PARITY · Volume 23, Issue 9 · November 2010

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ionThe Dispossession ofIndigenous People: and it’s Consequences

By Mick Dodson AM, Director of the National Centrefor Indigenous Studies at theAustralian National University

The following is reprinted with thepermission of the author from theSeptember 1996 Edition ofParity,“Homelessness in the LuckyCountry”.

This article was the inspiration behindthis current edition of Parity, some14 years on.

This article is as relevant andimportant today as it was then.Perhaps even more so.

The Royal Commission into AboriginalDeaths in Custody found that 43 of the

99 people whose deaths it investigated hadbeen removed from their families as children.Most had suffered a lifetime of severepsychological distress, depression and griefcaused by the trauma of this separation.

History of RemovalBetween the late 1890s and the early 1970s,depending on the state or territory, Aboriginaland Torres Strait Islander children wereforcibly removed from their families. In everyjurisdiction laws existed that allowedIndigenous children of mixed blood to betaken from their families. In some instanceslegislation also condoned the taking ofchildren of full descent. In many cases theselaws relied on tests of neglect. If it could beshown that, according to the dominant whitestandards, an Indigenous child was beingneglected he or she could legally be removedfrom his or her family. In NSW there was anamendment to the legislation in 1915 whichallowed the removal of a child simply becausehe or she was Aboriginal. In that stateAbor ig inal i ty was automat ica l ly andlegislatively associated with neglect.

All over Australia Indigenous kids anywherefrom a few days old to 15 were removedby the Protector of Aborigines and placedwith white families or put into institutions.From these institutions Indigenous kids weresent to work for white families as domesticsor as farm labour. Many of these homesand hostels, some of which were, some ofwhich were inaccurately called orphanages,were run by the church. In almost all thesecases ch i ld ren were taken w i thoutconsent of their families.

Indeed, Aboriginal people and Torres StraitIslanders actively resisted the removal of

their children. The uprooting of a child wasan event of profound distress for a familyand a community. It was, in effect, an actwhich attempted to devastate our cultureand destroy our society. Across Australiai t was vehement l y opposed by theIndigenous people.

The forced separation of Aboriginal and TorresStrait Islander children from their families wasbased on the pol icy of ass imi lat ion.Assimilation relied on the well-establishedand widely-accepted view that Aboriginal andTorres Strait Islander peoples were inferiorand that their way of life, their culture andtheir language were substandard. Mixedblood children were seen as redeemablebecause they had some white blood.Assimilationist policies justified their removalon the basis that it gave them a chance insociety by socialising them like white childrenthereby giving them better lives.

This policy also presupposed that theIndigenous people of Australia were a dyingrace and that the removal of children of mixedblood from their families and communitieswould speed up the inevitable demise ofthe Indigenous population. The answer tobe perceived “Aboriginal problem” was tobreed out the race by absorbing people ofmixed blood into the dominant culture.

Often children were removed because of theliving conditions of their families or becausethe behaviour of their parents was perceivedas neglectful. Assimilationist policies requiredIndigenous people to live like non-Indigenouspeop le . Bu t the ex t reme h is to r i ca ldisadvantage suffered by Indigenous peopleswith respect to housing and infrastructuremeant that it was virtually inevitable that manyAboriginal famil ies fai led to meet thestandards of European lifestyle set by theauthorities. The houses they were given andthe places they were expected to live werefar removed from the standard of thoseenjoyed by non-Indigenous people, and onceenjoyed by Indigenous peoples.

Traditionally the provision of housing toAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peopleswas not accompanied by the establishmentof basic infrastructure services such aswater supply, waste removal and accessto goods and services such as health careand f ood supp l i e s . Consequen t l y ,Indigenous families were disproportionatelydeclared as having an unfit environment forthe children who were forcibly removed.

Sometimes too, white authorities fabricatedthe neglect of Indigenous parents to justify

the taking of their children while apparentlycomplying with the legislation.

Current Policies andPractices of RemovalToday the indirect operation of laws andpractices continues the tradition of removingIndigenous kids from their families. Indigenouschildren are still removed from their familiesat an alarming rate. It is estimated that inNSW, for example, one in four Aboriginalchildren is removed from his or her familyeither by the welfare system or by theoperation of the juvenile justice system.

