Last week, Justice Gray of the Supreme Court of South Australia awarded $525,000 damages to Bruce Trevorrow, as compensation for his unlawful removal from parental custody. In his latest column, Andrew Bolt makes a surprising admission – Trevorrow was stolen:
Bruce Trevorrow, a part-Aboriginal now living in Bairnsdale, was stolen from his parents after being raced to hospital on Christmas Day 1957.
Yes, stolen.
A fairly blunt admission that might have come as something of a disappointment to Bolt fans but, given the facts of the case, there was little else for Bolt to say on that issue. Nonetheless, Andrew manages to redeem himself by painting the Trevorrow case as the work of a feral welfare officer, Mrs Marjory Angas. Conveniently for Andrew:
Angas is dead, and cannot defend herself.
So – despite the findings of Justice Gray, who held the State of South Australia liable – Bolt manages to paint the theft of Bruce Trevorrow from his parents as the work of bureaucrat who just happens to be a bit too dead to bring defamation action. In other words, it’s not a particularly typical case. Drawing on selected passages from the judgement, Andrew demonstrates how atypical the Trevorrow case is:
Still, [the APB secretary's] officials couldn’t always stand by and do nothing. Admitted the secretary: “Again in confidence, for some years without legal authority, the Board have taken charge of many Aboriginal children, some are placed with Aboriginal institutions, which by the way I very much dislike, and others are placed with foster parents.
“As often as possible we arranged for this type of child to be adopted, necessarily of course, with the authority of the parents.�
How many children had the APB removed? Some 300 over the years, taken because they were – Gray found – “thought to be neglectedâ€?. Note: not because Australia had to be kept “pureâ€?.
He then goes on to note an apparent oddity about the case:
This practice seems to have stopped by the end of the 1950s. So why did Marjory Angas, in 1957, decide to steal Bruce Trevorrow?
Personally, I’d date the end of the 1950s at December 31st, 1959 but it seems that Bolt’s chronology has the 1960s starting, not on January 1st, 1960, but no later than January 1st, 1957. If the 1950s had ended in early 1957 Mrs Angas actions in the Trevorrow case might well have been exceptional – but if we date the end of the 1950s more conventionally it doesn’t look all that unusual.
Besides that, there is the considerable evidence – discussed in the judgement – that Mrs Angas was acting according to standard APB practice. For a start, there is this 1958 memorandum to all APB staff on the Board’s legal powers:
TO ALL STAFF FOR NOTING
In the local press it was recently stated that the Aborigines Advancement League have formed a committee to review the provisions of the Aborigines Act, 1934/39. In the press article special mention was made regarding the Board’s powers in connection with neglected aborigine children.Please note that no member of the staff is permitted to discuss any matters in connection with legislation as it is at present or any possible amendments to the Aborigines Act.
It is permissible to discuss what is recognised as Board policy, but even then every care should be exercised that any remarks of any officer do not cause embarrassment to the Board or the Department.
In particular, no information is to be made available as to the powers of the Board as provided in the Act, especially as regards the removal of aboriginal children from their parents. All such enquiries are to be directed to the Secretary.
The chief welfare officer, John Weightman and welfare officers Marjory Angas and Brian Bennett, were amongst those staff members who received the memorandum. This memorandum evidences the acute sensitivity surrounding the APB’s practice of removing Aboriginal children. (Trevorrow v State of South Australia s76, Justice Gray’s emphasis)
As Justice Gray later remarks:
90. It is relevant to observe that a departmental officer with the Aborigines Department, Mrs Angas, who had been appointed as a welfare officer in the Department for less than nine months, apparently took on responsibilities with regard to the removal of the plaintiff. At that time, as earlier observed, it was the practice of the APB and the Aborigines Department to act to remove children thought to be neglected, and to do so with the state of mind that they lacked the legal authority or power to so act. Mrs Angas’ conduct would appear to be consistent with this practice.
91. Although precise findings cannot be made, it would appear that this practice of deliberately and knowingly acting beyond legal authority and power – as it was understood – ceased by the end of the 1950s when the Aborigines Department openly and publicly acknowledged that it had no power to remove neglected Aboriginal children from their parents, and the departmental approach had been altered to an attempt to persuade rather than to remove without approval.(Trevorrow v State of South Australia s76, my emphasis)
It’s clear, from the existence of the 1958 memorandum, that in the phrase “by the end of the 1950s” Justice Gray intends the conventional meaning – the end of 1959 – rather than “sometime before Christmas 1957″ – Bolt’s preferred dating of the advent of the 1960s. But, contrary to Bolt’s preferred interpretation of the judgement, the facts are quite plain – up until then there were at least 300 occasions where the Aboriginal Protection Board went beyond its legal authority to remove children from parental custody.
