Australia’s First Peoples are the world’s oldest living civilization dating back some 50,000 years according to a recent genetic study by an international team of academics.
Yet,many Australians know little about the history of our First Peoples.
Indigenous Australians are people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent, together they form three per cent of the national population, based on the 2011 Census.
The 1788 European settlement resulted in a series of discriminatory policies against the traditional owners of the land with devastating effectson their civil rights and the survival of traditions, culture and languages.
Lawsapplying the policy of ‘protection’ were introduced by the six states between 1867 to 1911 - laws aimed at isolating and segregating full-blood Aborigines and assimilating half-caste children.
Known as the ‘Stolen Generations’, part-Aboriginal children were separated from their families and sent to institutions or foster homes to become‘Europeanised’.
The speaking of Indigenous languages were also largely restricted and banned up until the 1970s.
Prior to European settlement, there were around 250 languages spoken by the First Nations people.
A recent Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report by the Productivity Commission finds that by 2012, only 120Indigenous languages survive in some form, many of which are endangered, and merely 13 to 18 of those languages are still in active use.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had no right to vote or receive social security benefits such as the pensions and maternity allowances until the late sixties.
1962 was the first time when all Indigenous Peoples weregiven equal right to vote in federal elections.
Many,however,were unaware of the change as Indigenous Australians were not compelled to vote until 1984.
Several states handled Aboriginal affairs by departments that also managed flora, fauna and wildlife.
The exclusion from the Census count meant that Indigenous Australians considered themselves as part of the ‘flora and fauna’.
It wasn't until a national referendum in 1967 withover 90 per cent of the population voting‘yes’ that the First Nations people officially became a part of the national population.
The 1967 referendum was the turning point when official discrimination towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people ended.
Two years later, all states abolished the legislation that allowed the removal of Aboriginal children under the policy of ‘protection’.
In 2008,former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered a formal apology to the ‘Stolen Generations’.
The official reconciliation process reached another milestone in 2000 when a quarter of a million people marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of reconciliation.
In the past decade alone, close to 800 organisations, businesses, community groups have implemented their own reconciliation action plansto right the wrongs of the past.
The interaction between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is minimal.
The State of Reconciliation in Australia report shows only 30 percent of the general community socialise with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Established in 2001, Reconciliation Australia is the leading organisation in facilitating reconciliation between the First Nations people and non-Indigenous Australians.
Mohamed says research finds that over 80 per cent of Australians are interested to learn more about the history that they were not taught at school.
He believes a deeper understanding of the past and more engagement with Indigenous Australians can change the disadvantaged social position within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
He says real equality cannot be achieved without the formal recognition of First Nations people in the Australian Constitution.
