2010

1. July Remains repatriation

   The National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC, USA returns Aboriginal remains taken from their burial places during the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land (Northern Territory) ^[1].

2. 29 July Prison

   The West Australian government approves $3.2 million, one of the largest ex-gratia (voluntary) payments ever made in Australia to the family of an Aboriginal Elder who died of heatstroke in the back of a prison van in 2008. ⇒ Aboriginal deaths in custody

3. 27 August Treaty

   The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination releases its Concluding Observations following a review of Australia’s compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Among other things the committee recommends that the government "consider the negotiation of a treaty agreement to build a constructive and sustained relationship with Indigenous peoples". ^[2]

4. 28 August Politics

   The UN Committee on the Eliminiation of Racial Discrimination (CERD) delivers a damning report on Australia’s failure to meet international commitments on eliminating discrimination.

5. 8 September Recognition

   NSW becames the third Australian state, after Victoria and Queensland, to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in their Constitutional preambles. The Aboriginal flag is also permanently hung in the NSW Parliament.

   We are enshrining today fundamental truths, the truth that Aboriginal people are the first peoples of NSW, the truth of the spiritual, economic and cultural ties that bind Aboriginal people to the land. — Kristina Keneally, Premier of NSW ^[3]

6. 30 September Arts

   The National Gallery of Australia opens 11 new Indigenous galleries and art spaces that will house the majority of the gallery’s huge collection of Indigenous art, reportedly the largest collection of its kind in the world. ⇒ Aboriginal arts

7. October Remains repatriation

   The ancestral remains of an Erup (Darnley Island) child return, 161 years after they were taken to the UK. The remains were first acquired by Captain Owen Stanley in 1849 during a visit to Darnley Island, then passed on to an antiquarian who gave them to the Norwich Castle Museum in 1854. Finally, the World Museum Liverpool received the remains in 1956. ^[4]

8. 9 October Arts

   The opera Pecan Summer premieres telling the story of the Cummeragunja Aboriginal walk-off of 1939. It is the first opera to be partly sung in Yorta Yorta language.

9. 15 October Land & land rights

   The Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC) announces it had purchased the Ayers Rock Resort at Yulara, near Uluru (Ayers Rock). The deal covers all resort hotels, accommodation and infrastructure. The ILC is an independent statutory authority of the Australian government, established to assist Aboriginal people to acquire and manage land to achieve economic, environmental, social and cultural benefits.

10. 14 November Arts

    Poet and author Dr Roberta ‘Bobbi’ Sykes dies aged 67. In the 1980s she became the first Aboriginal Australian to attend Harvard University, gaining a PhD in education, and in 1994 was awarded the Australian Human Rights Medal. Sykes also was the executive secretary of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.

11. 25 November Recognition

    Aboriginal author and lawyer Larissa Behrendt is named NSW Australian of the Year in “recognition of her passionate and articulate advocacy for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders”.

12. 7 December

    The Salvation Army apologises to survivors of Salvation Army Girls and Boys Homes of Australia, the “forgotten children”. They lived in orphanages and homes until the early 1990s, and many were abused. 40% of them were Aboriginal. ^[5]

13. 16 December Politics

    The USA is the last country to sign up to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Canada joined on November 12, 2010.

14. 31 December Northern Territory Intervention

    The Racial Discrimination Act is partially reinstated. Activist groups pledge the full reinstatement of the RDA.

2011

1. Chris Bourke (ACT Labor) becomes the first Aboriginal person elected to the ACT Legislative Assembly, representing the seat of Ginninderra in the ACT.

2. The government introduces new legislation to extend key Northern Territory Emergency Response measures for a further 10 years. ⇒ The NT Intervention

3. January Land & land rights

   Australia experiences its worst flooding on record affecting Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania. The floods claim the life of at least one Aboriginal person, delay land claim hearings and put further pressure on people on housing waiting lists. Many don’t accept help or play down their loss. Aboriginal musician Troy Cassar-Daley loses his farm near Brisbane.

   Golden Guitars are pretty sturdy, like the artists that get them. — Troy Cassar-Daley, commenting about the Golden Guitars he won which were muddied by the floods ^[6]

4. 6 January Politics

   Australia’s First Nations Political Party (AFNPP) is registered with the Australian Electoral Commission, entitling it to elect an executive and pre-select candidates for parliamentary elections. The party was founded by Maurie Japarta Ryan, grandson of Vincent Lingiari.

5. 27 January Politics

   Australia appears before the United Nations Human Rights Council’s first Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review. It receives 145 recommendations covering a wide range of human rights issues including the treatment of asylum seekers, Aboriginal peoples, multiculturalism and racism, and the status of Australia’s obligations under international human rights law.

6. February Reconciliation

   Australia Post becomes the first government business enterprise to create a Reconciliaton Action Plan (RAP). It celebrates it with the release of an invitation-only commemorative stamp featuring Ellen Pangerian (1847-1877), also known as Helen Mary Cuper, who was the first Aboriginal post mistress in Australia.

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References