That’s 300 children stolen, Mr Bolt. Yes, stolen.
Will Andrew join JWH in the queue to apologise ?
Bolt’s the Potemkin village of newspaper columnists. As soon as you take a closer look at his evidence, it falls down.
this is a fantastic analysis of not only the findings, but bolt’s ludicrous arguments… well done.
It appears that you’ve shown that what Marjory Angas did was consistent with what other people in the department were doing at the time, but that also that they most likely knew they had no legal authority to do so. At what point are public servants expected to not just follow orders or what other people are doing, but what they believe to be legally correct?
A department is not sentinent entity initself – its made up of people who make individual decisions whether that is to direct other people or to follow directions from other people. I wonder if at the time the people in the department thought they were “doing the right thing” even though it was not strictly legal……
Gray does demonstrate that the APB did, until the late 1950s, turn a blind eye to the actual legal limitations imposed by the Act upon the Board.
However, Mrs Angas, were she alive, could not legitimately claim exculpation for her dereliction of duty by virtue of any plea that “she was just following orders”.
It is clear that Mrs Angas and her superiors entered into a conspiracy to break the law by removing Aboriginal children from parental care.
Whatever the actual practice of the South Australian APB, Bolt is correct. There is nothing in the South Australian Act that refers to “attempt[s] to put an end to the Aboriginal people of Australia�.
However, Bolt is commiting here an egregious act of disingenuous misdirection.
By implication Bolt is saying that the South Australian Act is identical in intention and effect to the Western Australian Act.
However, the truth is that A.O. Neville administered that Act with deliberate deliberate eugenicist ends in mind.
So, Bolt is being his usual cynical truth-twisting self. The only difference is that the Old Dog has learned a new trick.
Please remind me of the value of deconstructing Andrew Bolt’s columns and blog posts? He’s a fairly soft target.
Give him a Houdini cage and a padlock too, so he hasnt got time to cry,whilst he is trying to escape.
“That’s 300 children stolen, Mr Bolt. Yes, stolen.”
Is it your position, Gummo, that the ’stolen generation’ merely refers to all Aboriginal children removed from their home without proper legal authority?
I ask because Bolt clearly argues from the assumption that ’stolen’ means much more than simple removal in the absence of legal authority. His position is that, in order for the stolen generation claim to be proved, somebody needs to show that the removal of Aboriginal children was not just illegal, but part of a systematic and racist policy.
Much as I despise Bolt I’d have to say the results in this case do not significally dent his position (if you accept his definition of ’stolen’ that is).
wilful,
It’s a way to pass the time, if nothing else.
M R,
Bolt can’t have it both ways – which is what he’s attempted in this column. That is he can’t accept just that part of the extensive facts in the judgement that make out his claim that the Trevorrow case was unusual and ignore those findings which point to the reality that it wasn’t that unusual (one of 300 such cases or more). He can’t count 1957 as a year after the end of the 1950s and so on.
As for my position – well, based on this judgement and this judgement only, you have 300 cases where a government authority, and its staff, knowingly broke the law. There’s a lot more that could be said on that score without taking the position you’ve hypothesised I might be taking.
Bolt’s pretty well unassailable position is pretty accurately summarised in this post.
Hahahaha, I had a feed of the Village Idiot (not to denigrate other Village Idiots who are in fact useful) up until not too long ago because for all his faults old rice and monkey nuts is a very good blogger, but I eventually unsubscribed because I couldn’t stop laughing.
The shorter Bolt, the stolen child proves that there were no stolen children and besides he was brain damaged so it was for his own good. Asshat.
If people are breaking the law to do something, clearly that something is done without the agreement of that government.
Thus that government, while arguably guilty of not detecting 100% of lawbreakers, cannot be held culpable for the actions of lawbreakers.
Ergo, there was no stolen generation?
Sigh.
See my comments on Bolta and A.O. Neville above.
1. Bolta falsely and probably mendaciously attempts to generalise from the South Australian experience to the Australian experience. This is illogical and factually incorrect because:
2. A.O. Neville of Western Australia was on the record as running his department and removing children with eugenicist ends in mind. This was done with the knowledge and consent of the Western Australian government.
