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Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander People In Australia

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been subjected to a range of government policies and practices, since colonisation of Australia which began in the late 1700s. In 1997, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC) had submitted the Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families (the ‘Bringing them Home’, report) to the Australian Federal Government. The ‘Bringing them Home’ report made 54 recommendations about Australian policies and practices towards equal treatment of Australian Indigenous peoples. One such recommendation, (9b.), requested “That all under-graduates and trainees in relevant professions receive, as part of their core curriculum, …show more content…

The Bringing Them Home report’ recommendation (9b.) outlines “That all under-graduates and trainees in relevant professions receive, as part of their core curriculum, education about the history and effects of forcible removal” (HREOC, 1997). In 2002 the Queensland Indigenous Education Consultative Body (QIECB) made a similar recommendation, suggesting that “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies [should] be mandatory in all pre-service education courses in Queensland tertiary institutions through discrete courses or units” (Price, 2012). These government recommendations have been introduced to, acknowledge, re-establish lost relations with, and apologise to the Australian Indigenous peoples in regards to past government policies and practices which resulted in the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their …show more content…

The Act was based on the recommendations of Special Commissioner of Police Archibald Meston, in 1894 and was finally published on 16th December 1897 (Government, 1897 - Indigenous rights restricted, 2012). Meston’s report focussed on the need to protect Indigenous children from contact with non-Indigenous society.
“Kidnapping of boys and girls is another serious evil … Boys and girls are frequently taken from their parents and their tribes, and removed far off whence they have no chance of returning; left helpless at the mercy of those who possessed them, white people responsible to no one and under no supervision by any proper authority … Stringent legislation is required to prevent a continuance of abuses concerning the women and children (Meston 1896 page 4).” (HREOC, 1997, p.

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