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could help for references if anyone is doing community or identity

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Charles Sturt University Research Output

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Communities are a source of identity. Every community has its distinct traditions, values, and norms. Communities provide a wealth of organized and deep rooted knowledge, which builds from countless interactions of various socio-political, socio-economic, and socio-cultural attributes that occur over time. This knowledge becomes the property of that particular community and plays an important role in shaping the identity structures of its members. The emergence of various communities, e.g. professional, academic, and virtual has provided the opportunity for individuals to acquire diverse knowledge by assuming membership in these communities. The interaction of various sub-identities of an individual through his/her membership in different communities continuously shapes the learning, thinking, and perceptual environment, which forms the nature of experiences, value preferences, and knowledge arrangements. This intricate and complex system of socialization shapes the identity of a person. The role of communities in shaping the personalities of its members depends on the nature of the knowledge that is organized in its socio-cultural traditions. Analysis of an individual's community affiliations can enable the researchers to comprehend the role that community specific knowledge plays in forming the identity.Consequently study of community memberships of an individual can help us to understand the identity dynamics of a person; furthermore examination of community knowledge can shed more light on social interaction process. Community knowledge, individual knowledge, and identity are the three constructs that need considerable attention in order to broaden and deepen our understanding of the relationship between a person and the community. This paper has taken the aforementioned stance to propose a theoretical framework. A framework that calls for the analysis of different interaction processes not only at different levels but also from diverse perspectives. It is hoped that proposed framework will provide new viewpoints to LIS research and resultantly will benefit both the academic as well as the professional practices.

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Community, identity, & knowledge: A conceptual framework for LIS Research

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Communities are a source of identity. Every community has its distinct traditions, values, and norms. Communities provide a wealth of organized and deep rooted knowledge, which builds from countless interactions of various socio-political, socio-economic, and socio-cultural attributes that occur over time.

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Open access peer-reviewed chapter

By Clair Andersen

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.86677

Abstract

This chapter will discuss the challenges faced by Aboriginal people seeking recognition of their identity as Indigenous Australians. It will explore government policies, their impact on identity formation and the ongoing impact of colonisation on education and health outcomes for Indigenous people in Australia. The issues raised will include historical and contemporary experiences as well personal values and attitudes. The strategies and programs introduced within educational settings as part of an inclusive practice regime will be highlighted. Aboriginal people have faced many challenges, and continue to do so in postcolonial times, including challenges to their identity.

1. Introduction

Sir William Deane, Governor-General, Inaugural Lingiari Lecture

the past is never fully gone. It is absorbed into the present and the future. The present plight, in terms of health, employment, education, living conditions and self-esteem, of so many Aborigines must be acknowledged as largely flowing from what happened in the past (....) the new diseases, the alcohol and the new pressures of living were all introduced. ([ 1], p. 20)

Australia's First peoples have survived the following common experiences, invasion, dispersal from their land as well as suffering and loss due to introduced diseases. It is important for all Australians both settlers and migrants to understand the enduring relationship of Aboriginal peoples to their Land and the importance of these relationships for health and well-being.

While Silas Roberts, the first chairman of the Northern Land Council said 'when deprived of their Land, our people are like Christians without souls, wandering aimlessly, people without a purpose' [ 2]; Auntie Jean Carter, Community Elder, states, 'We're not disposed people. We still walk this land. We still are the owners of this land' [ 3].

These comments are indicative of the continuing debate around the identity of Aboriginal people and their connection to land with the ongoing impact of colonisation in Australia.

2. Who is indigenous in Australia?

The current Australian definition of Indigeneity states that an Indigenous person is one who:

has Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent

identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person

is accepted as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander by the community in which he or she lives.

This definition developed by the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs in the 1980s [ 4] is widely accepted within government departments, statutory bodies and institutions, but is sometimes contested by Aboriginal groups as imposed. Many Aboriginal people find themselves with questions about their identity. Some Aboriginal people have strong knowledgeable identities. Others are unsure of their identity. Others are discovering their identity. Some are proud of their identity. Others are not. Some Aboriginal people feel caught between two worlds-white and black. People who do not know their stories and history may not be sure of their identity, this in turn impacts on how they feel about themselves and how they relate to service providers including health and education institutions.

One example is that of Bronwyn Carlson, an Illawarra woman who always knew her family had been 'touched by the tar brush' (p. 1) but was unsure about this aspersion for the first 30 years of her life. It was only while attending Wollongong University as mature-aged student that she came to appreciate what her recently-clarified Aboriginal ancestry 'meant' (p. 6), and this awakening gave her a belonging that had been sorely missed during her troubled youth. Her declarations of Indigeneity however raised new concerns by attracting opposition from White Australians, and members of the Aboriginal community. 'After what I had been through', Carlson writes, 'I did not expect to be questioned about my family, and where we hailed from, to validate my claim to Aboriginality' (p. 6). Despite obtaining a 'Confirmation of Aboriginality', and employment within the Aboriginal organisations tasked with awarding confirmation certificates, Bronwyn continues to be 'abused, slandered and libelled' (p. 10) by those who doubt her claim to Indigeneity mainly because she has a New Zealand accent [ 5, 46].

The power of people to say who they are, to define their own identity and to relate their history is fundamental to their existence. The right to Aboriginal identity is affirmed by the United Nations [ 47], which states self-identification is a fundamental right underlined in a number of human rights documents. This right to Aboriginal identity was confirmed through a high court challenge in Tasmania ([ 6], FCA 389).

In Australia Aboriginal people have been hostage, in the main, to images created by non-Aboriginal Australians. There are different stories, for example-1788-Aboriginal people call it the invasion and non- Aboriginal people call it British settlement. The history since 1788 has had a dramatic impact on identity.

Behrendt [ 7] suggests that:

The tensions between Indigenous Australians and the dominant culture are wrapped up in identity: how Australians see themselves, how they see others and how they want society to respect who they are... How societies deal with 'otherness' and 'sameness' will impact on their ability to allow individuals freedom from oppression and enough scope for the exercise of liberty. ([7], p. 76)

According to Stuurman [ 8]

...We have learned that institutionalized violence is carried out in many ways. You don't need a gun to kill a man: all you have to do is deny him his self-respect and over a period of years you will kill him, you mentally castrate him. The only way to counteract this thing, this slow death, is to enthuse in Blacks, very aggressively, a sense of Aboriginality, self-awareness, a cultural and personal identity as a part of a national group, as an Aboriginal society. We see that Blacks are poverty stricken and completely defenceless as far as economic power is concerned, subject to manipulation by the white power structure, being used as cheap labour. We cannot counteract this white structure. What we can do and what we are trying to do, is instilled in the Black person a sense of self-awareness and self-respect. This is the only way we can survive nowadays.

While Everett [ 9] explains that, being Aboriginal is based on spiritual-cultural beliefs which are connected to the worldly universe, and can be defined as follows:
'We can see Aboriginality as a philosophical set of rules that are manifested in customary cultural practices which are set within a belief in the Great Spirit which comprises our Spiritual All. Aboriginality is the recognition by peoples that they are citizens of the worldly universe. The Earth is what nurtures us all - flora, fauna, rocks, water and air - and humans. The Earth is our Earth Mother and we are all citizens of our earth Mother. That is a core within the full meaning of Aboriginality'. 'It is about showing respect for all entities of the natural world as equal citizens of our Earth Mother, and as equal manifestations of the Spirit World. It is an education in doing. [Aboriginal] ...education is not simply about human needs and self-interests, but wholly about sharing life-giving sustenance between people and other entities of the natural world. The doing is about living together in respect, about demonstrating respect through protecting other's interests. If, for example, we pollute our water citizen then we have failed to respect and protect it and thus the water will be impure and cause illness to the water and other citizens who need it' [10].

3. What does it mean to be Aboriginal in Australia today?

This question was asked of Aboriginal people in the Blak Side Story project in Footscray, Victoria. Their answers are recorded on video at http://www.cake.net.au/blaksidestory/quilt.html

Further comments regarding identity include:

Aboriginal people define Aboriginality not by skin colour but by relationships.
'You can only be a proud Aboriginal person if you carry your own learning and cultural lifestyle with you'. Galarrwuy Yunupingu, Chairman Yothu Yindi Foundation ([11], p. 37) 'To me, Aboriginality is about that shared experience, that shared culture and that shared pride'. McQuire [12], Aboriginal journalist (NIT 10/7/2008 p. 25) Is sitting on the fence between white culture and black culture, not really belonging to either... In going through a white school system, he (sic) has been forced to aspire towards lower middleclass values. He has been conditioned to up hold and try to keep white material values. He is out in a position where he is caught in a tug of two cultures. There are two pulls on this black kid: he doesn't know which way to go - to forsake his Aboriginal identity and become an imitation white? 'For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples it is our beliefs, our culture, and our family histories that contribute to our sense of who we are and what we mean to others. They are our source of belonging-and they anchor us and steer our course through our lives' [13], Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner (SMH 25/11/2011). 'Once we were too black and now we are too white. We reject that. Black or white, we are and always will be Aboriginal because of our unique cultural experience and identity. Aboriginality is not a question of skin colour-it is about our cultural connection to our communities and our history, a history that is alive and thriving'. Abigail Burchill, President Tarwirri Indigenous Law Students and Lawyers Association ([45], p. 4)
Coe [ 14] goes on to argue that the Aboriginal child in school:

This leads to the place of culture and identity for Indigenous students in Australia and the ways to develop, foster and encourage educational participation and success. A crucial element is the place of, and practices around, Indigenous culture and identity within the Australian educational system. For many Indigenous students and their families there is a clash between dominant educational culture and curriculum and their own culture and identity. Not only is English not always the first (or even second) language of many Indigenous students, but for those who predominantly speak English, the cultural use and meanings of language can be very different. Indigenous ways of learning and interacting and non-Indigenous ways of learning and interacting also do not necessarily coincide. The result of such cultural differences can be an exclusion of the Indigenous student from engaging in classroom activities, even if the student is present in class. A lack of recognition of Indigenous culture and identity from the school culture and identity can result in the effective exclusion of the Indigenous student and their family from the school community.

Hopefully this is changing with the introduction of the following professional standards for graduates in Teacher Education by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL):

1.4 Strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, and 2.4 Understand and respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to promote reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians [ 15].

4. Culture, and identity in education

The importance of the recognition of Indigenous students' culture and identity must not be overlooked. Curricula in Australian schools tend to reflect and transmit the values and styles of non-Indigenous society, with little regard to Indigenous culture and society.

Many educators are now striving to incorporate an Indigenous perspective in their teaching plans, and although this will help to educate non-Indigenous Australians about Aboriginal ways, it will not completely address the academic success of Indigenous students. In 1987 the NAEC (National Aboriginal Education Council n.d.) identified the clash between the schooling system and the home environment as a key factor in the educational underachievement of Indigenous students. In response, the NAEC recommended the following policies for Indigenous education, which remain relevant today:

1. Education for Aboriginal people must be a process that builds on what Aboriginal people are by recognising and developing their natural potential and not by destroying their cultural heritage. Changes to the school system would enable a strong Aboriginal identity to be a positive education factor.

2. Aboriginal studies must become an integral part of the education of every Australian. It must be taught with a high degree of respect and understanding to develop an accurate knowledge of Australian history, Aboriginal cultures and lifestyles.

3. The educational services offered to both traditional and non-traditional Aboriginal people must aim for and be capable of developing and strengthening knowledge of and pride in their cultural heritage, as well as obtaining academic and technological skills required of Australians today. To ensure effective learning, the latter must be acquired in harmony with the Aboriginal person's own cultural values, identity and choice of lifestyle, whether they are residing in an urban, rural, traditional community or homeland centre.

4. To ensure the effectiveness of education services for Aboriginal people, they must play the major part in delivery of those services. This requires immediate and substantial change in policy, and implementation of new programs to train and employ Aboriginal people in the various fields of education so that they can take responsibility for implementing policies and delivering programs in Aboriginal education.

A school's engagement with Indigenous parents is also a vital part of improving the effectiveness of Indigenous education. Aboriginal parents are very aware of the importance of education for their children and all want their children to succeed. But when parents do not share the same values embodied in schooling, they are less inclined to encourage educational success. Many Aboriginal parents also lack the experience, knowledge and resources to aid their child's education, not to mention limited or negative experiences in their own schooling.

For many Indigenous people, their past experience of the education system means that 'schools were just another invention by which white Australian society sought to control their lives' and a means 'of dislocating Aboriginal children from Aboriginal culture' [ 16]. More importantly, schooling failed to reflect and/or include Aboriginal values and learning styles. Indigenous parents continue to express the desire for their children to be able to function in both their own culture and the wider Australian community. That is, they want their children to be educated, but not at the expense of losing their identity and their culture.

There are four principal components of the curriculum process that impact on student learning: the teacher, including the ways in which the teacher makes decisions, instructs and transmits knowledge; the students, who are active participants in educational process; the social context within which interaction occurs; and, finally, the content of the curriculum. We need to focus on making changes within each component to influence the outcomes of schooling for Aboriginal students.

Giroux [ 17] states that educators need to approach learning not merely as the acquisition of knowledge but also as the production of cultural practices that offer students a sense of identity, place and hope. This approach-the integration of culture and cultural practices into teaching and learning-is central to successful education for Indigenous students. Crucial to teaching and learning is the relationship between the school, teachers and students and their communities. While Partington [ 18] informs us, 'at times it may be appropriate to focus on culturally instruction; at other times the elimination of racism and oppression may be an essential step in the process of education, and for some compensatory education to rectify deprived circumstances may be needed. We need to engage all approaches in the education of Aboriginal students by assuming a holistic view of the participants in the process, the situation in which learning occurs and the curriculum content which is desirable.'

As well as an approach which stresses the necessary attributes of schools in creating positive schooling outcomes for Indigenous students, literature is emerging around the importance of student identity in understanding the Indigenous experience of schooling and related success [ 19, 20, 21]. McDonald identifies the multi-layered issues of identity Aboriginal students have to negotiate between home, school, peers and community. He also stresses the point that to develop positive self-identity, there needs to be a perceived value in school as students and an experience of school success ([ 21], p. 5).

