Brief Summary of racist Australian government policies over the last 50 years

[sqbr]

Someone on debunkingwhite said they hadn't heard of the White Australia policy, and I started a "brief" post about it and it expanded into this...

The current situation is a direct result of 211 years of racism and anti-racism starting with colonisation, and a full history of race relations in Australia would take volumes. Specifically, I'm missing all the work by non-white Australians to fight (and in many cases overturn) these laws, I recommend Timeline of Significant Moments in the Indigenous Struggle in south east Australia. And of course the Australian population have done and are doing many horribly racist things (individually and as a group) that weren't government mandated, and Australian government officials have said and done many racist things that weren't explicitly part of broader policy, though in both cases it's not always easy to draw the line. See my australia+race/culture bookmarks.

The situation in 1959

The White Australia Policy restricted the immigration of anyone who wasn't of "European Ancestry" in order to keep Australia White, and was only taken off the law books in 1973.

Children of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent were often forcibly removed from their families "for their own good", this is referred to as the Stolen Generations and ended in the 1970s.

Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders were not allowed citizenship in many states. They couldn't vote, and were treated as wards of the state. They worked pretty much as indentured labourers and the government stole their wages and STILL refuse to give them back. In the 60s and 70s these laws were changed, eg by the 1967 referendum.

There was widespread segregation and many Aboriginal people lived on government controlled reserves, I know there were laws relating to this but am not sure what they were.

New racist legislation from 1959-2009

1971: In the Gove Land Rights Case a precedent is set explicitly stating that Indigenous Australians had no rights over their traditional lands. Some land rights were granted in 1976 but afaict there wasn't much real change until 1993 after Mabo.

Early 90s: Following widespread anti-immigrant sentiment various laws were instated to both discourage and be seen to discourage/punish undocumented migrants. They were put in mandatory detention and diverted to various pacific islands in the Pacific Solution. Many genuine asylum seekers, some of them children, languished in horrible conditions for years on end. Documented Australian migrants were put in detention or deported. Meanwhile, no similar effort was made to curb the large numbers of undocumented migrants from Britain and New Zealand.

2007: A ban is placed on migrants refugees from Africa because they "have trouble fitting in".

Northern Territory National Emergency Response. In response to the "sudden" realisation of the terrible conditions in remote Aboriginal communities, the government ignored all the recommendations of locals and people who knew anything, and did things like send in the army, steal Aboriginal Australian's land to "control it better", and restrict the spending of welfare payments in such a hamfisted way as to induce malnutrition in children. They had to break the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act to do it, and the UN says it breaks international law. I could rant for pages just about this one act WHICH IS STILL IN EFFECT (with some changes)

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This is a very shallow and incomplete overview. Two things I suck at are history and rewriting things, so I probably won't be able to improve this beyond editing in other people's comments or adding "THIS BIT IS WRONG see the comments". If someone knows of, or writes a better version I will VERY happily replace this post with a link to it. (Though I may be interrogating history from the wrong perspective altogether)

Why this topic? Partly because I had to draw the line somewhere or be overwhelmed with data, but also because I think it's too easy to dismiss racism as in the past or just a few bad apples. This is all recent history, and it was done by the combined will of the people.

(And yes, I posted this as a locked draft ages ago, I decided it wasn't getting any better)

Comments

[theducks]

2007: A ban is placed on migrants from Africa because they "have trouble fitting in".

Now I'm not saying that Australia wouldn't do such a thing, but [citation needed]?

[sqbr]

HMM. I can't remember where I saw it, but will dig about and try to find it again.

EDIT: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7025386.stm

And indeed it was just refugees not all migrants, so thanks for asking.