A law passed in Victoria in 1886 left aftershocks felt across Australia today. Yet few white people have ever heard of it
O n Saturday in a speech to an education conference, the shadow education minister, Julian Leeser, said he had asked for a copy of Australia’s constitution for his 10th birthday (I wanted a yo-yo).
I have no doubt that Leeser is a man of serious intellect. He states that one of his goals is to improve the standards of Indigenous education and the delivery of Indigenous history and culture in schools. He wants to remove the current practice of embedding Indigenous curriculum as a cross-curricular priority across disciplines. He wants to shift the delivery of Indigenous curriculum to “discrete, carefully planned topics that fit properly within geography or history or science classes”.
Considering that most students begin tertiary study with little serious knowledge of Indigenous history and culture, a shift to “discretion” would not seem to be the answer to a serious problem.
In my role as chair of Australian literature at the University of Melbourne I visit many high schools each year. The most common discussion I have with teaching staff indicates that they want more resources and expertise from Indigenous educators to ensure that the curriculum is delivered in a more energetic manner.
In 1886 the Victorian colonial government formalised a piece of legislation that would violently affect the Aboriginal community, with ramifications that are still felt today. The Aborigines Protection Act 1886 was legislated to quash the renewed vitality and political organisation among Aboriginal people incarcerated on reserves and missions. “The half-caste act”, as it is more commonly known by Aboriginal people, introduced forms of blood quantum that would subsequently include the demeaning and racist categories of “half-caste, quarter-caste [and] octoroon”.
The act’s intentionwas clear. A Victorian government official commented at the time that, “Regarding the full bloods, within a generation the whole of them will have passed away.” The remaining Aboriginal community of Victoria would have their identity destroyed with the stroke of a pen. They would be denied contact with family members, including parents, they would have no access to financial support and their connection to land and country would be denied to them.
Next year will be the 30th anniversary of the release of the Bringing Them Home report. It was based on formal hearings across Australia that investigated the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from families and communities during the 20th century, producing the Stolen Generations of children who suffered serious trauma as a result of this history.
The report makes it clear that the Victorian 1886 act (and subsequent legislation introduced by state and commonwealth governments last century) remains the foundation stone of hypocritical identity legislation, as do aspects of the science of eugenics that underpinned the child removal policies.
And yet the 1886 act is known by few white Australians. In over 30 years of teaching at a tertiary level, of both Australian and Aboriginal history, I have often asked incoming undergraduates if they are aware of it. Not one student has ever raised their hand. Few academics, unless working in a relative discipline, are aware of it. This is an indictment on the nation’s education system, considering that the 1886 act also informed aspects of framing of the commonwealth constitution of 1901, including the White Australia policy.
In Leeser’s speech he also championed western values and national pride. Education policy and practice is not a slogan on a T-shirt. All societies hold values, not only the west. All societies are flawed, speaking. And most countries claim national pride as a sacred mantra. We need to trust our children. We must educate them to critically assess concepts such as “values” and “pride”, rather than teach them to hoist a flag.
The 1886 act resulted in the forced separation of families. The banishments affected Aboriginal people for generations. Some parents never saw their children again.
The 1886 act should be taught in schools across Australia, not to trigger a state of “white guilt” but as a means of asking questions about what constitutes a national identity – and who is included and excluded.