While Herbert states, 'Prior to attempting to address cultural issues, it is critical to recognise the complexity of the task and the huge diversity of the cultural experience of individual Aboriginal people. The task may be daunting but there is no doubt that the need of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to maintain their cultural identity must not be overlooked.' The words of an Indigenous Education Worker highlight this issue:

There is also a bit of an identity crisis too, in terms of how teachers and the school system perceive Aboriginals. A lot of these mixed marriages where the Aboriginal kids are not dark, 'What are you doing in this class, you're not Aboriginal. Why do you want to do Aboriginal Studies; you should be over there doing something else.' There is a lot of misinterpretation about what it is to be Aboriginal - who is an Aboriginal? They seem to run into a lot of conflict, not only from the teachers but also from the Aboriginal kids who are dark. Unless they know the parents, or they come from that area, particularly if they move around a lot, there is a lot of conflict within themselves, like who they are, what they are. What is an Aboriginal? The school system thinks that an Aboriginal comes from the Northern Territory ([22], p. 15)

In Australia today many Aboriginal people live in cities, towns and other urban areas away from their traditional lands. Many have maintained their 'identity' and culture through family and Aboriginal community organisations. These networks give physical and emotional support and provide a sense of security and belonging. Aboriginal community organisations have been established with a focus on meeting specific Aboriginal needs. Generally Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are reluctant to access mainstream services, as the delivery of specialist services through Aboriginal organisations is more acceptable.

This is true within higher education settings as well where the establishment of Indigenous Support Centres have aided increased participation and success of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students [ 23]. One such example is the Murina pathway program delivered by the Riawunna Centre at the University of Tasmania, in which students confirm their identity is welcomed and affirmed - Murina students 'have celebrated their identity in a place they never thought they could' ([ 24]).

5. Education is vital

For the future empowerment, self-determination and advancement of Indigenous peoples and communities education is the key. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) states that through education, Indigenous people have the right to control, protect and develop Indigenous cultures and knowledge; and the right to an education without discrimination.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education in Australia is still largely dominated by western educative frameworks however this should change with the new professional standards for Teacher Education graduates.

Australia's Indigenous population is under-represented in the university system. According to the (Behrendt Review, [ 25]) Indigenous people comprised 2.2% of the overall population, but only 1.4% of student enrolments at university in 2010, including only 1.1% of higher degree by research enrolments. Recommendation 10 of this review (2012) states:

That universities adopt a whole-of-university approach to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student success so that faculties and mainstream support services have primary responsibility for supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, backed up by Indigenous Education Units (p. 19)

Implementing a Whole-of-University Approach to Improving Indigenous Access and Achievement ([ 26] pp. 3-5) identified the following seven key characteristics as necessary and could not work without each other: Acknowledgement of culture; Clear governance and accountability arrangements; Policy leadership; Processes; Capability; and Connection with communities.

Higher education can improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people:

Through universities, aspirations are raised, opportunities created and lives transformed;

The role of universities in creating social mobility is well illustrated by those who are the 'first in their family' [ 27];

Providing pathways into positions of greater influence will drive real improvements for Indigenous communities and the nation as a whole [ 28].

The literature highlights the importance of the 3 R's: respect, recognition and relationship to improve success in education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students [ 29, 30].

5.1 In our primary and secondary schools we need

Caring, interested, nurturing teachers dedicated to Aboriginal Education.

Culturally safe learning environments.

Curriculum that is, student focused and responsive to their individual needs.

Clear pathways to further study and career planning.

Contact with roles models because you cannot be what you cannott see [ 31].

5.2 In our universities we need

An overarching Indigenous strategy with other supporting strategies linked to core areas such as Indigenous Learning and Teaching and Indigenous Research.

Cultural programs across Whole -of -university that create a culturally safe and culturally responsive environment for all students, staff and university community.

Designated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander spaces and recognition of their contribution to the institution.

Respectful and reciprocal collaboration with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to achieve quality outcomes in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander higher education.

Whole-of-university recognition of Indigenous workforce esteem factors.

Indigenous employment performance targets for Vice Chancellors and other senior executives.

Innovative recruitment strategies that promote the academy as a preferred career option and targets Indigenous graduates and final year graduands.

Implementing these practices across all education sectors will enhance the wellbeing, resilience and success of Indigenous students.

5.3 The current situation

The Universities Australia Indigenous Strategy 2017-2020 is driving and focusing effort in the sector [ 32]. In response, the University of Tasmania (UTAS) has developed and is implementing a Strategic Plan for Aboriginal Engagement 2017-2020 focusing on enrolment, retention and success, Indigenous knowledge and employment strategies [ 33]. It has also relocated the Riawunna Centre for Aboriginal Education, a place for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples studying at UTAS to a central position on campus, www.utas.edu.au/riawunna.

The UTAS Aboriginal Engagement strategy is guiding efforts on the participation and success of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students across the University, while the Riawunna Centre in its new location is more accessible to Hobart students and with its full complement of Higher Education Officers is well placed to recruit and support students on all campuses. The formation of an Aboriginal Leadership Group comprising the Pro Vice Chancellor Indigenous Leadership and Research, the Riawunna Head of Service and the Aboriginal Higher Education Advisor along with the appointment of an Aboriginal Employment Officer sends a strong message that UTAS is serious about Aboriginal education and employment.

5.4 Closing the Gap 2018 Report

As we look back on the 10 years that the Closing the Gap framework has been in place, we can see gains being made through the concerted efforts of states and territories working together to address common goals agreed by the Council of Australian Governments in 2008:

The annual growth rate of Supply Nation registered Indigenous businesses is an average of 12.5%.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, on average, are living longer and factors contributing to the gap such as death from circulatory disease (heart attack and stroke) are going down.

Around 14,700 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are enrolled in early childhood education the year before full-time school, and there have been improvements in literacy and numeracy.

More Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are staying in school through to Year 12 [ 34].

While closing the employment gap is challenging, we know educational attainment opens pathways to greater economic opportunity and can make an important difference in the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

5.5 My contribution

For more than 30 years I have been actively involved in the development of policies to improve the education outcomes for First Australians and learning resources to enhance the knowledge of all students about Australia's rich history and its Indigenous peoples. One resource which has been particularly successful is the cultural safety program Come Walk with Us, which was recognised with a Teaching and Learning Merit Award in 2017. This program was developed collaboratively with Aboriginal community members who were keen to share their experience to enrich the understanding of future graduates. Initially it was used to underpin the health curriculum at UTAS, as a well-trained health workforce will help to secure improved health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The program has since been extended across several degrees at the university and is in demand from external agencies. This demand is largely the result of UTAS graduates gaining employment in the sector and recommending the program for staff development in their respective agencies, including Primary Health Tasmania, Diabetes Tasmania, Rural Health Tasmania and Population Health Tasmania.

The development of effective health care delivery for Australia's First Peoples is currently one of the underpinning strategies to improve Indigenous health outcomes. Better informed health professionals and a well-trained health workforce will help to secure and sustain health improvements for Indigenous Australians. Responding to the poor education and health of Indigenous Australians at UTAS started with a Teaching and Learning grant to develop the CWWU program and digital Health Theme Bank to provide resources for staff to use in their teaching.

It is acknowledged that practitioners working with Indigenous Australians need a diverse range of skills to deliver care and prevent the development of chronic illness [ 35, 36, 37]. Learning these skills is likely to be more effective if integrated within the structure of the existing curriculum; this approach underpinned the health curriculum project of which Come Walk With Us is a key strategy. The program assists staff and students to gain some initial understandings to support the ongoing integration of Indigenous content across their studies at the University.

Come Walk with Us offers an introductory three -hour safe learning environment workshop with a Tasmanian Aboriginal context, described as a 'walk' through Aboriginal history in Tasmania. It is now a mandatory core part of the following courses: medicine, pharmacy, psychology, and social work, and is an elective in education and nursing.

Where CWWU is a core component of a course, an exam question is developed in consultation with the unit or course co-ordinator for inclusion in the end of semester exam to assess understanding of the impact of social determinants of health on Indigenous Australians.

At the end of each CWWU session participants are invited to complete a feedback sheet. This information provides insight on how they have responded to the session and alerts any gaps for future inclusion. The content has evolved over time in response to participant feedback and to include new significant achievements on the path to improving the health and education of Indigenous Australians. Since CWWU was first developed in 2004 it has been revised and updated every 2 years to keep content current. Following are some examples of feedback provided by participants.

Feedback from staff:

The activity-based approach is excellent - well done - such a wonderful experience.

A great opportunity to gain some fundamental knowledge of Aboriginal history.

This journey dispelled some untrue stories.

It was great to learn more about Aboriginal history in Tasmanian. Very good for increasing awareness and consideration for including Aboriginal history and knowledge in my teaching.

Should be compulsory for every Tasmanian.

Thanks for today's session it was great value, a lot of the stuff I understood from my own work background which I tried to reflect in my feedback but I just wanted to add that it was a really good introduction for those that have not had much exposure to Aboriginal culture and particularly Tasmanian Aboriginal history.

This session is invaluable to a personal and intellectual understanding of the impact of: the colonisation of Tasmania on the Aboriginal people of this island; understanding NI [non-Indigenous] culture; and understanding the fluidity of ethics. It is also important for a fuller understanding of the rationale for the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership [AITSL] standards.

Feedback from students:

Thank you for demonstrating the intensity of this era in history.

The map is powerful and thought provoking.

The workshop has helped me to understand that I need to learn more.

The history was related to real life stories/events - made it easier to understand. The activities made workshop interactive and interesting.

I liked the interactive 'journey' we were able to follow and be a part of, having us take a walk in their shoes.

High levels of interaction, lots of questions asked which promoted active listening.

Evidence points to the pivotal role of cultural identity in shaping wellbeing for Indigenous Australians and other indigenous peoples around the world, and also because stronger cultural identity appears to promote greater participation and achievement in education and training [ 38], it is imperative that our university courses are inclusive of Australia's Indigenous cultures and histories to enhance the successful completion of studies by Indigenous students so they can more readily provide for their families, and contribute to their communities and the broader society. The CWWU program makes an important contribution to doing this at UTAS.

All programs and services for Indigenous Australians should be based on 'cultural respect-recognition and respect of the inherent rights and traditions of Indigenous Australians which incorporates a holistic approach involving partnership, resilience building and accountability' [ 39]. This is the message promoted to students and staff at UTAS to try to counter the view that universities in Australia continue to be places of white habitus (Bourdieu, [ 40]) where race capital ensures reproduction of white privilege, whereby Indigenous needs are not addressed [ 41, 42].

To further address this concern my other projects have focused on the story of place, the stories of the land on which the University is situated. This work involves Aboriginal people through the formation of reference groups and has facilitated the creation of rich resources including The Orb and the Aboriginal Story Map which can be used as teaching resources in schools and the university as well as by the general public to enhance learning and understanding.

A current project is the Linking of Two Bays which aims to provide access to information about the University locations and the link with Palawa places to engage students and staff with the deep history of the island of Tasmania in Australia.

The project was initiated as a Community Engagement project during 2017 with stakeholders highlighting the following:

1. The need for non-Aboriginal people to learn more about the contribution made to history by Aboriginal people in Tasmania; and

2. The importance of Aboriginal peoples to identify, record and write their own histories of self and of country. The project team comprised six members who were joined by four major Aboriginal community groups, and more than 60 people have been involved in creating the resource.

We have called this project the Linking of Two Bays to show the ongoing connection between Emu Bay in Burnie and Sandy Bay in Hobart. This resource will provide access to a wide audience to learn more about Tasmania's Aboriginal history. It is designed for everyone to use, residents, tourists, students and teachers. It will also continue to evolve with ongoing collaboration and development.

By intertwining historical perspectives we share that the sites are living, that there is language and a message to be heard. The voice of the land may have diminished, but signs of a transformation are evident, and a conciliation of these voices enables real listening to ancient insights and deeper participation with place.

This digital story of place project has revealed Aboriginal names, language and history of place to encourage greater understanding of the islands' deep history. It also enables UTAS to foster attachment, belonging and identity for Indigenous students [ 43].

6. Conclusion

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander higher education needs to be everybody's business, and not the sole responsibility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff. This is now reflected in UTAS's new strategic plan, but it also needs to be the focus of attention and effort at all levels of schooling from Kindergarten to Year 12 and in all education and training institutions. Our students need to be supported and encouraged throughout their learning journey, they need to believe in the benefits of education and they need to see and hear their peoples' voices in the learning materials and have contact with their own inspiring role models.

Our current arrangements seem to be working well but we need to

work collaboratively with schools, colleges and training providers including TAFE institutes;

provide clear pathway and alternative entry information to students and develop relationships with key people who are best placed to do this;

create opportunities for students to connect personally with the university through social events on campus involvement in targeted specialised programs to explore career and study options such as the tunapri nursing, tunapri education and tunapri STEM programs.

We also need to maintain and expand the provision of bursaries awarded at the end of year 10 for years 11 and 12 and continue financial support with scholarships for university, as these send a strong message to students and their family that we believe they can be successful.

These initiatives are needed across the nation as the population of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders is young and growing each year [ 44, 45].

Our students need to believe they can come to university, will be supported, are welcome and will not have their identity challenged. While our governments must continue to focus effort and resources on improving education and employment outcomes for Australia's First Peoples.

Conflict of interest

I confirm there are no conflicts of interest.

Clair Andersen (June 17th 2019). Exploring Aboriginal Identity in Australia and Building Resilience, Indigenous, Aboriginal, Fugitive and Ethnic Groups Around the Globe, Liat Klain-Gabbay, IntechOpen, DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.86677. Available from:

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Exploring Aboriginal Identity in Australia and Building Resilience | IntechOpen

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This chapter will discuss the challenges faced by Aboriginal people seeking recognition of their identity as Indigenous Australians. It will explore government policies, their impact on identity formation and the ongoing impact of colonisation on education and health outcomes for Indigenous people in Australia.

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Indigenous children in Australia who live in families that experienced forced separations in much of the twentieth century are more likely than other Indigenous children to have poor health and negative school experiences, according to a landmark government report released this month.

As many as one in three Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were taken from their families and communities between 1910 and the 1970s, under racist government policies that tried to force Aboriginal people to assimilate with white Australians. The children were brought up in institutions or foster homes, or were adopted by white families. The Australian government formally apologized to members of these 'Stolen Generations' in 2008.

In the latest report, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, a government-funded statistics agency, used existing data from surveys of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to conduct the first national study of how the forced separations have affected children in subsequent generations. Previous reports looked at the impacts of these policies on the Stolen Generations themselves, and on their adult descendants.

"What all of this work around Stolen Generations is showing is that compared to other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the Stolen Generations and their descendants are far worse off," says Richard Weston, a descendant of the Meriam people from the Torres Strait, and chief executive of the Healing Foundation in Canberra, a government-funded organization that is working towards healing for the Stolen Generations and their descendants, and which commissioned the report. "Trauma stays with people, and its impacts are far-reaching and they're profound," says Weston.

