Talk:Aboriginal Australians

Why redirect removed, and stub article intiated

The absence of an article specifically on Australian Aborigines, who in fact exist as a legal class/category in Australian law .. was recently discussed here .. following which it was found to be useful and necessary to initiate this stub. Bruceanthro (talk) 15:30, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Some Chronological Notes for Proposed Expansion

Notes for proposed narrative:

1898': Colonial Delegates meet at Conventions to draft a consitution for the new Commonwealth:

"The Aborigines .. surfaced in the endless debates surrounding the population quota that would govern the distribution of seats for the House of Representatives and the proposed Commonwealth’s rights to make laws that would guarantee a White Australia. As Edmund Barton rather patiently explained to Isaac Isaacs at the Melbourne Convention in 1898, the quota for each electorate was established after the number of Indigenous people (along with ‘aliens not naturalised’) had been subtracted from the total population. (Debates 1898, 4, 713-4). Finally, it was decided to exclude Indigenous Australians from any population count used for either the financial or electoral purposes included in the constitution. And to handle the rather vexed question of the Commonwealth’s power to legislate on matters of race and immigration, the Aborigines were excluded from the proposed section. These decisions were enshrined in Section 51 and Section 127 of the new constitution."(Page 3)

1910: Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics seeks to estimate the size of the Australian Aboriginal population, at time of decentenial population census

1925: Conference of Commonwealth Statisticians recommends, and Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics announces annual census

For two decades Aboriginal population figures were collected annually by Aboriginal administors (often patrol officers and policemen) classifiying people as full blood or half-caste

1945 Conference of Commonwealth and State Statisticians recommended, and Aborignal population figures ceased to be collected

1967: The 1967 Referendum changed section 127 of the Constitution to allow Aboriginal people to be included in official Census population counts

1971: The 1971 Censuses asked each indigenous person's racial origin.

1976: The 1976 Censuses asked each indigenous person's racial origin

1981: Since the 1981 Census the word 'racial' has been dropped from the indigenous status question.

1996: The 1996 Census was the first Census to allow people's origins to be recorded as both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander; prior to this only one or the other could be recorded.

Bruceanthro (talk) 13:49, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Sources

• CAustralian Law Reform Commission (2003) "Kinship & Identity. Chapter 36 of Essentially Yours: The Protection of Human Genetic Information in Australia Accessed from AustLii Website 12 June 2008

• Trewin, D(2006) Census Dictionary Australia. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Canberra Accessed 22 May 2008

Bruceanthro (talk) 11:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Aboriginal Tribes Australia DNA Project

The following has been cut and pasted from the article page .. being a new section discussing a DNA project investigating Australian Aboriginal 'racial' heritage ... Does not seem to fit in its current form, but does seem to invite section on genetics & Aboriginality .. which might make mention of research of this kind and include external links. What do you think?? Bruceanthro (talk) 14:47, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Project Cultural Sensitivity WARNING

In accordance with established Cultural Protocols - and to ensure that any disclosure of information contained herewith is consistent with the views and sensitivities of Australia's Indigenous peoples - ALL Indigenous Aboriginal Persons are WARNED that the AboriginalTribesAustralia-DNA-Project [1] may contain images and include the names of deceased persons which might cause sadness or distress, particularly to the relatives of these people.

Project Goals

The Goals of the AboriginalTribesAustralia-DNA-Project [2] are to:

1. Look for, and identify any patterns or similarities between Haplogroups and sub-Clades in an endeavour to find and confirm any distant relatedness between Participants.

2. Verify the relatedness and migratory paths of families, and where possible to identify their Patriarch/Matriarch [Common - or Alpha - Male/Female] from whom all Participants herald from.

3. To identify and confirm the Indigenous Aboriginal Australian Ancestry and the traditional hereditary affilation of participants and their: Families; Hordes; Clans; Tribes and the Tribal Nations encompassing same - i.e. Kinship Bonds.

Use of class to describe Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are a mixed ethnic group, as with all indigenous people, through out the world. The use of class to describe indigenous Austalians is not acceptable because the common use of class, takes several different aspects into account, brb —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.229.8 (talk) 13:04, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

You will see the emphasis in this article is the legal criteria which by which a category or class of people is clearly defined within Australian law .. and how people prefer to label this category/class. The main article on indigenous Australians can be found here.

Please, before shifting the emphasis, perhaps I should clarify by expanding article to include Australian Bureau of Statisitcs use and understanding of Aboriginal Australian/Australian Aborigines etc (with proper referencing) .. and 194.66.229.8 can have another look? Bruceanthro (talk) 22:08, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Expanding article

The following unreferenced material has been cut and paste from the main article .. being dimensions of the legal class or category of indigenous peoples (plural) in Australia .. which might be expanded upon (recalling the main article is here:

Aboriginal genetic traits

People of Aboriginal descent have been noted as having shorter life spans than that of other humans.