Ergo, racist, ergo much stolen generation.
Flawless, steve at the pub! Flawless!
Except, you know, if you hold the government accountable for the actual actions of persons acting with the authority of the government; and it was reasonably foreseeable for the government agency in question that the lawbreaking persons were acting outside their legal remit. In this case it wasn’t just foreseeable, it was foreseen.
SATP, if one of your pub employees acts illegally in the course of their duties, you will be legally culpable, even if it’s done without your knowledge. I guarantee it. You could even be legally culpable if one of them sexually harasses another one, unless you have taken reasonable steps to ensure that they are cognisant with anti-discrimination regulations, such as by sending them on a course. Just ask your industry association.
So if one of my staff carries out a burglary while at work I will go to gaol?
I see the L.P. resident denialist of all things bad about the conservatives is in full fettle again.SATP, why are to trying to spin the point Spiros has made,when it is clear to all except you, what he meant? You really are not fooling anyone on this blog,you are typical of an “Agent Provocateur” of the right of politics, ERGO, so why not come out and admit what you are.
The picture you have of your hero John Howard on your bedroom dresser is nothing to be ashamed of, I know because I have one in my toilet I wipe my arse on after I have a shit.
SATP, if one of your staff bashes a customer, you will certainly be liable for civil damages.
(If you go to gaol as well, that will be a bonus.)
Gaz, you are risking LP’s comments policy. On top of that, you are off your rocker.
Spiros, you ain’t worth the oxygen you breathe, (if you typed that last comment that is).
Edited to add:
PLZ DO NOT FEED TROLLS K THX BYE
*humble* sorry, I won’t feed them again.
Except with this: Spiros, if one of my staff bashes a customer, & it is you, they get a bonus.
SATP,off my rocker ?Your sharper than a razor blade Stevo,so cutting I am so offended. I didn’t know the word shit was against policy,if it is I withdraw it. Off my rocker mayhaps, but I am on to you. And if you want to complain that goes to my point,that I GAF.
Keep in mind th at the ruling pertains to how the Government Departments in question ‘managed’ Mr Trevorrow’s case both in his initial removal and in his subsequent re-unification which by all accounts was appalling in both instances.
denialist of all things bad about the conservatives
So it is your position Gaz, not only that there was a generation stolen, but that it was stolen by conservatives? Which conservatives would those ne?
nebe“So it is your position Gaz, not only that there was a generation stolen, but that it was stolen by conservatives? Which conservatives would those ne?”
Good question Peter TB. Well let me see.”My position” My position is not such a position per se or even an opinion, I would put it to you it is after all the evidence has been offered up over the years, it is an historical fact. The empirical evidence is there not only from recorded history, but being nearly sixty years old myself from my own observations.
The conservatives if you want to talk in general terms, are the public servants,the clergy,the social workers, and the police that carried out the orders of the day from the government of the day.Most of the stolen generation in history, is associated with the Menzies government, Menzies as you know was a well known communist sympathizer of the time ha ha,or did he go to extreme lengths to proclaim his love affair with the queen of England? how soon I forget.
Of course all Aboriginals were wards of the state between 1869/1969 and it is not drawing a long bow indeed to associate modern day conservatism back to 1869, the ideology that was responsible for the “Stolen Generation” was alive and well when Cook dropped anchor in Pt Jackson Bay.to deny this is to insult the intelligence.
The stolen generation did not only involve the natives of Australia,our very own ancestors, if you are of Anglo/Irish or Celt stock, were part of a stolen generation,and the thought process that prevailed when the first fleet sailed out of Portsmouth England to Australia has carried on down to “Liberal Party 2007″ Unfortunately it has taken many generations of people to finally work out what these bastards are about.A slow process,but slowly the tide is turning.
Shorter Gaz: Anyone racist was a conservative by definition. There is no such thing as a racist leftist and never ever was.
Yobbo,your comment will be given the contempt it deserves,however as much as you don’t like it, scratch a conservative and you will mostly find, a racist, it is the nature of the ideology end of.So go ahead lay it on as thick as you like,history is on my side and not yours.And please spare me the Stalin,Mao,or any other so called communist out of the past,that has five fifths of five eights of FA to do with the stolen generation.I never said there were no lefty racist pricks,it’s just unfortunate that most of them are conservative.
Gaz: priceless, man!
