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Australia became federated on the 1st of january 1901.
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Queen Victoria dies and is suceeded by Edward the VII
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The Commonwealth Government takes control of a wide range of functions formerly exercised by the colonies, including military forces, postal and customs departments and immigration.
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Australias flag is flwon for the first time. There were 32823 entries for its design.
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The first federal election is held. Adult men are allowed to vote in all States, but Aborigines and women can vote in some States only.
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The white australia policy is made to prevent black people working.
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The NSW Aborigines Protection Act is introduced following crises in public schools.
Aboriginal schools are established in NSW. Exclusion of Aboriginal children from public schools followed requests by the white community. In NSW there are 22 Aboriginal schools in 1910, 35 in 1920 and 40 in 1940. The syllabus stresses manual activities and the teacher is usually the reserve manager’s untrained wife. -
The South Australian Aborigines Act makes the Chief Protector the legal guardian of every Aboriginal and ‘half-caste’ child under 21 years old. The Chief Protector also has control of where the child lives. The Chief Protector is replaced by the Aborigines Protection Board in 1939 and guardianship power is repealed in 1962.
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Australian soldiers fight in the first world war. Aborignals also fought in the war
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The NSW Aborigines Protection Board is given powers to remove Aboriginal children without a court hearing. This power is repealed in 1940, when the Board is renamed the Aborigines Welfare Board.
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Aboriginal population is estimated to be at its lowest at 60,000 - 70,000. It is widely believed to be a ‘dying race’. Most Australians have no contact with Aboriginal people due to segregation and social conventions.
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Following the killing of a European in Dala, Western Australia, 11 Aboriginal people are murdered in police custody; no prosecutions follow.
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Conniston Massacre in the Northern Territory. Europeans shoot 32 Aboriginal people after a European dingo trapper and a station owner are attacked by them.
A court of inquiry rules the Europeans’ action ‘justified’. Aboriginal people are refused legal aid by the federal government. -
Aboriginal Welfare - Conference of Commonwealth and State Authorities called by the federal government, decides that the official policy for some Aboriginal people is assimilation policy. Aboriginal people of mixed descent are to be assimilated into white society whether they want to be or not, those not living tribally are to be educated and all others are to stay on reserves
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150 years after European occupation the Aboriginal Progressive Association declares a Day of Mourning. An Aboriginal conference is held in Sydney. These are the first of many Aboriginal protests against inequality, injustice, dispossession of land and protectionist policies.
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The first-ever mass strike of Aboriginal people in Australia occurs, called the Cummeragunja Walk-off. Over 150 Aboriginal people pack-up and leave Cummeragunja Aboriginal Station in protest at the cruel treatment and exploitation of residents by the management. They walk 66kms and cross the border from New South Wales into Victoria in contravention of the rules of the New South Wales Protection Board. The opera Pecan Summer tells the story of the walk-off.
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Aboriginal children need a medical certificate to attend public schools.
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Aboriginal people are given the right to enrol and vote at federal elections provided they are entitled to enrol for state elections or have served in the armed forces.
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The federal government convenes the Australian Conference for Native Welfare, with all states and territories represented except Victoria and Tasmania, which claim to have no Aboriginal ‘problem’. The conference officially adopts a policy of ‘assimilation’ for Aboriginal people.
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The Northern Territory Welfare Ordinance makes Aboriginal people wards of the government, basically making Aboriginal adults and children, minors.
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The Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders is set up. This group brings together a number of civil rights and Aboriginal welfare organisations. Its work plays a large part in bringing about the 1967 referendum.
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The Western Australian Department of Native Affairs ceases forcefully taking Aboriginal children from their parents and sending them to missions.
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After entering in 1963, Charles Perkins becomes the first Aboriginal university graduate at University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Arts. He is also the first Aboriginal Australian to graduate from university.
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Some people from Maningrida in the Northern Territory, left and went back to a preferred way of life on their home estates. These estates were called ‘outstations’ and later ‘homeland centres’. By 1972 many people had moved back to their traditional homelands.
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Aboriginal Flag is designed by Luritja artist Harold Thomas and flown for the first time in Adelaide.
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Evonne Cawley, an Aboriginal tennis player, receives the Australian of the Year award.
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1,000 Aboriginal people sign the Larrakia petition, one of the most important documents in the history of their struggle for land rights.
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Mr Justice Woodward of the Aboriginal Land Commission delivers his first report, showing the way for a new approach to Aboriginal Land Rights.
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Mr Justice Woodward of the Aboriginal Land Commission delivers his first report, showing the way for a new approach to Aboriginal Land Rights.
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Racial Discrimination Act is passed in the Federal Parliament. The Australian Senate unanimously endorses a resolution put up by Senator Neville Bonner acknowledging prior ownership of this country and seeking compensation for their dispossesion.
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Establishment of the NSW Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (AECG).
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Aboriginal woman Isobel Coe received $100 in damages in the Moree District Court, NSW against Malcolm Barber who refused her entrance to his bar
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Mark Ella named Australian of the Year.
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End of various "protection acts", which had existed since 1897 in Queensland. Under these laws Aboriginal people were effectively slave labourers; the wages for their labour were stolen by the State or never even claimed by the State from the employers.
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The ‘Goondiwindi riot’ between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal residents of Goondiwindi on New South Wales - Queensland border leads to public acknowledgment of poor living standards and low socio-economic expectations of Aboriginal people in the area.
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Northern Territory elections are held and for the first time voting is compulsory for Aboriginal people.
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Tens of thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people march through the streets of Sydney on Australia Day to celebrate their survival during the previous 200 years
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Torres Strait Islander flag designed
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Prime Minister Keating’s Redfern Speech at the launch of the International Year of the Indigenous People acknowledged past wrongs.
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nternational Year of Indigenous People.
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Native Title Act 1993 becomes law.
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The Australian Government proclaims the Aboriginal flag as an official ‘Flag of Australia’ under section 5 of the Flags Act 1953.
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Aboriginal sprinter Cathy Freeman wins a silver medal in the 400 metres run at the Atlanta Olympics, USA, and Nova Peris-Kneebone becomes the first Aboriginal person to win a gold medal.
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Hamersley Iron and the Gumala Aboriginal Corporation finalise a unique regional land use agreement making the way of the $500 million Yandicoogina iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The agreement was the result of 20 months of consultation and negotiation.
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Australians for Native Title (ANT) launches the Sorry Books campaign where Australians can sign who want to do something in response to the federal government’s refusal to make a formal apology to the Stolen Generations.
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Mandatory sentencing in Western Australia and the Northern Territory becomes a national issue. Many call for these laws to be overturned because they have greater impact on Indigenous children than on non-Indigenous children.
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More than 300,000 take part in the People’s Walk for Reconciliation across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
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kevin rudd apoligized, on behalf of australia, to the aboriginals
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everything is okay, or is it?