Mostly worse off

The report examined health, cultural and socio-economic measures for about 7,900 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children under the age of 15 who were living in households with at least one member of the Stolen Generations. These measures were compared with those of about 40,800 Indigenous children whose households included no adults who had been removed from their families as children. The relationships between the children and the members of the Stolen Generation in their households were not reported.

The analysis showed that 17.2% of Indigenous children living in Stolen Generations households reported having missed school without permission in the previous year, compared with 4.1% of the reference group. Children in Stolen Generation families were also nearly twice as likely to report having been "treated unfairly" at school because they were Indigenous, and 26% of Indigenous children living in Stolen Generations households rated their health as poor, compared with 19.2% of the comparison population.

Children living in Stolen Generations households were also 1.8 times as likely to have experienced stress in the previous 12 months, and 60% less likely to live in a home owned by a household member.

The analysis also considered the effects of other factors on the children's health and socio-economic measures irrespective of whether they lived in a Stolen Generations household, such as age and gender, and whether the children lived in a remote area or in a household with someone who was employed, had completed school or had been incarcerated. The results show that removal has intergenerational effects even after controlling for these factors.

The report concludes that children living in a Stolen Generations household were more likely to experience adverse outcomes than were other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and that this "demonstrates a transfer of intergenerational poverty and trauma".

"The results from the survey show how much suffering is still being endured from these policies," says Maggie Walter, a Palawa woman from Tasmania and a sociologist at the University of Tasmania in Hobart. "It is ricocheting through generations."

But the report did find that Indigenous children living in Stolen Generations households were twice as likely as Indigenous children not living in these households to identify with a clan, tribal or language group, and to recognize an area as homeland.

Weston says this could suggest that cultural identity has been a source of strength and resilience for members of the Stolen Generations.

Although Walters thinks the report shines a light on the difficulties these children face, she worries that focusing on households will inadvertently place the blame on them. "The risk with all of these things is that somehow it becomes Aboriginal families' and communities' fault that they are still living with the repercussions of those dreadful policies," she says. "What we need to be looking at is wider social and cultural reality in which that family, both current and previous generations, have lived their lives."

Addressing trauma

Weston thinks the trauma caused by racist policies such as the forced removal of children is the root cause of the fact that Indigenous Australians, on average, die about ten years earlier than non-Indigenous Australians. Studies of the effects of childhood trauma in the United States show that it can increase the risk of substance misuse and mental and physical ill-health, and can limit employment opportunities.

But Weston says government initiatives are not adequately addressing trauma, and this is why, despite numerous policies over the past ten years, the life expectancy of Indigenous Australians has yet to improve significantly. The government acknowledges that the country is not on track to meet its goal of closing the life-expectancy gap by 2031.

Some researchers are also worried that the trauma is being repeated today, in Indigenous children who are being removed from their families under state child-welfare laws. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children represented 5.5% of Australian children under 18 in 2016-17, but 36.9% of all children placed in out-of-home care.

Walter says it is a contradiction for governments to say that they want to improve Indigenous life expectancy when Indigenous children are still being placed in out-of-home care. Removing children from their communities is contributing to these gaps, she says.

Although government policies state that Indigenous children should be placed with their extended family or families in their community before non-Indigenous carers, this isn't always possible.

The high proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care is a concern, says Ken Wyatt, a Noongar, Yamatji and Wongi man and the country's minister for Indigenous Australians. Although child-protection systems are the responsibility of states and territories, Wyatt says, the national government is working to address the underlying factors that contribute to children being placed in out-of-home care, including intergenerational trauma.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01948-3

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Trauma of Australia's Indigenous 'Stolen Generations' is still affecting children today

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A report shows that children living with adults who were forcibly separated from their families are more likely to face a host of challenges. A report shows that children living with adults who were forcibly separated from their families are more likely to face a host of challenges.

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Stories from the Stolen Generations in Australia have formed an integral part of the curriculum in Australian schools for many years. Teachers in both primary and secondary schools are required to include this 'difficult knowledge' in their programs. But most teachers do not have the skills or the training to teach about the experiences of trauma, or to recognise the impact that these experiences may have on their students. Current approaches to teaching about trauma in schools has produced what Judith Butler (2004) calls "derealisation of loss", where humanity is evacuated through the historical images and YouTube videos that are shown to students. We argue that the experiences of the Stolen Generations cannot be captured through representation, or through logical and reasoned explanations of history. We leverage the concept of affect as a frame for conceptualising how to teach about the experiences of trauma. Our aim is to develop a trauma informed pedagogy that is able to assist teachers to teach about trauma in schools, and the paper explains how this is being developed through a trial with preservice teachers enrolled at a university in Sydney, Australia. The trial has been running for two years and functions as a forerunner to developing trauma informed principles for use by teachers in primary and secondary schools.

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Stolen generations: teaching about the experiences of trauma

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Stories from the Stolen Generations in Australia have formed an integral part of the curriculum in Australian schools for many years. Teachers in both primary and secondary schools are required to include this 'difficult knowledge' in their programs. But most teachers do not have the skills or the training to teach about the experiences of trauma, or to recognise the impact that these experiences may have on their students.

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The ‘Stolen Generations’ Testimonies’ project is an initiative to record on film the personal testimonies of Australia’s Stolen Generations Survivors and share them online.

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Murri School Report Launch | Healing Foundation

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We are an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisation supporting the healing of Stolen Generations survivors, families and communities.

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Coronavirus will devastate Aboriginal communities if we don't act now
Monday, 23rd March 2020 at 6:05 pm
Aboriginal people are at greater risk of severe illness from COVID-19 than non-Aboriginal people. But plans to protect remote communities and keep the virus out are progressing too slowly, write James Ward and Jason Agostino.
As the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, we need to ensure the most vulnerable people in our communities aren't left behind. This includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, especially those living in remote and very remote areas.

COVID-19 particularly impacts the elderly and those with underlying conditions such as cardiovascular (heart) disease and diabetes.

For Aboriginal Australians, COVID-19 has great potential to wreak havoc in our communities.

This overcrowding is worse in remote settings, which face significant challenges in containing and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic because:

health services are already at capacity

the workforce is already reliant on fly-in-fly-out staff, including many from New Zealand which has imposed quarantine restrictions

there is little access to testing for COVID-19, with long delays for results

little information is available, especially for those who speak English as a second, third or fourth language.

How can we mitigate the risk?

Our communities aren't sitting idle. They have put in place mitigation strategies and are awaiting further instructions, assistance and financial stimulus to help them through this pandemic.

Some regional groups - such as the Northern Land Council, the Anangu Pitjantjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY Lands in South Australia) and the Torres Strait Islands and Papua New Guinea border cross regions - have stopped issuing new permits for visitors and cancelled all non-urgent travel and visits by government and non-government agencies.

But these measures are only the start of what is required.

evacuation procedures for people with COVID-19 and suspected cases

how to ramp up the workforce and health services in the case of an outbreak

how to get appropriate, clear and concise messaging out to communities.

regional COVID-19 testing services to be urgently implemented

support for existing Aboriginal health services to modify their structures and create respiratory clinics away from normal health services

urgent supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE, which includes gowns, masks and goggles) to be made available

urgent identification and sourcing of appropriate housing for suspected and confirmed cases

existing medication supplies not to be interrupted but rather prioritised across all settings

access to food and other essential items - such as sanitation supplies, cleaning products and soaps - not to be compromised as the pandemic progresses.

We can't wait long for action

The warnings from around the world are clear: the earlier these requirements are met, the better the outcomes will be.

The Aboriginal Community-Controlled Health services sector has mobilised and is leading an advisory group alongside governments and is meeting regularly to work on a management plan specific to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations.

In the coming days and weeks much more will be required to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia have protocols in place to respond to the virus, contain it and eventually recover.

In the meantime, we must do all we can to protect our most vulnerable in our communities including our Elders, who are the keepers of knowledge and stories, and the backbones of our communities. If we don't, we should all hang our heads in shame.

About the authors: James Ward is director of the POCHE Centre for Indigenous Health at The University of Queensland.

Jason Agostino is a general practitioner at Gurriny Yealamucka Health Service and a lecturer and research fellow at Australian National University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Coronavirus will devastate Aboriginal communities if we don't act now | PBA

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Coronavirus will devastate Aboriginal communities if we don't act now Monday, 23rd March 2020 at 6:05 pm Aboriginal people are at greater risk of severe illness from COVID-19 than non-Aboriginal people. But plans to protect remote communities and keep the virus out are progressing too slowly, write James Ward and Jason Agostino.

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There were angry rumblings at last week's meeting of Indigenous leaders and the prime minister and in the Close the Gap Campaign steering committee report. They will get significantly louder with today's release of the 10th annual Closing the Gap report.

Blame will mostly fall to successive governments for the few wins and many failures of the past decade.

Many will again shake their heads at governments' seeming inability to work consistently in genuine partnership with First Nations peoples, in the community-owned, systemically targeted and co-ordinated ways the evidence tells us are most likely to be effective.

Read more: How community-based innovation can help Australia close the Indigenous gap

AAP/Neda Vanovac

Yet again those of us who have spent our lives in Indigenous education will point to the insanity of thinking numerous health issues can be tackled without also adequately addressing other key social and cultural determinants, such as education.

The World Heath Organisation states:

Education and health are known to be highly correlated - that is, more education indicates better health and vice versa.

In 2011, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet allocated A$8 million over four years for the More Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Initiative (MATSITI). This was to attract, support and retain Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers and teacher education academics.

When the initiative started, we didn't know the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teacher education students in our universities. There was a "them and us" feeling with education deans.

There was also a lack of public recognition of the importance of role models in classrooms. These role models help lift student aspirations and achievement, and provide a rich and deep understanding of Aboriginal culture and knowledges in all Australian classrooms.

Read more: Tutors are key to reducing Indigenous student drop out rates

However, through a strategic approach to tackling these wicked issues, MATSITI eventually grew to more than 57 projects with many educational partners under a holistic, national framework.

Among the many MATSITI achievements were:

improvements in the data

scoping the workforce

determining how and when students needed support to complete teacher education studies

an increase in the numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers

recognition of the need to encourage and support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics

provision of inspiration to future educators through those who are now becoming role models in our classrooms.

Five years of MATSITI was only the beginning - remember it takes four years to earn an undergraduate teaching degree.

In June 2016, Peter Johnson, chair of the MATSITI Evaluation Report Panel, told an Australian Council of Deans of Education Indigenous education forum the federal government "cannot walk away" from investing in attracting and retaining more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers.

It defies belief that a federal government cannot find A$2 million to A$2.5 million each year over the coming years to embed strategies to improve Indigenous education in universities and schools.

Yet the many recommendations of MATSITI and its subsequent independent evaluation have, in the main, been ignored. Government inertia since 2016 has left its groundbreaking work to languish.

AAP/Richard Wainright

Last September, the education deans were heartened when federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham supported the need for strong Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander role models in classrooms for all Australian students and improvement in cultural awareness, appreciation and respect. He told an Australian Council of Deans of Education meeting he would meet me to discuss future actions.

Yet, despite repeated attempts on our part, there has been not been a meeting. It's now more than 18 months since MATSITI finished. I would still welcome that meeting.

The 2016 ABS Census shows an increase in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers to 11,823. This represents 2% of all Australian teachers.

However, the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students has increased to 206,065, meaning they comprise 5.5% of all Australian primary and secondary students.

It's often said "we can't be what we can't see", but there is still only one Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teacher for approximately every 17 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

The national professional standards require all teachers to be competent in:

So this is about ensuring true professionalisation of the teacher workforce, with access, understanding and inclusion, as well tackling the huge achievement gaps between non-Indigenous and Indigenous students.

Only one in every three Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teacher education students currently graduates. We must lift the completion rates for these students, who are often the first in their family to go into tertiary education.

Overcoming the large holes in the data would allow for more nuanced actions to improve pathways into teaching and retain Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teacher education students and teachers.

We must work harder to alleviate the shortages of all teachers - especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers - in remote and regional schools.

The failed and continually failing political leadership on respect, relationships and reconciliation sets back the quality of current and future education for all Australians.

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Closing the gap on Indigenous education must start with commitment and respect

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There were angry rumblings at last week's meeting of Indigenous leaders and the prime minister and in the Close the Gap Campaign steering committee report. They will get significantly louder with today's release of the 10th annual Closing the Gap report. Blame will mostly fall to successive governments for the few wins and many failures of the past decade.

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Updated March 03, 2020 07:39:40

Nova Peris has revealed the extent of the racial abuse she received during her political career, and suggested that "unfinished business" may one day inspire a return to Parliament.

Joining Tarang Chawla, Marlee Silva and Anthony 'Lehmo' Lehmann on a Q+A panel to explore many facets of the Australian identity, including toxic masculinity, domestic violence, racism and Indigenous recognition, Ms Peris spoke of receiving death threats during her three-year term in the Senate.

Ms Peris became the first female Indigenous Australian to be elected to Federal Parliament in 2013, and was a champion for Indigenous issues and rights - something she said made her a target for racist trolls.

"Because I started to speak out about certain things, if not every day then every second day I would just be attacked by racist trolls," Ms Peris said.

"Mail was sent, phone calls [saying] 'Get back in your box, you black bitch'.

"I had death threats. The AFP were tracking down mail that was sent to me. This is what I had to endure."

Ms Peris said she was worn down by the abuse, and left Parliament not only because her "family needed [her]", but because she was being forced to compromise her own Indigenous identity - though she did leave the door open for a return to politics.

"I sort of felt there were elements of me and what I believed in that were starting to be compromised, and I couldn't compromise who I was as an Aboriginal person," she said.

"I still have to go back to country. Irrespective of whether I was a politician, I'm first and foremost an Aboriginal person.

"I have inherent responsibilities to be a voice because my mum didn't have a voice, my grandparents. No-one had a voice.

"But my children needed me the most. Not to say I wouldn't go back one day. I feel there's unfinished business."

'People fear when an Aboriginal person speaks out'

When questioned about the implications of speaking about race on a national stage, be it in Parliament or on television, Ms Peris was forthright.

"People fear when an Aboriginal person speaks out," she said.

"When you're an Aboriginal person in this country and speak out and start calling racism out, you get attacked, because for so long this country has had this thought process.

"Racism is about inferior races. White is up here. Black is down there. That's how this country has been built.