During NAIDOC week celebrations a couple of weeks ago, a Sydney-based Aboriginal woman I knew slightly spoke formally for the first time to a mixed group about her history. Her mother was stolen as a baby and sent to the NSW Cootamundra Girls’ Home. This was one of the first major homes for stolen Aboriginal children set up by the Aborigines Protection Board. The main aim of the Board was to ‘rescue’ Aboriginal children from their families and assimilate them into the white community. Girls were the main target of the Board, especially so-called ‘half-caste’ or ‘mixed blood’ girls. The girls were trained as domestic servants and sent out to work for middle class white families.
At Cootamundra, Aboriginal girls were instructed to ‘think white, look white, act white’. This was part of the process to make the girls suitable wives for white men, in the hope that through interracial marriages, Aboriginal blood would be ‘bred out’. They were taught to look down on their own people and to fear Aboriginal men.
Girls in the home were not allowed to communicate with their families. They were often told that their parents were dead and even given forged death certificates. As a result, many of the girls in the home lost their families forever.
Cootamundra Home was closed only in 1968, the year before the Aboriginal Welfare Board (previously the Aborigines Protection Board) was abolished. The woman who told her story, now in her late 30s, like her mother, was also stolen. She was placed with a series of foster parents in country areas, some of who abused her in the usual ways. She used to hide in drains rather than go to school because she hated that she looked so Aboriginal. She didn’t want to be Aboriginal, but it was inescapable. She felt like she was going mad.
She was trained to be a domestic servant by her last set of foster parents. She ran away to Sydney when she was 17 and linked up with the Redfern mob and from there found her community and was able to accept her Aboriginality (she is quite dark-skinned) and find the will to go to university and eventually find work she loves and is good at – working with children in education and creative arts..
She is one of the lucky ones. There are many Aboriginal people who know they are Aboriginal but haven’t been able to link up. They still don’t know and can’t tell their children who their mob is. It is added psychic pain for them.
Yo Gaz!
And here was I gently probing your views because I thought you had been careless with your language, and it turns out that you apparently have a deep seated belief that conservatives stole a generation! I have always thought that the stolen generation was the result of well meaning maternalistic social engineers, and not a left/right divide thingo.
In any event, since the stealing went on from the 1920s through to the early 1970s (apologies to Gummo if I have those decades wrong), and clearly many state governments had some level of involvement, your statement “Most of the stolen generation in history, is associated with the Menzies government” is a bit of a stretch! Would you care to reconsider?
“I have always thought that the stolen generation was the result of well meaning maternalistic social engineers”
Correct, funny aint it most of the maternalistic social engineers responsible for the stolen generation were of a conservative bent..
“Most of the stolen generation in history, is associated with the Menzies governmentâ€? is a bit of a stretch! Would you care to reconsider?”
Stretch it how you like that is my position,the thrust of Anglicization of the Aboriginal race started long before Menzies came on the scene.however he and his government made it an “Art form” the state apparatus was put in full swing to achieve their objective.Let’s not mince words here,there were obviously some mis-guided people who thought they were doing the right thing,but the objective and make no mistake, was to breed them out. Why wont people just admit it? why is it such a shock? after all this is not the only continent the British have tried to commit genocide on. They have form for it.
Jinmaro, all good points, I have seen the same set up as described in out back South Australia.Most of the people who comment on this issue,just repeat what other people have said, or written, and if you have not directly experienced it for your self, you have no concept of the reality on the ground. I have.
As a teenager growing up in South Australia,working in Aboriginal communities , I saw first hand the racist attitudes that have carried on to this day.In the fifty’s in the city of Adelaide, Aboriginals were not allowed in the city limits,and I have seen them rounded up in a fashion something akin to Soweto in South Africa. Loaded into trucks and paddy wagons like so much cattle.Any dissent was met with a crack across the head with a night stick,but I just dreamt all that up.
As you know 1967 was the year the Aboriginals were made citizens in their own country(that was nice of the government) but that didn’t change Jack shit even in outback Western Australia today yes that’s 2007 there are still whites only bars.All these pseudo intellectuals who keep making excuses for the bastady that was committed on these people hav’nt got a fucking clue.
I that case, you have always thought incorrectly.
The full-fledged eugenicism of an A.O. Neville was anything but “maternalistic”. It was based on removing partly white children into care and allowing darwinian processes (extinction) put an end to the full-blood remnant.
As Bolta has correctly noted, whatever was happening in South Australia under the APB was not eugenicist.
