1975

1. White Australia immigration policy ends.

1976

1. 1 December Politics

   Yorta Yorta man Sir Douglas Ralph Nicholls is appointed Governor of South Australia. He is the first white person to serve as the governor of an Australian state, and is the only Aboriginal person to have held an official's office. He retires due to ill health on 22 April 1977.

1978

1. Health statistics show that 48 in every 1,000 Aboriginal babies in NT die before reaching 1 year of age. This compares to 1 baby in every 1000 in the white population. Of the 6,000 Aboriginal children living in Sydney 4,000 are underweight. Leprosy still occurs in Aboriginal populations and alcohol is a serious problem.

1988

1. 16 February Protest

   For the first time in the 10-year history of the Mardi Gra there is an First Nations float featuring gay First Nations and South Sea Islander Malcolm Cole dressed as Captain Cook standing on a boat pulled by white men. ^[1]

   It is enough trouble being black, let alone gay,

   — Malcolm Cole ^[1]

1993

1. 14 January Arts Stamps

   To celebrate the International Year of Indigenous People, Australia Post issues two stamps for Australia Day that celebrate Aboriginal painter Albert Namatjira and his watercolour style. The stamps show a ghost gum and Mount Giles.

   

2001

1. July Stolen Generations

   The British Concise Oxford Dictionary includes the phrase 'stolen generation' in its latest edition. The term is defined as: "Noun. Australian. The aboriginal people forcibly removed from their families as children between the 1900s and the 1960s, to be brought up by white foster families or in institutions."

2004

1. November Prison

   Mulrunji Doomadgee dies in a police watch house on Palm Island, 70 km north of Townsville in north Queensland. His death sparks violent riots during which the police station and officers’ quarters are burnt down. Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley is found guilty of causing Mulrunji’s death, but in late 2006 Queensland’s Director of Public Prosecutions, Leanne Clare, opts not to prosecute him. In February 2007 the Premier Peter Beattie orders a judicial review of the case and Hurley is charged with manslaughter, the first time ever in Queensland
   that a police officer is charged over the death of an Aboriginal person. In June 2007 an white jury finds him not guilty. Hurley returns to work after having been suspended on full pay. An Aboriginal man, Lex Wotton, was found guilty on 24 October 2008 of “rioting with destruction” and sentenced to six years in prison.

2007

1. 1 August Stolen Generations

   In a landmark court case a member of the Stolen Generations has been awarded $525,000 in compensation by a South Australian court for a liftetime of sorrow and pain ^[2]. Bruce Trevorrow was taken from his father aged 13 months. He was given to a white family where he grew up until he was ten, unaware of his Aboriginality. He then saw his mother again, but at this stage was a rebellious boy not belonging to either culture.

   Mr. Trevorrow's life followed the path of many taken children: times in and out of jail and other institutions, poor health, alcoholism, smoking, depression. His siblings who remained with the family were able to overcome life's difficulties.

   The justice's judgment established for the first time that removing a child from his family in these circumstances constituted wrongful imprisonment and was a breach of the state's duty of care. He awarded Mr Trevorrow $450,000 for injuries and losses suffered, and a further $75,000 in damages for his unlawful removal and false imprisonment.

2008

1. 31 July Land & land rights

   The High Court hands down its Blue Mud Bay decision which says that the Northern Territory government could not grant commercial fishing operators licenses for areas within the boundaries of the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act. This affects 80% of the NT’s coast and tidal rivers where revenues of licenses flow now to Aboriginal people instead of the white government.

2020

1. 19 May Arts Education Stamps

   

   Australia Post issues a set of four stamps to promote four recent citizen science projects from Australia. Citizen science involves public participation and collaboration in scientific research with the aim of increasing scientific knowledge.

   One stamp celebrates the Ngukurr Wi Stadi Bla Kantri ("We Study the Country" in the Kriol language) biodiversity project, a cross-cultural collaboration between the remote Aboriginal community of Ngukurr in south-east Arnhem Land and Macquarie University in Sydney.

   The Ngukurr Wi Stadi Bla Kantri project started in 2010, bringing together the Yugul Mangi Rangers, most of the residents of Ngukurr and children at Ngukurr School. It helps equip Aboriginal Elders and youth with the knowledge and tools to better understand and manage South East Arnhem Land environments. Through the project, the team is re-discovering a large and remote area unknown to Western science and working towards maintaining endangered Aboriginal bio-cultural knowledge.

2. 6 June Protest

   Triggered by the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis in the United States, tens of thousands of people join Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests across Australia to protest the deaths of Aboriginal people in police custody.

2022

1. 20 September Arts Stamps

   

   Australia Post releases two stamps featuring rock art from the north Kimberley's Wanjina Wunggurr community. One shows crocodiles, the other one Gwion Gwion figures.

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References