"1993 was when the Eddie Mabo High Court decision was made. It knocked out the notion of terra nullius.

"They had inherited mentally that the country belonged to 'no man'. So it meant our lives as Aboriginal people, we were nothing.

"And so when people often talk about the history of this country, the history of this country is violent. There's been the attempted genocide. There's been the massacres. There's been the poisoning. There's been the rapes. There's been so much, and it's horrible.

"The truth just gets to people and they don't want to have a bar of it. But us as Aboriginal people, we inherit that every day."

But Ms Peris said she still had a "glass half full" attitude and believed Australians could work towards a more unified future.

"In order to go forward, we can't repeat the wrongs of the past, and that goes with how we care for country and sustain it. We need to put practical things into place to ensure we never go back there," she said.

"My great-grandfather said we breathe the same air and all bleed one red blood.

"I know how much this country can gel together. It's about respecting our indifferences and treating people equally."

Hannah Clarke murder sparks re-think of male attitudes

A number of audience members shared harrowing stories of domestic violence in the wake of the murders of Hannah Clarke and her three children by her estranged husband.

Grace Donato told the story of her 20-year-old daughter Adriana's murder by an ex-boyfriend, while Geraldine Bilston shared an audio clip of a triple-0 call made while her abusive partner was attempting to assault her.

Anti-violence campaigner Tarang Chawla, whose younger sister was murdered by her partner five years ago, spoke of the responsibility men in Australia have to change their own behaviours and wider societal attitudes.

"This is not a problem of women. This is not a problem that was Adriana's problem. It became the sad ending of her life because of another man's actions," Mr Chawla said.

"And I think that for too long now we've been at a stage where we have been reluctant in Australia to have that conversation. We've been reluctant to have the conversation that puts the blame squarely on the perpetrator.

"We need a fundamental shift in what it means to be a man in Australia. And rather than demonising men, I look at it as an opportunity for us as a nation to say, 'Who are we and what do we stand for?'

"That's where all men have a responsibility to the attitudes that for too long now have seen women treated as property"

Marlee Silva, writer and host of the podcast Tiddas 4 Tiddas, which aims to promote and celebrate the achievements of young Indigenous women, said in her experience a toxic "bro culture" was alive and well among young people.

"Everyone laughs it off in high school," Ms Silva said.

"But if I try and talk about women's issues with men in particular, men my age, they tend to still think that feminism is a very dirty word and it's not something for them to care about either."

Radio host and comedian Lehmann said he had hoped setting a good example to his son would help better prepare future generations.

"For me personally it's about being a good example to my son, like my dad was to me, and teaching him everyone should be treated equally," he said.

"He should show compassion and empathy, and [know] that violence is never, ever the answer.

"When it comes to the question of what we can do now and how we can help from my perspective, it's about calling out violent language. It's about calling out violent behaviour.

'It's about never accepting anyone's theory that it's anyone's fault other than the perpetrator."

Topics: indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, community-and-society, race-relations, discrimination, domestic-violence, federal-parliament, parliament, government-and-politics, australia

First posted March 03, 2020 01:39:41

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'Get back in your box': Nova Peris tells Q+A of racial abuse she received while senator

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Updated March 03, 2020 07:39:40 Nova Peris has revealed the extent of the racial abuse she received during her political career, and suggested that "unfinished business" may one day inspire a return to Parliament.

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This article examines the role of television in Australia's 1967 referendum, which is widely believed to have given rights to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It presents an analysis of archival television footage to identify five stories that moved the nation: Australia's shame, civil rights and global connections, admirable activists, 'a fair go' and consensus. It argues that television shaped the wider culture and opened a channel of communication that allowed Indigenous activists and everyday people to speak directly to non-Indigenous people and other First Nations people throughout the land for the first time. The referendum narrative that television did so much to craft and promote marks the shift from an older form of settler nationalism that simply excluded Indigenous people, to an ongoing project that seeks to recognise, respect and 'reaccredit' the nation-state through incorporation of Indigenous narratives. We conclude that whereas television is understood to have 'united' the nation in 1967, 50 years later seismic shifts in media and society have made the quest for further constitutional reform on Indigenous rights and recognition more sophisticated, diffuse, complex and challenging.

This article examines the role of television in the 1967 Australian referendum that is widely believed to have given rights to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It considers how mass media shaped the wider culture, and how specific representations of the 10-year campaign and related issues contributed to the referendum becoming an important chapter in the national myth ( Elder, 2007). In this context, the term 'national myth' describes a form of collective memory that is constructed and institutionalised through top down mechanisms of state policy, public commemoration and elite discourses ( Kattago, 2016). Australia's colonial history and subsequent federation in 1901 deliberately excluded Indigenous peoples. The campaign to reform the constitution began as a grassroots movement during the Assimilation policy era, when integration of Indigenous people into mainstream society, and living like 'white Australians' were desirable concepts ( Elder, 2009). It took place in a period when television can be seen as both the medium through which white Australia saw itself reflected in a changing world, and at the centre of inclusive political processes ( Turner and Cunningham, 2000). Television was launched in 1956, and by 1964, 80% of households owned a TV set, rising to 90% by 1971 ( Flew and Gilmour, 2004: 175). The campaign for Indigenous rights was one important movement in the decade of social revolution throughout the world, which played out on the streets and the small screen in living rooms throughout Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

In May 1967, the Federal Government responded to the pressure for civil rights for Indigenous people through a referendum that asked voters whether two discriminatory clauses of the constitution should be changed. The first involved an amendment to allow the Federal Government to make laws for Aboriginal people; the second, for Aboriginal people to be included in the national census. There was no official 'No' case, and when the ballots were counted, 90.77% of Australians had voted 'Yes'. The 1967 referendum is often described as a moral highpoint in Australian politics and a watershed in the battle for equality (see, for example, Lippmann, 1994). Others argue the referendum did little to bring about the rights and recognition Indigenous activists were seeking, and that its widely understood impacts are in fact 'myths' ( Attwood and Markus, 2007; Gardiner-Garden, 2007; Maddison, 2017). Indigenous scholar and filmmaker, Frances Peters-Little (2010), has conceptualised it as an act of compassion by mainstream Australia that changed the way Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people felt about their place in the nation (p. 75). She also argued the referendum cannot be fully understood without an appreciation of its associated 'myths', and why they have lasted so long ( Peters-Little, 2010: 95). We respond to Peters-Little's argument by exploring television's role in generating and circulating these 'myths', and how the media-related practices of activists, politicians and TV journalists shaped public understanding of the referendum as a question of Indigenous rights and the settler nation's core values. The late African American activist and academic Julian Bond argued that until scholars unravel the complex links between the Southern freedom struggle and the mass media, their understanding of how the US civil rights movement functioned, why it succeeded and where it failed will be incomplete ( Montes-Bradley, 2013). The same can be said about the relationship between Australian media and the movement for Indigenous rights, so we draw on our backgrounds in media studies, journalism and political communication to (1) explore how the medium of television shaped the campaign for constitutional change from 1957-1967, (2) identify the dominant narratives in television coverage, and (3) generate insights into their part in the ongoing process of 'reaccrediting' Australia's national identity. The article concludes with an assessment of how seismic changes in media and society in the past 50 years have made the quest for further constitutional reform more sophisticated, diffuse, complex and challenging ( Davis and Langton, 2016; McCallum et al., 2016; Hartley, 2004; Maddison, 2017). These insights have ongoing significance for other settler nations where Indigenous people maintain the struggle for rights and redress.

Activism, television and reconciliation narratives

Television's power to advance the campaign to amend the constitution was the result of a convergence of technological, governmental, social and political forces at work throughout the world and in Australia as the medium developed from 1956. The push for constitutional reform emanated from a grassroots campaign that gained momentum from 1958 through the newly formed national Indigenous peak body, the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI). It called for the Federal Government to take control of Aboriginal affairs, the repeal of racially discriminatory laws and the securing of citizenship rights ( Attwood and Markus, 2007). Behind the local campaign sat important shifts in international relations and the phase of decolonisation worldwide since 1947 ( Moran, 2002: 1026). The technology of television as a platform of mass communication was crucial to making visible the activist agenda. The visual and dramatic effect of film, national coverage, and the linear narrative demands of television news combined to make it a powerful instrument for change ( Gitlin, 1980). Its potential was being harnessed by civil rights activists and politicians globally because it personalised their appeal and reached into individual homes ( Bodroghkozy, 2012: 113).

In Australia, television news had the potential to eclipse the print media in terms of audience, altering the sources of information, and therefore perspectives, available to viewers. News and current affairs programmes highlighted international protest movements, told local stories about the quest for civil rights and made household names of a number of Indigenous activists. Television news not only reported events, but helped to craft visual narratives for audiences ( Goggin, 2015; Lang, 1984; Turner and Cunningham, 2000). TV's visual power revealed the reasoned appeals of those seeking change and the dramatic words and gestures of the struggle ( Gitlin, 1980). Television also spread news and exposed events in a way that put pressure on governments and specific communities. American historian Paul Weaver (1975) observed that the television news story always displays a certain level of narrative coherence. To achieve this, 1960s television news directors in the United States and Australia began to focus not so much on an event per se as on social processes, moods, trends, conditions and relationships. For example, Australian television cameras of the period ventured where many whites had never been - into Aboriginal communities where they told the story of disadvantage and discrimination ( Four Corners, 1961, 1966). These images, and the commentary that Indigenous spokespeople provided, were often the only sources for whites to hear from and see Aboriginal communities unfiltered through the mainstream print media.

To understand the formation and ongoing significance of the referendum narrative crafted via television, it is crucial to understand its historical and social underpinnings. The term 'settler colonialism' ( Wolfe, 1999) is used to define postcolonial states including the United States, Canada, Aotearoa/New Zealand and Australia, which despite major differences, are all structured by the fact they are predominantly English-speaking settler cultures, which have to a large extent permanently displaced Indigenous peoples and have no intention of undertaking a process of structural decolonisation ( Strakosch and Macoun, 2012: 41). White Australian myths of origin and national identity are therefore typically produced in relation to the illegitimate status of the act of invasion in 1788 that marks white national beginnings ( Elder, 2009: 30) and are undermined by an anxiety concerning the disturbing history of race relations (see Davis and Langton, 2016). Such struggles over collective memory have affective, motivational and moral properties. Moran (2002) observed that settler nations have tried to deal with the discomforting memories and structures of colonialism through 'deafening silence', denial, justification and accommodation. He contended: 'the discourses of settler nationalism must continue to engage with histories of Indigenous dispossession, in order to explain the nature and quality of their national existence' (p. 1016). Andrews (2003) has argued that nations are, among other things, communities of shared memory and shared forgetting.

From the mid-20th-century Australia gradually set about reconstructing itself through a fuller recognition of Indigenous people and their claims ( Hartley, 2004; Moran, 2002). This move can be understood as the stirrings of a reconciliation narrative through which the dynamics of the making of collective memory can be witnessed. These narratives are designed to weave national identities and unity in a spirit of truth and understanding that transcends the conflicts and traumas of the past by establishing as complete a picture as possible of the causes, nature and extent of the human rights violations that were committed ( Andrews, 2003). Maori scholar Ihimaera (2013) said there is a compelling case for colonised societies to forge narratives about reconciliation that can help to actualise it. However, in his scholarship on national mythologies, Canadian historian and sociologist Gerard Bouchard (2013: 279) has questioned whether it is really possible for a nation to blend two opposing narratives grounded in a past of domination and oppression. Clark and de Costa (2011) suggested that if reconciliation stories are weak, or if they have not entered the wider cultural flow of stories, then it is difficult to effect any real change in Indigenous dispossession. We argue that television narratives about the 1967 referendum played a crucial role in colonial and Indigenous narratives converging in that moment. However, the referendum did not acknowledge human rights violations, remove all discriminatory clauses from the constitution or recognise the status of Australia's First Nations. More than 50 years later, this remains unfinished business ( Dodson, 2012; Maddison, 2017), but the 1967 narrative is invoked constantly in the current and ongoing quest for recognition and treaty in Australia ( Davis and Langton, 2016).

Methodology: analysing the mediated construction of the 1967 referendum

This article builds upon Bouchard's (2013) historical-sociological approach to national myths and the body of scholarship that has provided valuable insights into television's involvement in myth formation (see, for example, Anderson, 1991 [1983]; Hall, 1996 [1991]; Schlesinger, 1991; Silverstone, 1994). Studies of mediated memory (see, for example, Ashuri, 2007; Edy, 1999; Kitch, 2008; Neiger et al., 2011) are also relevant here as the concept of memory destabilises grand narratives of history and power, such as colonialism, and 'memory, remembering and recording are the very key to existence, becoming and belonging' ( Garde-Hansen, 2011). Memory research is also closely linked to many issues at the forefront of contemporary political debate, particularly the political effects of the continuing presence of past hurts in the present ( Radstone, 2008).

Bouchard (2013) has speculated: 'Once a new idea or any message has been set forth in the public sphere, one wonders about the accreditation process that down the road will convert it into a fully-fledged myth' (p. 286). In other words, what do we know about how myths evolve? He has proposed a three-step 'analytical itinerary' that pays close attention to (1) initial framing, (2) diffusion, and (3) institutionalisation (or ritualisation). 'One expects that the further an idea goes in travelling those steps, the more likely it is to convert into a fully fledged myth and to impact on the course of a society or on individual minds and behaviours' ( Bouchard, 2013: 286). This brings us to the value of discursive analysis for understanding the formation of the 1967 narrative and television's part in grafting it to the settler nation myth. We demonstrate that close narrative analysis of media texts and archival political communication can provide precise insights into the process of framing the constitutional reform myth, its dissemination into public discourse through television, and its institutionalisation in the settler state myth.

In order to conduct this investigation, we needed to find out what information and images were circulating via television during the 10-year campaign from 1957-1967. As well as media content, we examined the media-related practices of activists and politicians to see how a national myth was socially constructed in the Australian context ( McCallum and Waller, 2017). Archival research on television coverage of the referendum and related matters from 1956 to 1967 was conducted at the Australian National Film and Sound Archive. We located, viewed, documented and analysed more than 30 relevant news and documentary items. Documentary research undertaken at the National Archives of Australia identified a collection of parliamentary papers and ministerial correspondence related to television coverage of the 1967 referendum. The analysis is based on a thematic narrative reading of television texts, historical accounts and archival materials ( Reissman, 2008). It identifies and investigates five narrative themes that together reveal how the medium of television was pivotal in changing Australia's relationship with the world, allowing the nation to experience the phenomenon of Indigenous rights in new ways, and was instrumental in 'reaccrediting' the settler nation myth. The nation was moved through its engagement with the following five stories told through television and political actors' media-related practices: Australia's shame, civil rights and global connections, admirable activists, 'a fair go', and consensus.

