December 16.
“A Portrait of Australia With Important Bits Missing” by Glenn Loughrey
The struggle for land
Difficulties faced by an individual Indigenous man to acquire land
Aboriginal people were permitted to work for rations and protection, but there is no evidence of them being permitted to share in the ownership of land. When Aboriginal people made efforts to do this they were met with a high degree of hostility. In 1862 Jacob Lowe, owner of the Welltown run in the Goondiwindi district asked that an Aboriginal man named Billy Bird be removed from his run as a trespasser. Bird had previously applied for a licence under the Unoccupied Crown Lands Act of 1860 but the request was denied, as it was believed that the land he applied for formed part of the Welltown run. [1]
The Executive Council of Queensland deliberated upon Lowe's request to have Billy Bird removed and decided that Bird should be granted a parcel of land on which to run his cattle. It was noted that:
Government is of opinion that the efforts of Bird to obtain a legitimate means of subsistence should be encouraged, and his position as a semi-Christianised Aboriginal may render it difficult for him to succeed unaided, I am directed to request you will instruct the commissioner of Darling Downs to endeavour to point out to Bird what locality he may remove his stock without trespassing upon a recognised run, and to issue a licence in the usual form. [2]
If no land could be found on the Darling Downs, the Lands Department was ordered to see if any was available in the Maranoa district. Despite the support of a local Anglican priest, Bird was attacked in the Brisbane Courier, with claims being made that he had gained his cattle in an illegitimate fashion. Supporters of Bird pointed out that:
The Aborigines must either have no legal rights or they must have full legal rights – or some sort of modified rights must be assigned by legislation, or individual exceptions must be made in favour of certain persons who have proved themselves worthy of citizenship. [3]
Such a claim was too much for a letter-writer called 'A Voice from the Wilderness, Gundawindi', who found any notions of equality incomprehensible. [4]
QSA, COL/A26, 62/574.
QSA, COL/Q2.
Brisbane Courier, 16 December 1861.
ibid.
Acknowledgment: Copland, Richards and Walker, One Hour More Daylight, pp. 80-82, n.241, n.242, n.243, n. 244.
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A cluster of dates in December
In 1982 a Torres Strait Islander, Eddie Mabo, initiated proceedings against the Queensland Government. Still headed by [Premier Joh Bjelke Petersen]... it passed a blocking act, the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act 1985. On 8 December 1988, in Mabo (No. 1), the High Court allowed [Eddie Mabo] to continue the proceedings. Eddie Mabo died before the High Court, in Mabo (No. 2), found in his favour on 3 June 1992, its sole Protestant justice dissenting.*
...On Human Rights Day on 10 December [1992] [Prime Minister Paul Keating] made a speech at Redfern, inaugurating the International Year for the World's Indigenous People in Australia. On 16 December [1992] his government, in fulfilment of the undertaking to the UN in September 1975 and prodded by the reports of three recent commissions of inquiry in Australia, introduced the Racial Discrimination Legislation Amendment Bill to make racial vilification unlawful and incitement of racial hatred an offence.
Acknowledgment: Anne Pattel-Gray, Martung Upah – Black and white Australians seeking partnership, p. 59
* On the particular judge, note biography by Antonio Buti, Sir Ronald Wilson: A Matter of Conscience, University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, Western Australia, 2007.
See also review by Kevin Keeffe in Aboriginal History, Vol. 33 (2010) p.304.