PARITY · Volume 23, Issue 9 · November 2010 23, Volume · PARITY The Dispossession of Indigenous People: andit’s Consequences By Mick Dodson AM, their children. The uprooting of a child was the taking of their children while apparently Director of the National Centre an event of profound distress for a family complying with the legislation. for Indigenous Studies at the and a community. It was, in effect, an act Australian National University which attempted to devastate our culture Current Policies and and destroy our society. Across Australia The following is reprinted with the Practices of Removal it was vehemently opposed by the permission of the author from the Indigenous people. Today the indirect operation of laws and September 1996 Edition of practices continues the tradition of removing Parity,“Homelessness in the Lucky The forced separation of Aboriginal and Torres Indigenous kids from their families. Indigenous Country”. Strait Islander children from their families was children are still removed from their families based on the policy of assimilation. This article was the inspiration behind at an alarming rate. It is estimated that in Assimilation relied on the well-established this current edition of Parity, some NSW, for example, one in four Aboriginal and widely-accepted view that Aboriginal and 14 years on. children is removed from his or her family Torres Strait Islander peoples were inferior either by the welfare system or by the This article is as relevant and and that their way of life, their culture and operation of the juvenile justice system. important today as it was then. their language were substandard. Mixed Perhaps even more so. blood children were seen as redeemable The overt racist practice of removing because they had some white blood. Indigenous kids has been replaced with the 6 he Royal Commission into Aboriginal Assimilationist policies justified their removal covert practice of criminalising Aboriginal and Deaths in Custody found that 43 of the T on the basis that it gave them a chance in Torres Strait Islander children. The 99 people whose deaths it investigated had society by socialising them like white children criminalisation of Indigenous youth justifies been removed from their families as children. thereby giving them better lives. their removal from family and community into Most had suffered a lifetime of severe juvenile justice institutions and non-Indigenous psychological distress, depression and grief This policy also presupposed that the families. Nationally, Indigenous children are caused by the trauma of this separation. Indigenous people of Australia were a dying 18.6 times more likely to be he held in race and that the removal of children of mixed detention than non-Indigenous young people. History of Removal blood from their families and communities would speed up the inevitable demise of Policies remain which allow the removal of Between the late 1890s and the early 1970s, the Indigenous population. The answer to children on the grounds of neglect. The depending on the state or territory, Aboriginal be perceived “Aboriginal problem” was to chronic unemployment of Aboriginal and and Torres Strait Islander children were breed out the race by absorbing people of Torres Strait Islander people means that, forcibly removed from their families. In every mixed blood into the dominant culture. more than any other group in society, they jurisdiction laws existed that allowed are reliant on the welfare system. Indigenous Indigenous children of mixed blood to be Often children were removed because of the families are, therefore subject to high taken from their families. In some instances living conditions of their families or because levels of surveillance and intervention by legislation also condoned the taking of the behaviour of their parents was perceived welfare agencies. This ultimately leads to children of full descent. In many cases these as neglectful. Assimilationist policies required the removal of their children at a far greater laws relied on tests of neglect. If it could be Indigenous people to live like non-Indigenous rate than non-Indigenous children. shown that, according to the dominant white people. But the extreme historical standards, an Indigenous child was being disadvantage suffered by Indigenous peoples Today Indigenous peoples continue to neglected he or she could legally be removed with respect to housing and infrastructure experience acute disadvantage in the areas from his or her family. In NSW there was an meant that it was virtually inevitable that many of housing and infrastructure. In 1994 an amendment to the legislation in 1915 which Aboriginal families failed to meet the estimated $3.1 billion was required to fund allowed the removal of a child simply because standards of European lifestyle set by the the backlog in housing and infrastructure in Homelessness and Dispossession he or she was Aboriginal. In that state authorities. The houses they were given and Aboriginal communities in rural, remote and Aboriginality was automatically and the places they were expected to live were urban areas. It is estimated that this backlog legislatively associated with neglect. far removed from the standard of those will take 20 years to address at existing levels enjoyed by non-Indigenous people, and once of funding. What this means on the ground All over Australia Indigenous kids anywhere enjoyed by Indigenous peoples. is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander from a few days old to 15 were removed children remain acutely vulnerable to removal by the Protector of Aborigines and placed Traditionally the provision of housing to on the grounds of neglect. with white families or put into institutions. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples From these institutions Indigenous kids were was not accompanied by the establishment The Impact and sent to work for white families as domestics of basic infrastructure services such as or as farm labour. Many of these homes water supply, waste removal and access Effect of Removal and hostels, some of which were, some of to goods and services such as health care Few Indigenous families are untouched by which were inaccurately called orphanages, and food supplies. Consequently, the effects of the policies of forced removal. were run by the church. In almost all these Indigenous families were disproportionately These policies affect tens of thousands cases children were taken without declared as having an unfit environment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, consent of their families. the children who were forcibly removed. not only the children who were removed, Indeed, Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Sometimes too, white authorities fabricated but also the members of the families and Islanders actively resisted the removal of the neglect of Indigenous parents to justify communities from which they were, and are, taken. It has been estimated that as many Homelessness and all its people have enough to eat, as 100,000 Aboriginal people were directly somewhere to live, safe water to drink. No affected by the official policy of assimilation Dispossession Australian can survive without these basic and recent statistics show that more than goods and services. But Aboriginal and Homelessness in Aboriginal and Torres Strait 10 per cent of living Aboriginal and Torres Torres Strait Islander Australians have not Islander communities is directly linked to Strait Islander people over 25 said they had been able to count on their availability. dispossession. been taken away from their natural families. The collective historical experience of Homelessness and the acute need of The impact of removal policies on Indigenous Aboriginal people has been one of exclusion Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples society and culture has been profound. from the lands they traditionally occupied with respect to housing and infrastructure Removal resulted in a loss of identity for and used. As a consequence of that require urgent attention. The continuing children who were taken, many of whom had exclusion Aboriginal people lost control over extreme levels of need in the Indigenous their name and age changed. Many the location, design and function of their community mean Aboriginal and Torres Indigenous kids lost all family ties and were living spaces. Strait Islander Australians continue to be alienated from their culture and language. denied the capacity to exercise and enjoy For some, knowledge of their Aboriginality Many Aboriginal people may not officially their human rights like other Australians. was kept secret from them for years, even be “homeless” by may nonetheless consider decades, or until they stumbled upon it by themselves as such because of their Any strategy to address homelessness in mistake. The disproportionate levels of exclusion from country. The capacity of the Indigenous community must take into alcohol and substance abuse in Indigenous peoples to care for country is, from an account its diverse faces. Land rights, the communities have been directly linked to Indigenous perspective, a necessary nexus between past and current policies of policies of removal as has the high level of consideration in determining and explaining removal and homelessness as well as mental illness amongst Aboriginal and Torres levels of homelessness within a community. housing and infrastructure issues must all Strait Islander peoples. Policies of removal be considered in the development and have also had a profound influence