As Bolta has correctly noted, whatever was happening in South Australia under the APB was not eugenicist.
Correct, but there was a fair deal of fishy talk going on in early S.A history:
‘During the year several Half Caste children have been removed from the blacks’ camps and placed under the care and control of the State Children’s Department, with most encouraging results, the children are thriving and happy and will, I feel confident, grow up self-supporting members of the community, as they will know nothing of the habits of the Aborigines and will be given an occupation.
Several letters have appeared in the press in opposition to the removal of these children from their cruel surroundings, but I think the writers have failed to grasp the seriousness of the problem now facing South Australia and some of the other States.
Take the case of New South Wales, for example. There, according to the report of the “Board for Protection of Aborigines� dated May 1910, the Aboriginal
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population consisted of 2123 full-bloods and 5247 Half Castes. Between the years 1882 and 1909 the full bloods decreased from 6540 to 2123 and the Half Castes increased from 2379 to 5247.
In this State a similar state of things is occurring as in 1901 the Census shows there were 502 Half Castes but in August 1909 from information supplied by the Police Officers it was found there were at least 766, and later records have brought the total up to about 800.
At Point Pierce there were on 30th. June 1910, 145 Half Castes and 17 full-bloods, at Point McLeay River Murray and the Lakes there are about 350 Aborigines, 75% of whom are Half Castes.
These figures, I think, prove the necessity of steps being taken to convert these people into useful members of the Community, instead of allowing them to grow up in the Camps where they acquire the lazy habits of the Aborigines, which unfits them for any regular occupation, and I am still firmly of opinion that the very best way is to treat them as neglected children, and have them placed under the care and control of the State Children’s Department until they reach the age of 18 years by which time they should be able to earn their own living and should no longer be considered nor treated as Aborigines. ‘
The Chief Protector at the time, W.G South, clearly had motives for removals other than proven neglect. Surely, because the policy varied from time to time and between states, the victims of this pattern of government behaviour should be collectively refered to as the ’stolen generation’. Andrew’s being a tad shifty when he points to a single motive. This makes it conveniently easier to disprove but it’s still quite dishonest.
Thanks for the info Madd.
You are correct. This sorry story is one of cover-up, shifting, and shifty, motives.
Mr South is clearly enunciating eugenicist practices.
I’d be interested to know whether he declared his policy, or better still whether anyone called him a eugenicist to his face, whether in praise or as a criticism.
This is an interesting snippet:
I wonder whether Mr South was being criticised on ideological, as opposed to humanitarian, grounds.
Bringing Them Home – April 1997 - available on line
I wonder whether Mr South was being criticised on ideological, as opposed to humanitarian, grounds.
Yes I wondered exactly the same thing. There are lots of bits and pieces of evidence that suggest there were many white Australians who were aghast at the policy, which poses another problem for Bolt (why would there be if the children were merely neglected), so I wonder if these letters were from just such people.
It’s also interesting to note that the ’serious problem’ South refers to isn’t that these children were neglected, rather that they would be left with their families thereby increasing the amount of ‘lazy Aborigines’ the states must deal with.
The more I think about it, the more the analogy with Nazi Germany and its aftermath become apparent. Of course, there were people at the time that protested the government policies, who said that Aboriginal children were, really and truly, best left with their parents. That they might be sleeping in the open or itinerant, e.g., but for multiple reasons, that included earning a seasonal living and because they hadno income or financial support whatsoever, or because they didn’t mind and actually liked doing this at certain times of the year.
And such people might have and do say, at the time, that separating, institutionalising and attempting the assimilation of Aboriginal children were wrongheaded objectives and sure to rebound. But such people were exceptional. Basically it has to be said most Australians at the time, i.e. up until the late 1960s, were either active or passive parties to stealing Aboriginal children from their parents and all that went along with that.
Which brings us to today. And here the analogy with 20-21st century Germany holds too. It is preposterous, frightening and unthinkable for many Australians, like Germans, to accept, acknowledge, take responsibility for what occurred with government connivance, blind-eye or blessing. But really we must. Without it we continue to endure and perpetuate wilful ignorance of the facts and outright denial: two sides of the coin. And what sort of guide to action is that?
“Which brings us to today. And here the analogy with 20-21st century Germany holds too. It is preposterous, frightening and unthinkable for many Australians, like Germans, to accept, acknowledge, take responsibility for what occurred with government connivance, blind-eye or blessing. But really we must. Without it we continue to endure and perpetuate wilful ignorance of the facts and outright denial: two sides of the coin. And what sort of guide to action is that?”