The Fight for Australia

Aboriginal descendants claim Australia as their home land, They claim Australia as an indigenous country to call their own, however recent studies have indicated that this may not be true. While some people claim that Australian Aborigines and Europeans evolved from the same wave of African migrants that went out of Africa more than 50,000 years ago. This research led by Toomas Kivisild of the University of Cambridge revealed the same founders for both racial types. Other scientific studies have shown the same information with only a slight deviation proven by DNA that Australia's Aborigines were formed from a single group of migrants who left Africa about 55,000 years ago.

Unemployment rates

Data on income source in show the changes in employment status of the Indigenous population. A large proportion of Indigenous respondents main income source in 2002 (39% compared to 33% in 1994). Government pensions and allowances was the main income source for 50% of Indigenous respondents in 2002 (compared to 55% in 1994). there are now 500,000 Aboriginals within Australia, each year costing Tax payers 340 Billion Australian Dollars.

Expand

I have added the expand tag: This article should be about Australian Aborigines, not a discussion about the politically way the name them---which is all the article is at the moment. 88.77.152.180 (talk) 03:43, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Of course it would be good to expand this article including, possibly, discussion about Australian Aborigines as constitutionally prescribed etc .. however, please note, from the beginning of the article:

This article is about the class of people as identified and defined by Australian law. For more general information, see Indigenous Australians.

Bruceanthro (talk) 10:46, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Images

I'm not Australian, but to provide a bit of an outsider's perspective: I question the choice of images. Three of the four seem to be athletes, and the other person shown (Ernie Dingo) is a TV personality whose page talks a fair bit about his love of rugby and such. Maybe a little more variety? Some famous academics, scientists, or authors? --GenkiNeko (talk) 21:03, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Done. An important Aboriginal activist and poet (Oodgeroo Noonuccal) has been added. saɪm duʃan Talk|Contribs 12:22, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

There still weren't images of Noonuccal or Nicholls, and the image of Dingo didn't fit. I took out Jade North because he isn't a prominent figure and three male footballers seemed at least one too many. Many others, at least as or more famous than these, would be obviously suitable for inclusion - Cathy Freeman, Charlie Perkins, Emily Kngwarreye, Patrick and Mick Dodson, to mention just a few - but availability of images and copyrights could be a problem. At least now the images match the names and the selection is equally male and female. --Wikiain (talk) 05:09, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Why not merged?

This article seems to be a short article only about the legal definition of this class. Why not fold it into the Indigenous Australians article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.120.182.112 (talk) 11:46, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Article is not merged for the reasons contained within the article .. though there is plenty of room to expand this article to include particularly discussion on Australian Aborigines as identified within the Australian constitution; plus Bureau of statistics collection practices in relation to Australian Aborigines; and possibly even the Aboriginal Australian flag as a specifically Aboriginal (captital A) flag . and more .. all of which would love to find the time to properly work on .. (should you/ anyone be interested?!) Bruceanthro (talk) 03:03, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

The Australian Aboriginal Flag now seems to be discussed ok, in this article and in its own. --Wikiain (talk) 05:13, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Hatnotes

With regard to my edit that was reverted, I find the hatnote at the top of this article convoluted and overlinked. Quoting from WP guidelines, "hatnotes are meant to reduce confusion and direct readers to another article they might have been looking for, not for information about the subject of the article itself". Applied to this article, it means that the hatnote is not the place for explaining what 'class' means in philosophy (see Extraneous links), also considering that 'class' is already wiki-linked right in the opening sentence. Equally inappropriate is the use of two words ("identified and defined") where one would be plenty - if needed at all. Is there a good reason why this article should deviate from the guidelines? --Giuliopp (talk) 22:48, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

That's better now. --Giuliopp (talk) 22:13, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Notable Aboriginal organisations & people

Have cut and pasted the following from the article, along with suggestion that these sections be started and/or more comprehensively discussed and completed her .. prior to being put in the article? Bruceanthro (talk) 04:45, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Notable Aboriginal Organisations:

Notable Aborigines:

The following notable aborigines have been listed according to the category of their fame, although some (most) should be listed in multiple categories.

