Genocide and Australia

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, although the Australian government signed the international United Nations Genocide Convention Bill in 1948 and ratified it in 1951, none of its provisions have been implemented into federal law. The author argues that Australia was guilty of at least three, possibly four, acts of genocide: (1) The private genocide, the physical killing committed by the settlers and rogue police officers of the nineteenth century, (2) transferring children from one group to another with the express intention that they cease being Aboriginal, (3) attempting to achieve the biological disappearance of those deemed 'half-caste' Aborigines and (4) actions to protect Aborigines in fact caused them serious bodily or mental harm. This paper contends that Australia continues to oppress its indigenous population through its conscious disregard of its responsibility to international law and refusal to accept that this nation was founded on a long standing history of suppression and genocide.

From the Paper:

"Government policy and practice underwent an ideological shift late in the 19th century, based on the popular concept of Social Darwinism and the belief that Aborigines were soon to become extinct. The implementation of 'protection' legislation that had been gaining momentum during the mid 19th century shifted focus from protection segregation, relocating Aborigines to reserves and missions, to forced assimilation under the excuse of "saving a dying race." The ultimate message of the Aborigines Protection Act 1886 in Victoria was that 'full-blood' Aborigines would die out and 'half-castes' would eventually blend seamlessly into 'civilized' society, bringing 'finality to the Aboriginal problem' and leaving white Australia to eventually forget that there were ever any Aborigines in Australia."

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