler colonial elimination. Writing a history of these linked colonial governmentalities casts light on practices of recognition, difference, and the self in the modern world.

2010

Introduction In this chapter we take the Northern Territory Intervention as a prism through which to explore a distinctive cultural shift that is currently underway in the governing of remote-living Aboriginal Australians. At the heart of this process, we argue, lies a shift from a focus on community to individuation that entails a profound contradiction. From one perspective the state can be interpreted as acting responsibly and decisively to reduce the risk posed by a section of its citizenry who represent a refusal to conform to mainstream social values. This refusal is viewed as constituting risk not just for the Australian nation, but also for Aboriginal communities and persons themselves. Yet such mainstreaming action will be shown to have opposite effects. Rather than working to re-establish the kinds of social forms through which ontological security might be fostered within this distinctive section of Australian society, government policy is increasingly geared towards prod...

2009

This article reviews amendments introduced in 2006 to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 to provide for a new type of leasing on Aboriginal land called ‘township leasing’. While the township leasing is commonly discussed with reference to ‘communal ownership’ and ‘individual ownership’, the article argues that their real impact is to implement new governance arrangements for land use decision-making in remote Aboriginal communities in a manner that transfers authority to central governments. The article contains a detailed analysis of the amendments as well as of the two existing township leases.

During the Protection era, Aboriginal people in Victoria frequently corresponded with colonial and state authorities. Aboriginal letter writers sometimes supported and sometimes opposed the Aboriginal Protection Board and station managers, in the process formulating a variety of demands for differently conceived rights – to reunion with family members, land, employment and freedom. This article suggests that this correspondence constituted an important tradition of political activism and asks whether gendered definitions of politics have led historians of Aboriginal political struggle to ignore most of the correspondence Aboriginal people sent to the Board and other authorities. By acknowledging the letter writers' strategies of accommodation, as well as the resistance that has been more widely acknowledged, this article suggests the necessity for some revision of the accepted genealogy of Aboriginal political struggle, and a reconceptualisation of the categories upon which it is based. This article has been peer-reviewed. Is there no way of putting a stop to this letter writing by natives. In my opinion these letters should be dropped in the waste paper basket whenever received and thus put an end to all unnecessary correspondence as natives do not know their own mind five minutes. Since the [name] family has returned, and receiving private letters from Mrs Bon the other natives are now under the impression this is the only way to get satisfaction. Discipline can

2011

The Northern Territory Land Rights legislation sought to translate into legislation the concepts of consultation, authority and decision making occurring in traditional land tenure systems (Finlayson 1999 cited in Rowse 2002:111). Given the complexity of such systems and the wide diversity between different Aboriginal groups, this has proved to be a particularly difficult undertaking. The principal representative mechanism in Woodward‟s recommendation to establish the Northern and Central Land Councils was that the traditional owners of any portion of land would be represented by a wider regional land council. This land council would be obliged to ask their consent before approving any use of the land proposed by a non-owner. In addition, the Land Council was obliged to ensure that any Aboriginal community or group affected by the proposed change in land use be consulted. This requirement for wide consultation while admirable in intent, has led to intractable conflict and debate in ...