This episode closes the series by allowing us to ponder the Uluru Statement from the Heart in relation to the texts that preceded it and the failed Referendum that followed it. The complexity and ambiguity of this short text exemplify the difficulties that now confront Australians when we come to think about this aspect of our national life.
25 Mar 2025
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, 1989
The Commission, or ATSIC, was treated by its champions as a vehicle for self-determination. But the meaning of that word and its relationship with Indigenous sovereignty has been a lightning rod for the nation’s debates.
25 Mar 2025
Indigenous Sovereignty and the Western Sahara, Advisory Opinion, 1975
In this episode we venture outside Australia’s political culture to an international institution, the International Court of Justice, which has produced controversial ideas that have changed Australian politics. The most important have been self-determination and Indigenous sovereignty.
25 Mar 2025
Neville Bonner and Auto-apartheid, 1973
Australia’s first Indigenous Senator, Neville Bonner, rejected the idea of separate representation for Indigenous Australia in the most forceful terms, predicting that the result of such “separatism” would be “auto-apartheid”.
25 Mar 2025
PM John Gorton on Assimilation and Voice, 1968
In this episode we hear how Australia’s accidental Prime Minister, John Gorton, imagined how the new Federal powers created by the 1967 Referendum would be used. From today’s perspective, what is striking is the continued belief that a natural process of social development would move Australia forwards, obviating the need for political choices.
25 Mar 2025
The Referendum Debate, 1967
Routinely misrepresented as the moment in which Australia granted citizenship to its Indigenous peoples, the political and practical significance of the 1967 Referendum was uncertain even to the actors who carried it through the official process.
25 Mar 2025
The Yirrkala Bark Petitions, 1963
These petitions are a remarkable artefact of Australia’s unique political culture, combining a medieval form of communication, petitioning parliament, with an even more ancient style of articulating rights to land.
25 Mar 2025
Paul Hasluck and Assimilation, 1961
In this episode we hear the Minister for Territories, Paul Hasluck, articulate to the Parliament the meaning of assimilation and its role in his vision for Australia. The episode examines the beliefs and assumptions that underwrote this idealistic policy and the extent to which they endure today.
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