The era associated with the frame of “Protection” was nearing an end at the time of the 1937 Initial Conference of Commonwealth and State Aboriginal Authorities which was discussed at the end of the previous chapter. It was already clear in the way the different jurisdictions were categorising and treating Aboriginal people of mixed descent that the seeds were being sown for a shift to assimilation, rather than segregation and protection. Protection was increasingly seen as a policy failure, and the changing economic and political climate also demanded a change in policy objective. This was reflected also in a change of policy venue, with the intervention of the Commonwealth government.
One of the features of policy making for Aboriginal people in Australia in the Protection eras had been its decentralisation, as each state pursued its own independent objectives without the supervision of the Colonial Office from the earlier period. The regional variation was reflected in the Constitution which established the Federation in 1901, as states retained control of Aboriginal affairs as one of their residual powers, and the Commonwealth was precluded from making specific laws with respect to Aboriginal people as a race (Australian Constitution s 51 (xxvi), later amended). The Commonwealth’s assumption of responsibility for the Northern Territory in 1911 provided an avenue for federal politicians to take an interest in the portfolio, and this interest had been clearly reflected in the 1937 conference. As Rowley observes, the Commonwealth’s activities were influential because it was “inevitably looked to by informed opinion, if not by State governments, to set the best example to the States” (Rowley 1970, 241), even though the challenges of governance of Aboriginal affairs in the Northern Territory, with its recent experience of the frontier, were not necessarily applicable to the other jurisdictions. Little energy was expended in the area until World War 2 and the immediate aftermath, as Aboriginal land and personnel were called upon to join the war effort, and many remote areas benefitted from substantial investment in infrastructure. Aboriginal affairs in the post- war period would continue in this more energetic and interventionist vein with the appointment of a new Minister for the Territories, Sir Paul Hasluck, in 1951.
The assimilation period in Indigenous affairs was not a settled one, in terms of ideas about Aboriginal policy, though it is often understood as an all-encompassing, oppressive period. The variety of interpretation of the policy’s objectives and target populations is one explanation for the scholarly debate about the exact date at which the policy became officially adopted (Rowse 2005). One key
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issue, which had been much debated at the 1937 Conference, was how assimilation would be achieved. There was an expectation in some jurisdictions of an eventual absorption of the Aboriginal race in biological terms, over time. This scenario was advocated by AO Neville, in Western Australia, among others. As each of the jurisdictions gradually moved away from protection and adopted assimilation, there were also divergences in the way in which they dealt with issues such as the role of the state and the role of the church in providing for Aboriginal welfare, the definitions of Aboriginality and the restrictions which followed for some but not others, and the extent to which freedom of movement, association and employment were curtailed for those living “under the Welfare Ordinance” or other legislation (Haebich 2008; McGregor 2011; Rowse 2005).
A more optimistic perspective was offered during this period by anthropologists including Professor AP Elkin. These scholars promoted the notion of social assimilation, which allowed for continued Aboriginal identity rather than complete erasure of the race. Elkin recognised the need for Aboriginal people to make an eventual transition away from their traditional lives, but he could see that there were fundamental elements of Aboriginal identity which would not disappear. As he insisted in a speech to anthropologists before the war:
We must guarantee the aborigines in the future a livelihood, justice, the opportunity to maintain and develop their social life, and a real share in the land which is their spiritual home as well as the source of their economic necessities. (Elkin 1934, 18)
Elkin also vividly described the continuities he observed in Aboriginal spirituality and observance of customs, along with a strong connection to specific areas of land, and it is significant that his recognition of customary land ownership was articulated so clearly during the assimilation period.
The key paradox of this assimilation period is the treatment of reserves. As noted in the previous chapter, already there were substantial differences of approach across the jurisdictions. Reserves were being revoked, reclaimed and sold in the south of the continent, as local landowners and other interest groups such as repatriated soldiers demanded access to the arable land at the expense of the Aboriginal people who in many cases had cleared and cultivated it over a period of decades (Goodall 2008). This policy was vigorously protested by the Aboriginal residents of the reserves, but it was supported by the overarching policy of assimilation and the expectation that Aboriginal people would integrate into the white communities over time. In the north, however, reserves were retained, and new ones were gazetted, even though they were a policy instrument which had been closely associated with the abandoned policy of protection and segregation.
The persistence of the reserves in the north was a consequence of the residual effects of frontier conflict, the enduring presence of Aboriginal communities living traditional lifestyles in the north,
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and the lack of economic interest, up to that point, in the reserved land from settlers. It is noteworthy that other aspects of assimilation, such as the introduction of certain welfare payments, were nevertheless implemented in the north during this period, as in the south. The significant contribution of Aboriginal people in the northern parts of Australia in the war effort during World War 2 also stimulated higher expectations of the capacity of Aboriginal people to integrate into white society than had been held before the war. As the different jurisdictions gradually converged with their policies on social and welfare policy in Aboriginal affairs, the resilience of the reserves policy in the north remains an anomaly, then, in the tension it created with the otherwise broadly consistent ideology of assimilation during this period.
In the next section we shall explore this tension around reserves within the circle of anthropologists who advised governments on Aboriginal policy, before considering the government’s own shift in policy around reserves in the north through the Menzies era, notably under Minister for Territories Paul Hasluck.