Five narratives that moved the nation

'The eyes of the world are upon us' was a constant theme in the Assimilationist era ( Gitlin, 1980), and was used in the media by activists, commentators and politicians to highlight Australia's shameful record on Indigenous rights ( AIATSIS, 2017b). Examples include news commentary on the jailing and subsequent death of Western Arrernte artist Albert Namatjira, which played out in a very public manner from 1957 to 1959 ( Taffe, 1995: 31). However, it was a documentary aired in cinemas in 1956, and then on television, that alerted the nation to the 'Warburton Ranges controversy' and sparked the movement for constitutional change ( Attwood and Markus, 2007). The 20-minute film was made by a campaigning state politician and activists. It depicted Aboriginal people starving, covered in flies, barely able to stand and left to fend for themselves in the remote West Australian desert setting of the Warburton Ranges, after being driven out of their homelands by the British nuclear tests at Maralinga. It shocked white audiences when it was shown in cinemas as Their Darkest Hour ( McGrath and Brooks, 2010). The film was screened on commercial TV in Australia's major cities soon after under the title Manslaughter, by GTV Channel 9, and a relief appeal was also advertised on television in conjunction with the screening ( Clark, 2008: 75). The film galvanised activists and led to the creation of the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League (AAL) in 1957 ( Peters-Little, 2010). Other television news features and documentaries followed, highlighting racial discrimination and inequality in housing, employment, education, health, land ownership and access to public services and facilities (e.g. Four Corners, 1961, 1966).

In November 1960 'Australia's shame' was intensified by widespread media coverage of a visit by US civil rights leader and performer Paul Robeson, who attended a private screening of Their Darkest Hour:

By 1961, the debate on Aboriginal issues in Australia was further internationalised through letter writing, reports in the foreign press, and academic material published for international audiences ( Clark, 2008: 48). 'Australia's shame' continued to be leveraged throughout the decade to highlight injustice and advocate for change beyond the referendum. For example, a 1968 newspaper report quotes Mr J.W. Jeffrey, a former NT welfare officer at Wave Hill station saying 'Australians are hated throughout the world because of what they have been doing to their own countrymen' ( The Canberra Times, 1968: 1). Narratives such as 'Australia's shame' can be instrumental in defining goals and challenges for settler nations and initiating wide-ranging social reform; in securing the required support from powerful institutions, as well as changing individual minds and behaviours ( Bouchard, 2013: 276). 'Australia's shame' can therefore be understood as providing the initial framing in the accreditation process of the 1967 referendum becoming a fully fledged myth.

Activists popularised the Indigenous movement's views, using the news media to provide evidence of racial discrimination and press the need for constitutional change, based on their personal narratives. Most recent theorising about narrative has attested to its value for disadvantaged groups, and Polletta (2006: 2) argues that personal stories in particular, 'chip away at the will of public indifference' because they can elicit sympathy on the part of the powerful and sometimes mobilise official action against social wrongs.

Civil rights campaigner Faith Bandler, who had a South Sea Islander heritage, was the acceptable face of change and chief narrator of the 1967 referendum with the effect that the story was literally told with one voice ( Attwood and Markus, 2007: 14). Her biographer Marilyn Lake has argued: 'Her magnetism as a speaker and media performer - together with her sheer persistence - were vital to the successful outcome of the campaign' ( Lake, 2002: 85). Other important activist storytellers included Indigenous spokespeople such as 'radical' Arrente-Kalkadoon university student Charles Perkins, Yorta Yorta sporting legend and preacher Doug Nicholls, Yorta Yorta singer Jimmy Little and the Minjerribah writer Oodgeroo Noonuccul, who provided the poetics of the movement. They all made regular appearances on television throughout the 1960s.

The conventions of news reporting and television production shed light on why some victims of social injustice are appealing ( Gitlin, 1985). Bandler embodied the future she was fighting for, and was a stylish media performer. In May 1965 secretary of the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship Jack Horner wrote to Bandler about the 'resounding public response' to one of her many TV appearances: 'There seems little doubt that you caused something of a sensation' (in Lake, 2002: 96). Activists can exploit the conventions of storytelling, and especially the presumed relations between personal narratives and authoritative knowledge ( Polletta, 2006: 136). Lake (2002) observed, 'Faith's brilliance as a public advocate of Aboriginal rights rested on her ability to always relate specific instances of injustice to general principles' (p. 90). Whenever they appeared on television, activists could make a reasoned, direct appeal for Indigenous rights and constitutional change. The news format itself encouraged inclusion, a form of intimacy and integration that put Aboriginal people in white people's consciousness as never before.

Bandler was especially inspired by international developments in the historic struggle for blacks to win their freedom ( Lake, 2002: 86). In 1960, declared by the United Nations to be the Year of Africa, 17 African countries gained their independence, yet in the same year in South Africa, 67 National Anti-Pass Law demonstrators were killed in what became known as the Sharpeville Massacre. Australian activists and audiences were among the millions throughout the world witnessing these events through television news. Bouchard (2013) observed that most of the modern myths have not been 'home-made'. Ideals like pluralism, sustainability, citizenship and human rights 'belong to a core of myths that have disseminated at the world scale, even though they can be locally appropriated and entrenched, even grafted to vernacular emotional roots' ( Bouchard, 2013: 284).

Australian activists appealed to local television audiences' familiarity with apartheid in South Africa and the US civil rights story to raise awareness of racial discrimination in Australia. For example, in 1958, the white community in the small town of Nambucca Heads protested against the sale of a house in their area to an Aboriginal family. In an interview on 19 August that year, Bandler likened the Nambucca Heads community to the white Americans in Little Rock, Arkansas, who had responded with violence to the introduction of nine African American children to the local high school: 'To my way of thinking, there is no difference between what Little Rock people have done and the Nambucca protest. I think it is absolutely shocking and disgusting' ( Lake, 2002: 91).

American news was a key influence on the Australian referendum narrative, not only in terms of what people in Australia were seeing on their TV screens, but also in the formats and narrative techniques being developed in the United States. The civil rights story was central to shaping the new genre of serious television news in America ( Gray, 1995; Torres, 2003), which was, in turn, highly influential on the developing Australian television sector and its audiences. Sydney University student activists led by Charles Perkins consciously modelled their 1965 Freedom Ride on anti-segregation campaigns in the United States to raise awareness in the cities of conditions faced by Indigenous people in regional Australia ( Curthoys, 2002). They conducted a survey of Aboriginal living conditions, challenged a ban against Aboriginal ex-servicemen entering veterans' clubs in some country towns, and staged demonstrations against local laws barring Aboriginal children from public swimming pools. They ensured their protests were covered by the mainstream media, bringing the issue of racial discrimination to national and international attention, and stirring public debate about the disadvantage and racism facing Aboriginal people across Australia ( AIATSIS, 2017a). In what can be seen as an early example of embedded broadcast journalism, Darce Cassidy, a student and also an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) producer, recorded and filed news stories from the bus. He captured physical and verbal confrontations between protesters and white locals that received wide coverage by the national media ( Lake, 2002: 96). Hall Greenland, a non-Indigenous student who was one of the Freedom Riders said,

The power of the story depends on the teller's skill in making it resonate with the narratives a community already has in mind ( Mayer, 2014). Archival news footage of the 1965 Freedom Rides provides compelling evidence that Australian activists appropriated and adapted international civil rights narratives and succeeded in grafting them to the national narrative.

'Public narratives' including historical, ideological, religious and popular stories are at the core of a community's culture. They establish society's basic orientations - its worldview and ethos - and also serve as what MacIntyre (1997 in Mayer, 2014) has called an 'initial cultural stock' from which new stories may draw, either by directly referencing them or appealing to the basic understandings of 'who we are, what we believe, and what we value that they construct' (italics in Mayer, 2014: 102). A public awareness campaign on the referendum took place from March to May 1967, including radio, television and newspaper interviews with key Indigenous activists ( Raines, 1990: 20). It drew on the settler nation's 'initial cultural stock' of the 'fair go', egalitarianism, for laws to apply equally to all Australians, and appealed to the Australian spirit of 'mateship' ( Raines, 1990: 22). The campaign capitalised on a decade of television news and documentaries that presented incontrovertible evidence of Indigenous dispossession, deprivation and discrimination that ran counter to white Australia's highest ideals and could no longer be ignored.

The 'fair go' myth is key to Australia's settler nation identity ( Elder, 2007). Its strong roots lie in the beginnings of colonisation, when the first governor, Philip King, is said to have insisted on distributing food rations equally among convicts and freemen ( Ozdowski, 2012). It was further entrenched by the folklore surrounding the famous colonial outlaw Ned Kelly, which revolves around him being denied a 'fair go' by the state. The fair wage case of the early 1900s and the 'mateship' myth of WWI have contributed to the 'fair go' enduring as Australia's key national value ( Gough, 2012). Critics provide evidence that a 'fair go' has not been enjoyed by all Australians, especially Indigenous people. Ozdowski (2012) highlights that 'In particular, the concept terra nullius or "no man's land" was the antithesis of the extension of a "fair go" to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders'.

The doctrine of terra nullius has been described by Moran (2002) as the 'foundational settler nation myth', and he argued that Indigenous ownership and occupation has constantly unsettled it. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have therefore remained a disturbing problem that the state must try to accommodate ( Moran, 2002: 1015). Policies of assimilation, and the 1967 referendum in particular, can be understood as important manoeuvres to accommodate Aboriginal peoples' disruption of the colonial project by incorporating them in the settler nation's narrative. We argue the news media played a central role through its deployment of white Australia's most cherished value - the 'fair go' - which enabled the public to embrace the movement for constitutional change.

In the decade leading up to the referendum television journalists exposed the 'unfair go' experienced by Indigenous people. The ABC's long-running current affairs programme Four Corners was launched in 1961 and in its first year presented an exposé of life on an Aboriginal reserve ( Four Corners, 1961). Reporter Bob Raymond's story about Box Ridge Aboriginal Reserve ventured into an area few white Australians had ever seen. In 1966, a programme titled 'The price of equality' examined the actions of the Gurindji stockmen who went on strike over the right to equal pay for their work on Wave Hill station in the Northern Territory ( Four Corners, 1966). This dispute received much media attention in the press and on commercial radio and television. Gian Carlo Manara's 1963 ABC Television documentary, Living on the Fringe highlighted the bleak living conditions of Aboriginal people in the bush and in the cities. It featured interviews about housing hardships, prejudice and poverty and highlighted entrenched racism and exclusion. Aboriginal people also discussed discrimination and disadvantage in the 1964 ABC documentary A Changing Race, directed by Therese Denny. It featured Aboriginal people in stockmen's camps, missions, factories, in their houses, all around Australia. The show was introduced by the well-known entertainer Jimmy Little, who is seen directly addressing the camera at the start of the film.

Archival news footage of the campaign in the fortnight before the poll shows supporters holding banners and posters with slogans, including 'Right wrongs, Write Yes', 'What is the nature of the Australian Nation?', 'Is this the nation of the Fair Go?' and 'Are people being treated equally?' These direct appeals to white Australia's highest values provided the national storyline that campaigners and voters could interpret in a new social and political context to accommodate Indigenous people in the settler nation's myth. The way this theme unfolded aligns with what Bouchard (2013) termed the 'diffusion' step in the accreditation process that converted the 1967 referendum campaign into a fully fledged narrative about the road to Indigenous rights in Australia.

Parliamentary records held at the Australian National Archives provide evidence of high-level co-operation to ensure the narrative of 'consensus' was the overarching story of the 1967 referendum in the 3 months before the vote. The parliamentary parties, Indigenous activist organisations, and powerful institutions including news media, trade unions and churches, advocated together for constitutional change. Crucially, there was no 'No' case mounted. Communications between Prime Minister Harold Holt, the leader of the Country Party John McEwan, Labor leader Gough Whitlam and the Attorney-General Nigel Bowen on 21 March 1967 provide evidence that key politicians united. In correspondence with Bowen regarding a draft public statement and strategy for the campaign, Holt (1967b) wrote, 'John McEwen and Gough Whitlam have agreed to join me in presenting the "Yes" case in respect of the referendum proposals'.

There was no investment in a commercial media campaign. Instead, the Government relied on the ABC to provide key politicians with airtime. In a confidential nine-point document distributed to the Liberal Party Federal Executive on 16 March 1967, members were told,

This document also emphasised the importance of all political leaders working together so they 'appear to be speaking in one voice' the confidential campaign notes say. With that in mind, it would be desirable for the parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party, The Country Party and the Labor Party to confer with a view to a 'Yes' case signed and authorised by the three leaders and a sharing of 'Yes' ABC TV and radio times.

Television was identified as the most important medium by both activists and government, as letters in May 1967 between the voluntary publicity officer for the Harold Blair Aboriginal Children's Project, Jan Merton, and Prime Minister Holt reveal. Merton (1967, 10 May) wrote,

Two days later, Prime Minister Holt responded,

The NSW branch of Aboriginal Rights 'Vote Yes' Committee wrote to radio stations across the state imploring them to sponsor and play its advertising jingle 'Vote Yes for Aborigines' as a public service announcement in the fortnight before the vote. The 'Publicity sub-committee' wrote,

The archival record left by this correspondence reveals aspects of the structural relationship between politics and media that Salmon and Glasser (1995) conceptualise as the communication of consent. It highlights news media ties to government and the privileged access elite politicians had to media gatekeepers. Television was central to sharing the consensus message from all perspectives. For example, at the conclusion of the ABC television programme, The Day of the Aboriginal, screened a week before the poll, members of the Aboriginal-Australian fellowship raised their voices and sang Gary Shearston's song Vote yes for freedom. The programme also televised the 'Vote Yes' FCAATSI committee meeting on 7 May 1967, highlighting the tireless campaign of its members.

In 1967, the public discourse around constitutional reform was celebratory, unified and uncontested. The 'consensus' theme can be understood as Bouchard's (2013) 'institutional', or 'ritualised' step in the process of merging Indigenous and settler nation narratives. Archival television footage from this key time in the 10-year campaign shows how the news media narratives of 'Australia's shame' 'admirable activists', 'civil rights and global connections', 'the fair go' and 'consensus' had fused into a widely accepted national narrative of such significance that it could see through major political change. It was technically enacted in the constitution through the overwhelming 'Yes' vote that quickly came to symbolise national unity and was committed to the settler nation's collective memory. But while 'consensus' may be the culmination of this story, it did not close the book on the settler nation narrative, which has continued to be unsettled by Indigenous demands for rights, recognition and restorative justice ( Davis, 2016; Foley and Anderson, 2004; Maddison, 2013, 2017).

