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Seeking equality Down Under

By Corinne Rhoades

1 June 2007 - gair rhydd Wales - As 40 years of Aboriginal recognition as human beings is commemorated, Australia still remains a nation divided Australian Aborigines have marked 40 years of recognition by their country as official human beings.

Less than half a century ago, Aborigines living in Australia were still classified as ‘flora and fauna’ along with the rest of the wildlife.

In 1967, an overwhelming 91% of white Australians voted in favour of including indigenous people in the national consensus after a decade of campaigning.

It was hoped that the reforms would bring about justice and equality for Aborigines who suffered immense exclusion in areas such as education and housing.

Linda Burney is the first Aboriginal member of the New South Wales parliament.

She remembered how her people were treated as ‘savages and the closest example to Stone Age man living today’.

But 40 years on, the Australian government has admitted that conditions may now actually be worse for its country’s original inhabitants.

Mal Brough, the Aboriginal Affairs Minister, claimed that progress in some remote black communities has even ‘gone backwards’.

The function to commemorate the referendum’s 40th anniversary took place in Canberra, the national capital.

It saw Prime Minister John Howard booed by hundreds of Aborigines in his address.

Despite this, the Howard Government is now putting plans into place to deliver better services to those Aboriginal communities which exist on the fringes of society.

He conceded that the rights for which they fought in 1967 were no rights at all if ‘accompanied by grinding poverty, overcrowding, poor health, violence and isolation from mainstream society’.

There has been much speculation about the cause of the continuing marginalisation, including linguistic barriers, under-funding and the Government’s denial of ‘institutional racism’.

Source: gair rhydd Wales

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