Entertainment

• Ernie Dingo

Politics

• Fred Maynard

Sports

• Adam Goodes
• Douglas Nicholls
• Oodgeroo Noonuccal
• Jade North
• David Wirrpanda

Uncategorised

• Trugernanner

Propose name change to "Aboriginal Australians"

The word "Aborigine" is now considered outdated and offensive to many Aboriginal Australians. See here for one of many references backing this up http://www.community.nsw.gov.au/docswr/_assets/main/documents/working_with_aboriginal.pdf. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hexyhex (talk • contribs) 04:14, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support, for the reasons given in the document linked to. --Wikiain (talk) 03:12, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

• Merge instead? To me the problem is that we already have an article called Indigenous Australians. I've never quite understood the demarcation line between the two articles. My leaning right now is towards a merge of the two into a single article called Aboriginal Australians. HiLo48 (talk) 03:25, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

HiLo48: I am puzzled. The document linked to advice that to call Torres Strait Islanders "Aboriginal" is offensive both to themselves and to Aboriginal peoples. The reason why it is offensive is itself independently a reason not to merge - since the reason is that Australian Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples are very different. I had thought that advice to be correct. However, you identify yourself as Aboriginal. Is the advice wrong? We might remove the article "Indigenous Australians" (transferring its content) and keep separate articles for "Aboriginal Australians" and "Torres Strait Islanders". --Wikiain (talk) 04:56, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about any confusion. I'm not Aboriginal (that I'm aware of) but closely associated with a few. I think we are actually on the same wavelength. You final sentence is exactly what I want to do too. HiLo48 (talk) 05:02, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

My clanger - I should have looked up "ngamudji" and have now found it. Relieved not to have caused offence. I am also one. --Wikiain (talk) 22:57, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd advise against merging into "Aboriginal Australians", for the reasons given relating to Torres Strait Islanders. I'm happy with keeping three articles, as all three terms are in common usage and have different meanings (Indigenous Australian being an umbrella term some prefer as "Aboriginal" is thought to have colonialist history, but with many people within the community retaining a strong preference for "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people") although I think some of the content needs to be moved around. If people are really set on deleting a page, though, I'd settle for keeping Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, shifting the content from Indigenous Australians to Aboriginal Australians and leaving Indigenous Australians as a redirect. Hexyhex (talk) 13:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, all three names are in common use. The terms "Indigenous" seems to be inappropriate when it gets actually substituted for the others. For example, the University of New South Wales has a active Indigenous Law Centre which publishes an Indigenous Law Bulletin and an Australian Indigenous Law Review but is careful not to let the name "Indigenous" mask differences (its director is Aboriginal). We might keep the article Indigenous Australians but shift from it the material that is specifically about Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders. --Wikiain (talk) 19:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Constitutional mention

IgnorantArmies - I think we are on the same wavelength. However, to me the word "explicitly" suggests that there is some sort of specific implication, which I think would be mistaken. The preamble references to "people" refer, indeed, to all the people of the colonies mentioned - including, one might suppose, their "aboriginal natives". Yet, until 1967, those same people were not to be counted in any census, nor therefore would have counted as part of the population of a state for the purpose of assessing its representation in the House. Nor were Aboriginal Australians specifically consulted in framing the Constitution. Indeed, I haven't heard of any Aboriginal Australian being at all involved in the framing process - they were all excluded from it. Would you agree on "specifically mentioned" instead of "explicitly mentioned"? If you would, please feel free to make the change. This matter concerns only the federal constitution - I am thinking of adding, separately, references to the mentions of Aboriginal Australians that have been added into some of the state constitutions. --Wikiain (talk) 03:15, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think we're on the same wavelength, too. I'm happy to change it to "specifically mentioned", though I think a footnote saying basically what I said in my last edit summmary might also be a good idea. If its not already mentioned, it might be a good idea to refer to the calls for a better preamble which mentions Indigenous Australians, if I can find a source. Cheers, I♦A 04:26, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

How's this? I♦A 04:36, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I like what you have done, I♦A - however, it is already out of date. See YouMeUnity and the report due in December. I will think of separating the discussion of the current state of judicially authoritative constitutional interpretation, which we have been discussing, from the current debate on constitutional reform. This is very complex territory, legally and politically. --Wikiain (talk) 11:06, 23 November 2011 (UTC)--Wikiain (talk) 11:06, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

And that's the cue for me to step back in favour of someone who knows what they're doing :) I♦A 11:49, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Non-free file problems with File:Douglas nicholls.jpg

File:Douglas nicholls.jpg is non-free and has been identified as possibly not being in compliance with the non-free content policy. For specific information on the problems with the file and how they can be fixed, please check the message at File:Douglas nicholls.jpg. For further questions and comments, please use the non-free content review page. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 09:46, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Corrected population

I noticed that the population statistic in the infobox didn't align with the source provided. It turns out the figure (670,000) was a rounded amount of 669,881 - the total number of Indigenous Australians (which includes Torres Strait Islanders). I've changed it to the "Aboriginal only" population. I'm not sure if the number listed as "both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander" should be added to this figure or not? If so, it would increase it by a further 25,583. -- Chuq (talk) 23:44, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Stolen Generation

Should there be a mention of the "Stolen generations" somewhere in the aritcle?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations

216.146.231.6 (talk) 13:18, 29 August 2015 (UTC)Dave