Implications for contemporary campaigns for constitutional reform

Since 1967, there have been persistent calls for further reform of the nation's framing document to recognise the status of Indigenous peoples and remove discriminatory clauses ( Davis and Williams, 2015). The push for 'recognition' was formalised early in the new millennium through a series of government inquiries and cemented with cross-party support. The non-government organisation Reconciliation Australia was funded to run a community engagement and awareness campaign ( Recognise, 2016). Working in tandem with government, Recognise operated as an arms-length public information tool; effectively outsourcing political function in a form that adopted the logics of marketing to engage the electorate ( Davis, 2016). Recognise drew on the collective memory of 1967 to promote constitutional change as unfinished business, attempting to re-ignite the message of 1967 to argue that the settler nation has fundamentally shifted and that constitutional reform will finally unite the Indigenous and non-Indigenous nation ( Recognise, 2016). Together, these processes essentially take the complexity out of settler colonial Australian race relations and reconstruct it as a rational political choice.

However, the contemporary constitutional reform campaign failed to take into account two interwoven factors: the global movement and scholarly critique of the politics of recognition that has emerged in the intervening 50 years (e.g. Coulthard, 2014; Povinelli, 2002; Simpson, 2007) and the dramatically changed media landscape. Since 1967 in Australia, there have been growing calls to acknowledge unceded sovereignty, land rights and a treaty ( Moreton-Robinson, 2007). Maddison (2017) proposes 'a more agonistic engagement on this issue; one that favours dissent and contestation over consensus and closure' (p. 4). The mediatised Recognise campaign was challenged by the underlying multiplicity of views and perspectives on what might be changed by the referendum, while the digital media environment has enabled social media incursions by Indigenous activists that have been effective in disrupting the official campaign ( McCallum et al., 2016; Dreher et al., 2015). Most recently, the 2017 Uluru Convention of 250 Indigenous representatives envisaged far more substantive change - including a treaty and representative parliamentary body - than could have been envisaged by the electorate in 1967. However, their proposal, titled 'The Uluru Statement from the Heart', was rejected by the Australian Government in October 2017, and there are no signs a referendum will be held any time soon.

Conclusion

Analysis of television media texts and political communication practices have yielded important insights into how the medium of television shaped the campaign for constitutional change from 1956-1967 and contributed to 'reaccreditation' of the settler nation narrative. Television made a significant contribution to changing the landscape of Indigenous-non-Indigenous relations, inaugurating a more direct, more intimate and more integrated form of communication. Bouchard's (2013) observation that public narratives are at the core of a community's culture has helped in understanding how Australia's deeply held belief in equality and fairness was harnessed through the narrative conventions of television stories, driving the institutional support for constitutional change ( Mayer, 2014; Polletta, 2006). The consensus narrative was sponsored by political elites who suspended the traditions of political conflict to support a unified stance on constitutional change, which in turn was powerfully represented through their appearances on television. National consensus emerged as the overarching story of the referendum campaign, advocated through television by both activists and government. At the same time as constitutional change was enshrined in law, the collective memory that was created was subsequently ritualised and made available for cultural appropriation over the next 50 years.

Key outcomes of the 1967 campaign were the emergence of a strong national Indigenous political movement, with demands for treaty and sovereignty at the top of its agenda, and a vibrant First Nations media scene ( Waller et al., 2015). In 2017, mainstream political and media elites face a highly sophisticated Indigenous public sphere that has controlled its own media for some four decades. Hartley (2004) examined Indigenous and national identity in the post mass media era from the 1990s and observed that what composed a nation, citizenship, broadcasting, or democratic participation was entering an unsettling period of choice. We argue that intensive digital disruption since 2000 has had profound impacts on the capacity of both elites and activists to garner and sustain the consensus narrative that was so effectively deployed via mass media in 1967. This is not to suggest a technologically determinist outlook, but to highlight how the intersection of changed political and media landscapes can impact on national political conversations and collective memories.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Magali McDuffie, who assisted with the archival research at the Australian National Film and Sound Archive and the National Archives of Australia.

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How television moved a nation: media, change and Indigenous rights - Lisa Waller, Kerry McCallum, 2018

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This article examines the role of television in Australia's 1967 referendum, which is widely believed to have given rights to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It presents an analysis of archival television footage to identify five stories that moved the nation: Australia's shame, civil rights and global connections, admirable activists, 'a fair go' and consensus.

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Updated October 30, 2017 20:55:06

New survey results show there is broad support among the Australian public for an Aboriginal advisory council to Parliament.

Last week the Federal Government threw out the proposal to hold a referendum on matters raised in the Uluru Statement.

In senate estimates last week, Minister for Indigenous Affairs Nigel Scullion admitted the decision had not been based on evidence, rather it was made on the basis that most referendums have not been successful.

But a new Australian Constitutional Values Survey, conducted online by Omnipoll, found at least 61 per cent of Australians would vote "yes" in a referendum on adding an Indigenous voice to Parliament.

The survey of 1,526 adults was done in August and led by researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), the Australian National University, as well as Sydney and Griffith universities.

Survey 'proves' referendum would have support

Dr Paul Kildae, a senior law lecturer at UNSW, said the Government's assertion that any referendum on enshrining an Indigenous voice in Parliament would fail was incorrect and the survey proved it.

"We conducted the polling in August and what our research shows is that constitutional recognition and the Uluru statement do have broad support, contrary to what the Government has claimed," he said.

"To abandon the idea with so little thought put into it, is very disappointing.

"I think governments should be in the business of making decisions based on evidence.

"They should have put more effort into gauging public support and made their decision accordingly."

Ministers, including Mr Scullion, Attorney-General George Brandis, and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, argued that they wanted to ensure the movement towards reconciliation was not set back by a failed referendum.

Dr Kildae agreed Australia's referendum record was "intimidating" because just eight of the past 44 referendums were successful.

"But that's a reason to try and get the process right. I think what these polling results show is there's a solid platform for reform," he said.

"It shows this is the point where the conversation should just be beginning."

A spokesperson for Mr Scullion told the ABC the Minister declined to comment.

Central Land Council says the campaign will continue

Central Land Council director David Ross said the Government's decision was not surprising, and Aboriginal Australians were "used to losing" when it came to determining their futures.

"It probably wouldn't get up if it was sold in the way they were selling it-as a third chamber of Parliament," he said.

"That was not what the statement from Uluru said at all.

"It was about Aboriginal affairs, Aboriginal issues, and persuading Parliament to make decisions based on consultations with our people.

"The Minister and the Government has taken this whole thing out of context and when you go out running a story that's incorrect then 'sure' - you're going to put back reconciliation."

Topics: government-and-politics, referendums, community-and-society, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, aboriginal, torres-strait-islander

First posted October 30, 2017 20:44:07

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Indigenous advisory body would be supported by Australians, survey suggests

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Updated October 30, 2017 20:55:06 New survey results show there is broad support among the Australian public for an Aboriginal advisory council to Parliament. Last week the Federal Government threw out the proposal to hold a referendum on matters raised in the Uluru Statement.

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Updated July 11, 2019 15:32:26

Dani Larkin knows the struggles of a young Indigenous woman in a "nation of divisiveness", and insists that constitutional recognition is the key to unlocking meaningful change.

The lawyer and academic grew up in the small Baryulgil community in northern New South Wales listening to her elders' cultural stories and experiences.

Her grandmother was from the Stolen Generations; her grandfather treasured the connection to his culture and the land.

"I grew up being quite fair-skinned and experiencing the struggle of walking in two worlds as a young person in Australia that identifies as Indigenous."

Ms Larkin said this drove her to advocate for people without a voice in a country "progressing in the wrong direction".

"I think there's a lack of appreciation for something as simplistic as the notion of diversity, and I think that's a really scary thing to have within a nation," she said.

"There's no other way really to progress until we actually get it right with our First Nations."

On Wednesday, the Federal Government announced that a proposal to recognise Indigenous people in the constitution would be put to a referendum within three years.

Ms Larkin - a Bundjalung, Kungarakany, Yorta Yorta woman - said recognition would shift the consciousness of everyday Australians.

However, it was up to everyone, regardless of cultural background, to advocate for things to be different, she said.

"And that's by educating ourselves, being better than the divisive, hate-stricken messages that are sometimes quite prevalent within media and politics.

"What the [Uluru] Statement from the Heart does, and why it's so important, is that it recognises powerlessness in all its different forms and identifies the right of self-determination.

"It seeks to politically empower and culturally empower Indigenous colonised peoples."

Ms Larkin, who is based on the Gold Coast, said the regular discussions she observed in her younger years about native title and the Aboriginal Medical Services helped her find her voice for advocacy.

"But that's not even just as an Indigenous Australian ... whether you're Indigenous or not, it's about being a good person and doing what's morally and ethically right," she said.

"Everyone ... has a responsibility in this country to move forward, reconcile and culturally progress."

Voice. Treaty. Truth.

This year's NAIDOC theme - Voice. Treaty. Truth. - drew upon key elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, she said.

"The three pillars that underpin the statement are calling for constitutional recognition, but more importantly substantial, meaningful reform of the structures of this country's system."

Such changes, she said, would result in better lawmaking and policies within parliament, thus benefitting all Australians.

"It shifts the consciousness of lawmakers' minds when doing a really important job, which is to really be protecting the interest of its citizens."

Inequality, negative stereotypes, poverty and incarceration rates were societal barriers that created a feeling of despair for Indigenous people, Ms Larkin said.

"We're just consistently set up to fail, it's the powerlessness ... all we're wanting is a sense of equality and a place within the system and respect.

"The only way to make change is to look at our top document - the constitution - and change that."

That change would be enhanced with more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander politicians, Ms Larkin said.

"They [non-Indigenous politicians] really don't have a stake in the game and a vested interest in progressing these types of proposals, hence why we need more Indigenous Australians in politics."

She said Australia could learn from New Zealand, which has Maori representatives in parliament, a Maori electoral roll and Maori census data.

Until then, NAIDOC in 2019 could be a catalyst for change, she said.

"If the proposals that underpin this year's NAIDOC theme ... get put forth to the public ... that's just a really beneficial way for all citizens to basically change the system and begin the path towards reconciliation."

Topics: indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, indigenous-culture, government-and-politics, indigenous-policy, indigenous-protocols, federal-government, human-interest, mermaid-beach-4218, baryulgil-2460

First posted July 09, 2019 06:44:19

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'Walking in two worlds': Why the case for change is personal

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Updated July 11, 2019 15:32:26 Dani Larkin knows the struggles of a young Indigenous woman in a "nation of divisiveness", and insists that constitutional recognition is the key to unlocking meaningful change. The lawyer and academic grew up in the small Baryulgil community in northern New South Wales listening to her elders' cultural stories and experiences.

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From Taiwan to Eastern Island, more than 100 Indigenous singers have come together to record music that celebrates their seafaring ancestry, united by love for the oceans that separate their countries.

The artists have composed and recorded music in nature, from Borneo's rainforests to Papua New Guinea's remote beaches.

The result is an album and a documentary of the same title, 'Small Island, Big Song'.

It's the brainchild of Australian filmmaker Tim Cole and his partner Baobao Chen.

Tonight is their Australian launch at Palace Verona in Sydney.

Guests:
Tim Cole, Australian filmmaker
Jerome Kavanagh, Maori musician
Charles Maimarosia, Solomon Islands songman

Producer: Katie Hamann

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Small Island, Big Song celebrates the seafaring heritage of Indigenous peoples

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From Taiwan to Eastern Island, more than 100 Indigenous singers have come together to record music that celebrates their seafaring ancestry, united by love for the oceans that separate their countries. The artists have composed and recorded music in nature, from Borneo's rainforests to Papua New Guinea's remote beaches.

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Posted July 15, 2019 06:38:52

For police officers and young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the regional Queensland city of Bundaberg, boxing together is a way to move on from a legacy of negative interaction.

Deadly Boxing Academy, based out of Bundaberg's PCYC in south-east Queensland, has introduced more than 30 young Indigenous people as well as police officers to the sport.

Together, they train at least three times a week.

The academy was the brainchild of head coach Malachi Johnson who envisaged the program as a way to break down the barriers between police and Indigenous youth and prevent crime, all while contributing to a healthy lifestyle.

He said the teenagers had built up a new respect for police after learning about their role and its challenges.

"Police get a bad rap. They're brave men and women and to get our kids to understand what they have to go through I think that will help in the future to stop crime," he said.

"Most of the kids we work with through our programs and schools are disengaged. Either they suffer from problems at home or in school or with schoolwork or just out on the street.

"As a young Indigenous man you grow up scared of the bullymen or police, you're nervous. We want to break that barrier down.

"Yes there have been past events that have looked bad on both sides of the fence but we can now move forward and have a positive relationship with police and our Indigenous people."

Police less frightening

Aaliyah Watson, 14, has been part of the Deadly Boxing Academy since the beginning and said she had made friends and developed positive relationships with police.

"When I was younger I was a bit afraid of the officers but doing this program has helped me overcome that fear," she said.

"I enjoy making friends and going different places. I've been to a lot of tournaments.

"I lost my first few fights then I got my first win in Hervey Bay and I went to State Novice Titles and I won both of my titles there."

'We don't want to be seen as the bad people'

Senior Constable Mick Gray said he had already noticed a change since the program started.

"I get a lot of high fives, that sort of stuff, where before it might have been that they shied away et cetera," he said.

"We don't want to be seen as the bad people. We want to ... work in well with the youth in the community and move them forward to the rest of their lives.

"Police are involved through boxing and involving themselves in the sport so showing healthy lifestyles and we've got a job to do but we're also good people.

"The bigger impact is building a really good solid relationship between police and the Aboriginal people and making sure we get on as a community and break down those barriers."

Incarceration not reducing crime

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up about 3 per cent of Australia's population but 28 per cent of the national prison population.

University of Western Australia Professor of Criminology Harry Blagg said the more time police and young Indigenous people spent together in a positive situation, the more understanding both parties would gain.

"We've incarcerated particularly Indigenous youth at an incredibly high rate and it hasn't made anything [in terms of crime] better; in fact, we believe it's actually made things significantly worse than they could have been given an alternative way," he said.