The overt racist practice of removingIndigenous kids has been replaced with thecovert practice of criminalising Aboriginal andTorres Stra i t Is lander ch i ldren. Thecriminalisation of Indigenous youth justifiestheir removal from family and community intojuvenile justice institutions and non-Indigenousfamilies. Nationally, Indigenous children are18.6 times more likely to be he held indetention than non-Indigenous young people.

Policies remain which allow the removal ofchildren on the grounds of neglect. Thechronic unemployment of Aboriginal andTorres Strait Islander people means that,more than any other group in society, theyare reliant on the welfare system. Indigenousfamilies are, therefore subject to highlevels of surveillance and intervention bywelfare agencies. This ultimately leads tothe removal of their children at a far greaterrate than non-Indigenous children.

Today Indigenous peoples continue toexperience acute disadvantage in the areasof housing and infrastructure. In 1994 anestimated $3.1 billion was required to fundthe backlog in housing and infrastructure inAboriginal communities in rural, remote andurban areas. It is estimated that this backlogwill take 20 years to address at existing levelsof funding. What this means on the groundis that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanderchildren remain acutely vulnerable to removalon the grounds of neglect.

The Impact andEffect of RemovalFew Indigenous families are untouched bythe effects of the policies of forced removal.These policies affect tens of thousandsAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,not only the children who were removed,but also the members of the families andcommunities from which they were, and are,

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taken. It has been estimated that as manyas 100,000 Aboriginal people were directlyaffected by the official policy of assimilationand recent statistics show that more than10 per cent of living Aboriginal and TorresStrait Islander people over 25 said they hadbeen taken away from their natural families.

The impact of removal policies on Indigenoussociety and culture has been profound.Removal resulted in a loss of identity forchildren who were taken, many of whom hadthei r name and age changed. ManyIndigenous kids lost all family ties and werealienated from their culture and language.For some, knowledge of their Aboriginalitywas kept secret from them for years, evendecades, or until they stumbled upon it bymistake. The disproportionate levels ofalcohol and substance abuse in Indigenouscommunities have been directly linked topolicies of removal as has the high level ofmental illness amongst Aboriginal and TorresStrait Islander peoples. Policies of removalhave also had a profound influence on thecapacity of many Indigenous people to parenttheir own children. The effects of removalhave been generational and they continueto reverberate through our communities.

A National InquiryThe impact of policies of forced removalon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanderpeoples is graphically reflected in the findingsof the Royal Commission. In my recent roleas a Hearing Commissioner on hearings forthe National Inquiry into the Separation ofAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Childrenand their Families the devastating effectsof past and present policies of removal onAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peopleshave again been brought into sharp focus.Perhaps people’s accounts of the i rdesperate attempts to hide their childrenfrom welfare agencies and the police mostvividly tell the story of the profound impactof and resistance to forced separation inthe Indigenous community.

The National Inquiry was established by theformer Attorney-General, Michael Lavarchin 1995 in recognition of the urgent needto address the policies of removal ofAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children,both past and present. The terms ofreference of the Inquiry require it to consider:

1. The past and continuing effects ofseparation on Indigenous people;

2. What should be done by theGovernment in response to thispolicy such as changes in law,policies and practices, and thedevelopment of strategies to reunitefamilies?

3. The justification for anycompensation for those affected byremoval;

4. Current laws, policies and practicesaffecting the placement andtreatment of Indigenous childrensuch as the operation of the juvenilejustice system and welfare agencies.

The Inquiry is being carried out by theHuman Rights and Equal OpportunityCommission and is required to report to theGovernment in December 1996.

Homelessness andDispossessionHomelessness in Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander communities is directly linked todispossession.

The collective historical experience ofAboriginal people has been one of exclusionfrom the lands they traditionally occupiedand used. As a consequence of thatexclusion Aboriginal people lost control overthe location, design and function of theirliving spaces.

Many Aboriginal people may not officiallybe “homeless” by may nonetheless considerthemselves as such because of theirexclusion from country. The capacity ofpeoples to care for country is, from anIndigenous perspective, a necessaryconsideration in determining and explaininglevels of homelessness within a community.

