At the end of the year 2000, the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation handed its final report to the national Parliament at a ceremonial event at Parliament House in Canberra. This letter contained in the full report provides an overview of the decade-long work of the Council and a way forward for the nation to achieve… Read More »2000: Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Final Report presented
"It begins, I think with that act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our… Read More »1992: Redfern Speech by Prime Minister Paul Keating
On 18 December 1894 the South Australian Parliament passed the Constitutional Amendment (Adult Suffrage) Act. The legislation was the result of a decade-long struggle to include women in the electoral process. It not only granted women in the colony the right to vote but allowed them to stand for parliament. This meant that South Australia… Read More »1894: South Australian Parliament, the first in Australia to give women the right to vote
The Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) (NTA) is a law passed by the Australian Parliament that recognises the rights and interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in land and waters according to their traditional laws and customs. It established a process for claiming and recognising native title lands and waters in Australia. The NTA aims… Read More »1993: Passage of Native Title Bill by the Australian Senate
At the end of the 19th century, Australian colonies had concerns about who was migrating to Australia. With a rise in the number of migrants from China and the Pacific, many colonies passed tough immigration legislation. The Immigration Restriction Act was one of the first Commonwealth laws passed after Federation. It was based on the… Read More »1901: Enactment of Immigration Restriction Act (White Australian Policy)
In The Wik Peoples v The State of Queensland & Ors; The Thayorre People v The State of Queensland & Ors HCA 40 ('Wik'), the High Court held that native title rights could coexist on land held by pastoral leaseholders. The High Court decided that: - a pastoral lease does not necessarily confer rights of… Read More »1996: Wik High Court decision
1994: Commencement of the Native Title Act
2021 Australia Day Reflection from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council "We find ourselves pondering whether Australia will ever be the same after COVID-19? It might be more useful to ask whether it should be the same after the pandemic. Australia can continue to learn from the challenges of the virus and embrace the… Read More »Australia Day / Survival Day