"The better the relationship is between young people, communities and police, I think the more willing police will be to consider alternatives other than arrest when they are confronted with juvenile crime.

"We need to invest in early intervention and then see how much that works.

"We need to use these programs as an opportunity to change the way we make decisions about kids."

Early success

The academy, created last November, hasn't been open for a year yet but its boxers have already had success in competitions as well as forming good relationships with police.

Team captain Tyron Owen, 13, has been selected to compete for Australia at the national championships in New Zealand next month and said while his relationship with police wasn't bad it had also improved.

"I've see a lot of disengaged kids get along with police better. Just the bonding with them, going around, helping kids out," he said.

"I had nothing to do at home and just had a purpose for boxing.

"I love the sport and everything about it."

Growing in and out of the boxing ring

Mr Johnson said the young boxers had grown as sportsmen and women, and people.

"Working with police has given them inspiration to become police officers.

"Some of them even now just saying hi, giving them high-fives to police, where before they wouldn't even look at police officers.

"They'd look away, even walk away, so it's great to see them involved with police in a positive way.

"Kids understand what will happen if we do this again, what will happen if we don't listen to police and then we can stop that continuous path we see for local Indigenous kids going down the path of crime, dropping out of school, getting up to nuisances around shopping centres.

"The whole purpose is teaching the kids the three principles of our cultural lore: share, care and respect and also in boxing, which is discipline, respect and humility."

Topics: boxing, health, youth, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, exercise-and-fitness, police, aboriginal-language, bundaberg-4670

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Breaking down barriers for those who grow up 'scared of the bullymen or police'

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Posted July 15, 2019 06:38:52 For police officers and young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the regional Queensland city of Bundaberg, boxing together is a way to move on from a legacy of negative interaction.

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Updated November 01, 2019 16:00:32

As an Indigenous man in a senior government role, Ken Wyatt is ambitious but pragmatic, as he struggles to bridge the gap between Indigenous expectations and political realities.

Mr Wyatt, Minister for Indigenous Australians, aspires to deliver constitutional recognition of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in this term, though he must know the odds are against it.

The Government is committed to a referendum only if there is bipartisan support on the question and a good prospect of success.

He also wants to land a legislated "voice" for Indigenous people, and on Wednesday he unveiled a process.

Achieving even this will be hard.

Mr Wyatt is caught between those Indigenous figures who see the idea as now much watered down from their preferred model, and those on the right of politics who cast it as an exercise in separatism.

As the first Indigenous federal cabinet minister, and widely respected in first peoples' communities, Mr Wyatt is well placed to be listened to by Indigenous Australians.

His standing gives him leverage. By the same token, the pressures on him are much more personal than they'd be on a non-Indigenous minister.

Some would say Scott Morrison has accorded Mr Wyatt a great opportunity.

The cynics wonder if he has been set up.

The Government will make sure the voice is constrained

To be optimistic about what can be done in terms of the voice, it is perhaps best not to remember too much history.

Leaving aside the triumph of the 1967 referendum which gave the Federal Government power to legislate for Indigenous people in the states, previous attempts to deal Indigenous Australians into the wider political process, to a limited or greater extent, have ended badly.

The most ambitious, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), became the most unfortunate.

We won't see another ATSIC, which had executive as well as representative functions.

In 2017 the Uluru Statement from the Heart, produced by a broad cross section of Indigenous delegates, called for a voice that would be enshrined in the constitution.

How much does it matter that the voice now being pursued would not be in the constitution (Mr Morrison would never contemplate that and Mr Wyatt says he has never favoured it) and that the language being used is for a voice to "government" rather than to "parliament", as originally envisaged?

Of course it matters quite a lot.

Failure to bed the voice into the constitution means it would lack long-term security - it could be legislated out of existence (as ATSIC was).

Being pitched to "government" rather than to "parliament" would lessen the voice's status, although that would partly depend on the detail - whether, for example, its recommendations had to be tabled in parliament.

The Government - notably the Prime Minister - will make sure the voice is constrained.

Internal opponents, but strong community support

That doesn't mean, however, the voice isn't worth having.

Its influence would be determined not just by its form but also by the way it operated, the quality of its advice, and what sort of relationship it struck up with the minister.

The critics of the present modest initiative are already out, including from the Government's ranks.

Queensland Liberal Senator James McGrath is among those featured on a video posted by the Institute of Public Affairs.

"I'm a Queensland senator. I don't want Indigenous Queenslanders being separated from non-indigenous Queenslanders on the basis of their race," Mr McGrath says, describing the plan as "nuts".

Mr Wyatt estimates there are about a dozen critics in the Coalition party room.

He likens the voice issue to that of same-sex marriage, where there were some internal opponents but strong support in the community.

He is encouraged by reactions he gets as he moves around, from strangers on planes to businesses urging him to continue efforts on the voice and on recognition.

"We shouldn't underestimate the good will sitting there".

Mr Wyatt announced an advisory group to oversee the voice process, chaired by Indigenous leaders Tom Calma, chancellor of the University of Canberra and former race discrimination commissioner, and Marcia Langton, who has the Foundation Chair in Australian Indigenous Studies at Melbourne University.

Under this group will be two other groups, one to work on proposals for the national voice and the other to examine how Indigenous input can be better fed in at the state, territory and local government level.

Models will be developed, followed by consultation with Indigenous communities.

There's a case for scepticism

The appointment of Professor Langton - an outspoken and sometimes inflammatory tweeter - is under fire from the right wing commentariat.

It can, however, be regarded as positive that the Government has chosen her, rather than someone tamer. Mr Wyatt has said he and Professor Langton have long been friends and "I respect her integrity".

Professor Langton says she remains a strong supporter of the Statement from the Heart - which she describes as "highly metaphorical" - although she has a particular interpretation of it.

She told the ABC she takes it as suggesting a minimalist amendment to the constitution to provide for a body, rather like a parliamentary committee, that would advise on legislation.

Anything like a representative body would be established by legislation, she said.

Labor is somewhat conflicted. It supports the Uluru statement and sees the Government's position as failing that. But it doesn't want to be the naysayer.

Indigenous Labor Senator Malarndirri McCarthy said on Thursday: "We're not going to wreck this".

"We're not happy that they haven't accepted [constitutional] enshrinement but we do acknowledge and respect the fact that consultations are going to occur with two esteemed leaders in professors Langton and Tom Calma and we will do our best to keep encouraging people to look at enshrinement".

From Labor's point of view, if an acceptable voice emerges from this process, it could always commit to putting it into the constitution later.

That's assuming there is not a referendum on recognition this term.

Getting agreement among Coalition, opposition and Indigenous community on a recognition question that could pass the stringent referendum requirements would appear extraordinarily challenging.

Even if there were agreement on the question, Labor might say it would only give the tick off if the referendum included the "voice".

There is a case for scepticism about the Government's intentions on the voice, but there is a better one to see whether Mr Wyatt can pull something potentially useful out of the process, even within the bounds that have been set.
Michelle Grattan is a professorial fellow at the University of Canberra and chief political correspondent at The Conversation, where this article first appeared.
Topics: community-and-society, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, indigenous-culture, indigenous-other-peoples, government-and-politics, indigenous-policy, australia

First posted November 01, 2019 12:27:25

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Is this the most difficult job in Australian politics?

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Updated November 01, 2019 16:00:32 As an Indigenous man in a senior government role, Ken Wyatt is ambitious but pragmatic, as he struggles to bridge the gap between Indigenous expectations and political realities. Mr Wyatt, Minister for Indigenous Australians, aspires to deliver constitutional recognition of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in this term, though he must know the odds are against it.

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Updated December 29, 2019 10:23:39

"Natives Gaoled: In Prohibited Area" declared the headline in The West Australian newspaper.

It was back in 1947 and a dark chapter in Western Australia's history - a time when Indigenous people were not allowed to walk the streets of Perth without a permit, or a "Native Pass".

If they did they could be fined or, worse, jailed - as happened to three men in 1947, whose "crimes" were published in the newspaper on May 13, 1947.

"Three Aborigines, Frederick Alwyn Ludich (30), labourer, of Midland Junction, Lionel Egan (32), labourer, of Bayswater and Don Pedro (43), labourer, were sentenced to gaol by Mr HD Moseley, PM, in the Perth Police Court yesterday when they pleaded guilty to having been found in a prohibited area without a permit."

Ludich and Egan had been found near the Pier Street railway "smelling strongly of liquor" and were jailed for 21 days.

Pedro was locked up for 14 days for loitering in the city and drinking on a Saturday and Sunday.

AO Neville urged Indigenous ban

It's a little-known fact of WA's history that Perth was a prohibited area for Indigenous people between 1927 and 1954.

It came about at the urging of Auber Octavius Neville, the Chief Protector of Aborigines, who didn't want Indigenous people socialising with "whites" especially at White City - an amusement park on Perth's foreshore.

As a result of his lobbying, a proclamation was made on March 9, 1927 under the Aborigines Act 1905 (WA), declaring it unlawful for unemployed Indigenous people to be in the City of Perth.

Back then, the official City of Perth was four times bigger than today, stretching all the way to the coast.

Indigenous people wanting to enter the exclusion zone for any purpose required a permit.

Original documentation, correspondence and maps - some more than 90 years old - relating to the draconian policy have been published in a feature story on a new website, Culture WA, in an effort to improve people's understanding of the state's history.

Ban included City Beach, Floreat

Old maps reveal how vast the prohibited area was, including North Perth, Leederville, Victoria Park, Kings Park, Wembley, Floreat and City Beach.

State Records Officer senior archivist Damien Hassan said if Indigenous people were unable to produce their native pass on demand, they had to vacate the prohibited area at once.

Failure to comply could result in arrest.

"We've got police records which show Aboriginal people being charged simply because they didn't have a pass on them, even sometimes when they were lawfully employed they may not have the pass with them," Mr Hassan said.

"It was a huge problem for Aboriginal people and also police trying to enforce this, and in fact many in the police force opposed this policy, and by 1954 it was abolished completely.

"It's important that stories like this do get told and that we understand our full history of Western Australia."

It is unclear how many people were arrested for being in the exclusion zone without a permit, but documentation held by the State Records Office suggests it was a significant number.

Between July 1949 and February 1950, Central Police Office records show 78 Indigenous people were charged.

'We are like slaves'

Old newspaper articles also offer an insight into how Indigenous people felt at the time.

"We are like slaves - tied down," Thomas Brophy of Bassendean told Perth Police Court after being charged with being in a prohibited area in 1946.

"In the war the Aborigines were good enough to fight side by side with your men. Now they are sent back to the bush again. We cannot get justice if you want to put permits over us."

Correspondence from Neville to the Commissioner of Police in March 1928 gives an insight into his motives for supporting the prohibited area.

Allowing them entry, he wrote, "simply debases the natives and lowers the status of the whites in their eyes ... and will invariably lead to the ruin of blacks."

Writer and researcher Stephen Kinnane said Neville disliked the fact that Indigenous men were beating whites in competitive events at White City.

"Aboriginal men were winning boxing competitions, buck-jumping competitions and he felt it lessened the status of whites in the eyes of Aboriginal people to see that kind of activity take place, where an Aboriginal could defeat a white person in a competition," Mr Kinnane said.

"It was an incredible amount of surveillance of people's lives and people were aware they were being watched.

"They were very careful about how they behaved in public because they knew being Aboriginal and being in the city was something that was curtailed and controlled through legislation.

"The Perth Prohibited Area was so well-regarded as a solution to controlling Aboriginal people and segregating them from the wider population that it was applied across the state."

Mr Kinnane, a Marda Marda man from Miriwoong country in the East Kimberley, welcomed efforts to improve understanding of Perth's Prohibited Area because of the important lessons to be learnt.

"That that kind of race-based approach and controlling a population, it never works," he said.

"People got around it, they still cut through the city, they still used the city.

"Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people still related to each other.

"Non-Aboriginal servicemen who served with their Aboriginal mates still walked the streets with them and a couple of them got arrested for doing that.

"That kind of approach only creates division. We need to share the space."

Topics: indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, indigenous-policy, history, perth-6000, wa

First posted December 29, 2019 09:15:50

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The forbidden city: When Indigenous people were banned from Perth

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Updated December 29, 2019 10:23:39 "Natives Gaoled: In Prohibited Area" declared the headline in The West Australian newspaper. It was back in 1947 and a dark chapter in Western Australia's history - a time when Indigenous people were not allowed to walk the streets of Perth without a permit, or a "Native Pass".

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Posted February 05, 2020 13:35:48

A new generation of Aboriginal teachers is taking shape in classrooms once dominated by non-Indigenous staff.

There have been 33 Indigenous staff already working in support roles in schools across regional Western Australia, who have been preparing to train as teachers at Curtin University as part of a pilot program.

It has been a big change from the past, where city-trained educators were flown in to teach at these schools.

The new $3-million Government program would support these Aboriginal staff to train to be qualified teachers over the next five years.

'A chain reaction and ripple effect'

Samantha Morgan, who has lived in the remote Kimberley community of One Arm Point, said it was a great opportunity to improve the education outcomes in the Indigenous community.

"This would benefit us big time," she said.

"Doing our degree, we have the experience of being Indigenous, and knowing what the kids will need.

"Getting this degree, we will then know the system from the education side."

She believed it was important to break the cycle of under-education in Indigenous communities.

"We don't want our kids going through the same cycle, just going to school because they're told to, but [not] knowing the importance of it," Ms Morgan said.

"We are getting the education to better [the student's] life, and to make a difference, and contribute back into the community."

'Positive role models'

Mark Batka, the principal at One Arm Point Remote Community School, said it would have a positive effect for the community.

"[One Arm Point] already has four qualified Aboriginal teachers working at the school, one of whom is our new deputy principal," he said.

"We are certainly excited to be able to continue this very positive trend at our school, promoting local employment and building our Indigenous staff."

Mr Batka was optimistic about the impact of having Indigenous teachers working with Indigenous children.

"It helps to provide positive role models for our students who can see with their very own eyes what can be achieved through education," he said.

Closing the gap

The Federal Government's 2019 annual Closing the Gap report said attendance rates for Indigenous students had not improved between 2014 and 2018, but found teacher quality was the most significant determinant of student achievement.

West Australian Minister for Education and Training, Sue Ellery, said training more Indigenous teachers was essential for improving education outcomes.

"We want our Aboriginal students to be confident and successful learners, as well as provide greater opportunities for our Aboriginal school staff," she said in a statement.