Homelessness andRemovalThe Indigenous homeless comes from manyplaces. For example, homelessness mayresult from:

• an Indigenous teenager leavinghome because the non-Aboriginalfamily into which he or she has beenadopted or fostered has beenunable to cope with his or herreaction to the experience of racism;

• Aboriginal kids leaving homebecause of poor parenting skills oftheir parents who were themselvesremoved and brought up ininstitutions or inadequate privatehomes and subject to abuse;

• The plight of Aboriginal old peoplewho were taken away and who hadtheir children taken away and whonow have very specific care needs.These people cannot rely on theirown children to care for thembecause that generation is alsosuffering the effects of removal. Forthese old people the prospect ofculturally inappropriate nursinghomes where no one speaks theirlanguage and they are deniedcontact with their country is nooption at all. Instead they choosehomelessness.

In Australia Indigenous families are 20times more likely to be homeless than non-Indigenous families. Although the cycleof remova l , inst i tu t iona l isat ion andhomelessness is a common one it isd i f f i cu l t to es t imate the number o fhomeless Indigenous people who werealso removed from their families. The RoyalCommission found that a high proportionof the people whose deaths it investigatedwere homeless at the time of their death.

ConclusionIf there is one commitment this countrymust make to social justice, it is that noAustralian will be deprived of the basics ofsurvival; if there is any consensus aboutthe future of this country, it must be that

a l l i t s peop l e have enough to ea t ,somewhere to live, safe water to drink. NoAustralian can survive without these basicgoods and services. But Aboriginal andTorres Strait Islander Australians have notbeen able to count on their availability.

Homelessness and the acute need ofAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peopleswith respect to housing and infrastructurerequire urgent attention. The continuingextreme levels of need in the Indigenouscommunity mean Aboriginal and TorresStrait Islander Australians continue to bedenied the capacity to exercise and enjoytheir human rights like other Australians.

Any strategy to address homelessness inthe Indigenous community must take intoaccount its diverse faces. Land rights, thenexus between past and current policies ofremoval and homelessness as well ashousing and infrastructure issues must allbe considered in the development andimplementation of any adequate policy toconfront Indigenous homelessness. ■Professor Mick Dodson is a member of theYawuru peoples — the traditional Aboriginalowners of land and waters in the Broome areaof the southern Kimberley region of WesternAustralia. He is currently Director of theNational Centre for Indigenous Studies at theAustralian National University. He is aProfessor of law at the ANU College of Law.

Professor Dodson is also currently a Directorof Dodson, Bauman and Associates Pty Ltd —Legal and Anthropological Consultants. He isformerly the Director of the Indigenous LawCentre at the University of New South Wales.

Mick Dodson was Australia’s first Aboriginaland Torres Strait Islander Social JusticeCommissioner with the then Human Rightsand Equal Opportunity. (Now the AustralianHuman Rights Commission)

Born in Katherine, Northern Territory, Mick waseducated in Katherine, Darwin and Victoria. Hecompleted a Bachelor of Jurisprudence and aBachelor of Laws at Monash University. Hewas awarded an honorary Doctor of Lettersfrom the University of Technology Sydney in1998. He also holds an honorary Doctor ofLaws from the University of NSW. In 2010 hewas awarded and honorary Doctorate from theUniversity of Canberra. On graduating he firstworked as a solicitor with the VictorianAboriginal Legal Service then became abarrister at the Victorian Bar. He joined theNorthern Land Council as Senior Legal Adviserin 1984 and became Director (CEO) of theCouncil in 1990.

Mick Dodson has been a prominent advocateon land rights and other issues affectingAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Mick Dodson is a vigorous advocate of therights and interests of the Indigenous Peoplesof the world. He was the Co-Deputy Chair ofthe Technical Committee for the 1993International Year of the World’s IndigenousPeople. He was also chairman of the UnitedNations Advisory Group for the Voluntary Fundfor the Decade of Indigenous Peoples. Heserved for 5 years as a member of the Boardof Trustees of the United Nations IndigenousVoluntary Fund. He is currently a communitynominated member (Pacific) of the UNPermanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Mick participated in the crafting of the text ofthe Declaration on the Rights of IndigenousPeoples in the United Nation Working Groupon Indigenous Populations and the Inter-sessional Working Group of the Human RightsCommission adopted overwhelmingly in 2007by the United Nations General Assembly.

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Homelessness and Dispossession

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