Page 13 - Indiginous Australians

Mary Alp
sees such actions as racism/discrimination, she also points out that such actions
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41
there is no such caution. He unequivocally blames- ‘racism for the state of
are often seen by many as just ‘free speech’.
However, for journalist John Pilger
Aboriginal disadvantage in Australia’.
Floyd’s 2020 death in America at the hands of police saw most Australians agreeing that there was institutional racism within the US police force but that this was not the case in Australia. It is also interesting to note that since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in Custody there have been a further
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By the L1960s & 1970s slow change was happening - assimilation polices were
being challenged by policies reflecting Indigenous Australians demands for
equality & self -determination. For Australian Aboriginals Land Claims & Human
rights were not separate. Broome illustrates this when he states that - ‘At the
core of the continuing demand to special Indigenous Australian rights was a claim
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Land Claims & Human Rights - civil, political, economic, social & cultural.
It is interesting to note that George
430 deaths in custody. There were no convictions following these deaths. mentioned before, racism in Australia is not exclusive to Indigenous Australians – we only have to think of such incidents as the 2005 Cronulla riots between whites & those of Middle Eastern descent & the continual African/white descent.
As
for land’.
nations peoples. All or this makes sense when we consider their prior ownership of land & their traditional cultural connection to land. This Aboriginal claim for rights was not new. As early as 1840s Melbourne, Billibellary, a member of the Kulin Nation, wanted to own & farm some land while still having the right to remain Aboriginal. With the advent of multiculturism in the 1980s this push for
This ‘special right’ according to Amnesty International is specific to first 46
41 G. Triggs, Speaking Up, pp244-246, Cpt 5 ‘Offend, Insult, Intimidate or Humiliate.’
42 J.Pilger, Wikipedia, ‘Racism in Australia’. nma.gov.au ‘Indigenous Australians right to vote’.
43 Lindaburney.com.au ‘We have our own serious issues with deaths in custody – Linda Burney MP; abc.news.au, Indigenous advocates call for more legal education in wake of George Floyd death, Black Lives Matter movement’. 44 Wikipedia, ‘Civil and Political rights’; Amnesty International Australia, ‘what are Indigenous rights?’ ‘Like everyone, Indigenous people have all of the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human rights. However Indigenous People because of their unique position as First Peoples have specific rights & according to the 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, these include their native language, customs, to live on the land of their ancestors, & to look after sacred sites’.
45 Broome Ibid p227.
46 Amnesty International Australia Ibid. (see f/n 44).
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