"Promoting local employment and building our Indigenous staff is an important step in ensuring the great initiatives we facilitate as a school are sustainable into the future."

Ms Morgan hoped more Indigenous teachers would help close the gap in the future, and inspire the younger generation.

"We will deliver [the teaching] in our style and way, where it's understanding the students," she said.

"We can close the gap big time, because we know their background and their needs."

Topics: access-to-education, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, teachers, university-and-further-education, primary-schools, family-and-children, indigenous-protocols, indigenous-policy, broome-6725, derby-6728, wyndham-6740, kununurra-6743, perth-6000, curtin-university-of-technology-6102

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'This would benefit us, big time': Push for more Indigenous teachers

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Posted February 05, 2020 13:35:48 A new generation of Aboriginal teachers is taking shape in classrooms once dominated by non-Indigenous staff. There have been 33 Indigenous staff already working in support roles in schools across regional Western Australia, who have been preparing to train as teachers at Curtin University as part of a pilot program.

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Welcome to the next article in our Designing Hospitals series, where we explore how architecture and design shape our hospitals and medical centres. Today, we look at what Indigenous people tell us they need in hospital design.
Last year, New South Wales health minister Brad Hazzard proposed segregated Indigenous waiting areas in the emergency departments of the state's public hospitals.

The novel policy suggested a link between Indigenous participation in health care and the design of health-care spaces.

One response called the proposal "absurd" and "apartheid". It questioned whether racially segregated rooms were the answer to Indigenous patients leaving the emergency department without receiving care.

What was the evidence that redesigning waiting rooms would benefit Indigenous patients and their carers?

Read more: Aquariums, meerkats and gaming screens: how hospital design supports children, young people and their families

How we use evidence to design better hospitals

Evidence-based design aims to use research and evidence to improve hospital architecture for patients, carers and staff.

Studying physical environments that reduce patient stress, for example, is one area that has led to design changes in waiting areas, in-patient rooms, and wayfinding (how people navigate through a building).

It has also led to increasing integration of landscaping in health-care facilities and an interest in the benefits of therapeutic gardens.

But this research has largely ignored Indigenous people, despite the persistent health gap and the fact that cross-cultural design principles are being used for other buildings such as housing and prisons.

Read more: Re-imagining a museum of our First Nations

Here's what we did

Our research attempted to determine how design can improve the way Indigenous people experience hospitals. The team included architects, anthropologists and statisticians.

We used a survey to examine the preferences and experiences of 600 Indigenous people at two locations: a metropolitan city (Townsville) and an inland regional city (Mount Isa).

We then interviewed a further 55 Indigenous people, and held meetings with the Indigenous liaison team at the Townsville Hospital.

Here's what we found

The results reinforced anecdotal evidence that many Indigenous people find hospitals uncomfortable, alienating, and stressful.

One interviewee told us:

When you've got people looking you up and down, it makes you feel bad. All eyes on you, makes you shame always, like you shouldn't be there.

Many of us find hospitals stressful. But a higher proportion of Indigenous people avoid hospital appointments or leave hospital against medical advice than non-Indigenous people.

Yes, culturally appropriate, high-quality care is of primary importance in the delivery of health services.

However, the survey results and stories confirmed hospital design matters to Indigenous patients and their families.

These preferences relate to Indigenous people's cultural and social background, which is influenced by location and histories of colonisation.

Read more: What do Aboriginal Australians want from their aged care system? Community connection is number one

How can we improve hospital design?

Our study confirmed that Indigenous social networks, related to both kinship and community, affect hospital use.

Indigenous patients attract larger numbers of carers and visitors, whether in maternity wards, outpatient clinics, intensive care, or in palliative care. Interviews with hospital staff supported these observations.

Architectus, Author provided

For in-patients, the larger visitor groups often stay longer, which can also place burden on staff and resources.

Existing guidelines on hospital design, however, tell us hospital wards are usually designed to accommodate only a few visitors at one time.

The results of our study indicated that larger in-patient rooms, semi-private waiting rooms located in wards, and connection to outdoors would begin to offer comfort to Indigenous visitors and families who may feel unwelcome in larger numbers.

Read more: Ms Dhu coronial findings show importance of teaching doctors and nurses about unconscious bias

Our research found clinics or hospital waiting rooms are rarely private enough for Indigenous people. We also found Indigenous patients and visitors feel more comfortable if they can see who is coming and going.

This visual monitoring can help maintain social relationships, either avoiding individuals - a cultural requirement in close-knit communities - or embracing supportive kin.

The spatial solution might be a challenge - providing flexible seating arrangements that offer semi-private spaces with clear views of entries. Larger waiting rooms adjoining outdoor areas would be a good start.

Can landscapes and gardens help?

The results of our study confirmed that Indigenous patients and visitors strongly preferred outdoor spaces, not just for the benefits of more natural settings, or to escape the air-conditioning, but also for social contact.

Conrad Gargett Lyons, Author provided

This can be to gather in private or to seek out familiar faces entering or leaving the hospital.

Although not often designed for such, outdoor areas are commonly used for grieving and cultural rituals around death. With this diversity of use, outdoor spaces deserve as much design attention as the interiors.

Evaluating how design works

Newer clinics and hospitals include design features, such as Indigenous art, which recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. But we need to make cross-cultural design more widespread and effective if we want Indigenous people to feel more comfortable in hospital.

Revised hospital design guidelines can raise awareness, but they may not capture the diversity of Indigenous people using different types of health facilities across a big continent.

Read more: Meet the remote Indigenous community where a few thousand people use 15 different languages

This makes consultation with local Indigenous people essential if their needs and preferences are to be accommodated in new health-care buildings.

Evaluating the design of newly built hospitals also contributes to evidence about architecture, and what might work better for both patients and staff, including Indigenous people.

Governments are hyper-sensitive about criticism of new hospitals. However, evaluating their design identifies worthy and repeatable design, as well as failures.

The modest design changes needed to improve the experience of Indigenous patients are likely to benefit all people who use our public hospitals.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations in Townsville and Mount Isa were essential in reaching the survey participants. Professor Paul Memmott, Professor Michele Haynes, Dr Bernie Baffour, Sue York, Carys Chainey, Georgia Betros, Kali Marnane and Alex Bond contributed to the research mentioned in this article. Read other articles in our Designing Hospitals series: From army barracks to shopping malls: how hospital design has been a matter of life and death Aquariums, meerkats and gaming screens: how hospital design supports children, young people and their families

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Making space: how designing hospitals for Indigenous people might benefit everyone

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Welcome to the next article in our Designing Hospitals series, where we explore how architecture and design shape our hospitals and medical centres. Today, we look at what Indigenous people tell us they need in hospital design. Last year, New South Wales health minister Brad Hazzard proposed segregated Indigenous waiting areas in the emergency departments of the state's public hospitals.

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The defining image imprinted on to my mind after watching director Maya Newell's excellent film In My Blood It Runs is of a child - its 10-year-old subject, Dujuan Hoosan, an Arrernte Aboriginal boy living in Alice Springs - running around at nighttime with a canister of exploding fireworks in his hand. A fantastic discharge of orangey-yellow colours light up the darkness, Hoosan swinging the canister around with an elated look on his face.

Newell has been painting vivid pictures of interesting people since her first documentary, the aesthetically rough but affecting 52-minute film Richard, from 2007, about a toy shop owner and Michael Jackson impersonator. Her previous full-length doco was 2015's Gayby Baby, which depicted the day-to-day lives of children of single-sex parents.

For In My Blood It Runs, the subject is Hoosan - who speaks three languages, addressed the United Nations last September, and yet is "failing" in school, which of course is a reflection of the educational curriculum rather than his obvious intelligence. Made in close collaboration with the boy and his family (Hoosan is in fact a co-cinematographer), it follows him as he navigates the inequality of the education system.

In that early arresting moment, Newell (also a cinematographer) frames the scene beautifully: first with intentional blurriness - bursts of colour appearing like circular baubles, glowing as they float in the air - then with sharp focus, capturing the boy and his countenance. A frosty cynic (not me, ever) might argue this is a simplistic trick: an easy way of achieving visual aplomb by lighting something on fire and making sparks literally fly.

The scene however is about much more than pyrotechnics and sets the mood going forward. As the fireworks fizz and fly, the director cuts to quick shots of archival footage. We see, ever so briefly, as if dancing on the edges of our perception, vision of Arrernte dancers (who are relatives of Hoosan) from Santa Teresa mission in the 1950s, and a clip from On Sacred Ground - a 1980 documentary about the Noonkanbah dispute, in which Indigenous protestors fought against mining in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Hoosan speaks about memory and history ("I just felt something ... in my blood it runs") before Newell returns to the last sputter of fireworks coming out of the canister.
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This moment reminded me of a scene from the director Benh Zeitlin's poetic 2012 drama Beasts of the Southern Wild, set in the backwaters of Louisiana. In it the protagonist - a young girl named Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) - also gleefully runs around with light-spitting fireworks in both hands, an image so striking it was used on the poster.

Beasts is a fictional feature and Newell's film an observational documentary. However they share some similarities. Both for instance are steered by young subjects living in impoverished communities, who view privileged, predominantly white society as a fantasy land or bizarro world - somewhere forever in the distance, unattainable and even unvisitable, like the end of a rainbow.

In another early scene from In My Blood It Runs, Hoosan and some friends - who are residents of Hidden Valley Aboriginal Town Camp - look out from a hill on to Alice Springs, observing a side of the town where "all the rich men comes" with their "clean houses" and "good front, good neighbours". Like other portraits of remote Indigenous communities (such as Molly Reynolds' 2015 documentary Another Country and Ivan Sen's 2011 drama Toomelah), Newell makes a powerful point that there is no one version of Australia; no single country we all experience. The Australia each of us knows differs dramatically according to our place and privilege.

Shot in Mparntwe (Alice Springs), Sandy Bore Homeland and the Borroloola community in the Northern Territory, like most ob-docs, In My Blood It Runs has an unhurried, slice-of-life way about it, capturing daily routines such as Hoosan going to school and hanging around at home.

Even at this young age he is acutely aware of social injustice and the harsh treatment of Indigenous youth in the Northern Territory. After watching a harrowing Four Corners investigation into Indigenous youth incarceration, Hoosan's aunt warns her nephew that going to juvenile prison means "you're only going to end up in two places: a jail cell or a coffin" - a hell of a conversation to have with a 10-year-old.

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Despite such a heavy context, the tone of the film is soft and pensive rather than polemical, constructed with a lightness of touch. It is often inspirational, in a quiet sort of way, and this is derived almost entirely from Hoosan himself.

Building trust and willingness with subjects - leading them to open up to the camera and reflect on their lives and circumstances - is the great unseen art of the documentarian. Almost always the more a film-maker succeeds, the more transparent and effortless the result appears.

In My Blood It Runs is Newell's best film yet. It feels like a turning point: the director's aesthetic choices reflecting the contents of her subject's character in different and exciting ways. Nothing, for me, visually encapsulates the wide-eyed Hoosan's presence more than that early moment with the fireworks. Visually simplistic? Maybe. A beautiful distillation of his young character? Absolutely.

* In My Blood it Runs is in Australian cinemas now

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In My Blood It Runs review - quietly masterful portrait of growing up Indigenous

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The defining image imprinted on to my mind after watching director Maya Newell's excellent film In My Blood It Runs is of a child - its 10-year-old subject, Dujuan Hoosan, an Arrernte Aboriginal boy living in Alice Springs - running around at nighttime with a canister of exploding fireworks in his hand.

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Australian primary school students have registered slow but statistically significant improvement in Naplan test scores over a decade, with the best gains made by Indigenous children and those with a language background other than English.

The results, to be released by the Australian curriculum assessment and reporting authority on Tuesday, show that since the national tests were introduced in 2008 average scores have gone up "significantly" in year 5 numeracy, years 3 and 5 reading and spelling, and year 3 grammar.

The authority's chief executive, David de Carvalho, said it was "not the case, as some claim, that Naplan results show no improvement since the test was introduced".

"It is more complex than that."

But despite the improvement since tests began there were no statistically significant increases in average scores or the proportion of students above national minimum standards in any core competency in the past year.

Students in years 7 and 9 registered no improvement in reading since 2008 but there was an improvement in the proportion of year 9s above the national minimum standard in numeracy.

Since 2008 Indigenous students have improved in reading (years 3, 5 and 7), spelling (years 3 and 5), grammar and punctuation (years 3 and 7), numeracy (years 5 and 9), and writing (year 3). In the past year, Indigenous students also improved in years 3 and 9 writing.

De Carvalho said the cumulative gains made by Indigenous students since 2008 - at almost twice the rate of improvement for the general population - are "especially pleasing".

Since 2008 there have also been significant cumulative gains in some domains and year levels for students with language background other than English, including reading (years 3, 5 and 7), grammar and punctuation (years 3 and 7), spelling (years 3 and 5), and numeracy (year 5).

When analysed by gender, females have improved in reading (years 3 and 5), spelling (year 5), grammar and punctuation (year 3), and numeracy (year 5) since 2008. Males improved in those areas and year 3 spelling.

The shadow education minister, Tanya Plibersek, accused the Coalition of "doing nothing" to improve education results, citing low marks for university students to get into teaching degrees and "schools ... starved of the support they need".

The education minister, Dan Tehan, said the government "continues to back Naplan because our community deserves to know how our students and schools are performing".

He said the results shows the need for more work on the fundamentals of literacy and numeracy, pointing to government reforms including a review of the curriculum, making phonics mandatory for teachers and setting up a national evidence institute on best teaching practice.

The Naplan testing regime has been criticised by the Australian Education Union and several state and territory education ministers, who initiated a review in 2018 after complaints it encouraged teachers to "teach to the test".

The botched rollout of online testing in 2019 added to concerns, with Western Australia suggesting it may refuse to shift to online.

In November the interim report of the Naplan review identified deficiencies including that questions were either too easy or too difficult to give meaningful data, the stakes were too high and that the test had the potential to narrow the curriculum to expected test content. The final report is due by June.

In December, state and territory education ministers agreed that the focus of Naplan reporting would move from school averages to reporting on the gains made by students at the school.

The head of the New South Wales education department, Mark Scott, has suggested Naplan testing would be made "obsolete" with the shift to smaller, more individualised testing regimes, as proposed by the second Gonski review.
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Indigenous children among those making best gains in Naplan testing over decade

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Australian primary school students have registered slow but statistically significant improvement in Naplan test scores over a decade, with the best gains made by Indigenous children and those with a language background other than English.