Yes so bloody true,and it is this denial that keeps perpetuating the modern day situation.It is also not helped by white men who think they know best, in trying to bash in to them the Protestant work ethic, and trying to apply white mans law to them.What is laughable is the government is only high lighting the problems in Aboriginal communities,they should get out more,whites are as bad.
Yes, indeed.
South mentions this problem as “serious” for South Australia (and other states, so South says.)
My suspicion is that South is not so concerned about the children he refers to adding to the number of “lazy Aborigines” so much as the non full bloods adding to a more complex problem in the eyes of a scientific racist.
That is, South Australia (and the rest of Australia) would have the problem of an increasingly genetically white population acculturating itself in non-white ways on the fringes of civilisation.
The was also a constitutional issue after federation. The Australian Constitution forbade the Federal Government from administering the affairs of
in any state of the Commonwealth. A child with white parentage automatically is exempt from this prohibition, yet is living often with the black parent (usually the mother) who is subject to the constitutional prohibition.
This state of affairs signifies an enormous potential problem for all the states as the number of partially white children grows.
Katz: I that case, you have always thought incorrectly
So I was incorrect in thinking:
a. The social engineers were well meaning?
b. The social engineers were maternalistic?
c. The social engineers were not politically aligned?
d. A. O. Neville operated in only one state of the Commonwealth?
e. A. O. Neville himself was well meaning?
f. All of the above?
In any event, can you and Gaz (Gaz: Correct) form some kind of consensus on this? Else how can I take you both seriously?
PeterTB you will have to excuse me, what are you saying? 1. That there was NO stolen generation 2.There was a stolen generation but you can’t pin point who you think was responsible for it? 3. Or in my case by saying I believe most of it went on in the Menzies era, you disagree, than fine I can accept that.
That is, South Australia (and the rest of Australia) would have the problem of an increasingly genetically white population acculturating itself in non-white ways on the fringes of civilisation.
sorry, I meant Katz. Similar-sounding made up names overload my feminine brain.
Gaz: I thought my position was clear from my comment above: I have always thought that the stolen generation was the result of well meaning maternalistic social engineers, and not a left/right divide thingo
As to your assertion that somehow Menzies took a lead in the matter – I have never heard that asserted before, and I can find no support for it.
And apologies to Gummo (decade invigilator) – the “Bringing Them Home” report says “Nationally we can conclude with confidence that between one in three and one in ten Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities in the period from approximately 1910 until 1970″
PeterTB my apology I thought you were taking the piss,fairy muff.
It was common knowledge in my time,anecdotal mayhaps never the less real enough. You wont find everything on the net or wikipedia.The Aboriginal G.G. of South Australia was accused of burning the Chippendale furniture but I’m sure you wont find any evidence for that either.I have a book in my library about the influence of Menzies, I’ll dig it up and run some of it by you.
Just on Madd McColl’s comment pointing out fishy talk (and in support of his argument); not all “race (ahem cough splutter) science” is about eugenics. Often it’s used a pretext for;
A) Denying persons identity and cultural heritage (land rights is a classical example).
B) Reinforcing notions of racial supremacy (“I am Aryan hear me roar as I rave on like a bore and my breeding is to good for you to complain!”)
C) Discrimination (“we won’t interfere with their breeding, but we won’t give those aphorism-Xs a job at the office! their small brains couldn’t handle it)
D) Determining on the best form of government to implement according to racial disposition (ie integralism).
E) Just plain killing them (They are violent by nature! I don’t want to wipe them out, but if we don’t they’ll wipe us out!).
None of these things are eugenics (and no, E isn’t. Eugenics may (or may not) involve wiping people out, but wiping people out on the basis of race is not eugenics per se). Indeed, not that I support eugenics (I don’t, at least not in the commonly known sense) but there is a good deal of propaganda out there exploiting misconceptions about eugenics.
For example, I’d assume that most of us abhor the idea of brother-sister procreation, not just as a matter of what is palatable but also because of the health implications of in-breeding. We outlaw it for this reason. While most of us don’t identify as eugenicists, in this respect we are (and I don’t think we could be faulted for it). If someone were to come out and identify themselves as pro-eugenics on this basis alone, we would be wrong to imply they were somehow a genocidal crazy person.
Incidentally, on the “half-caste” issue, I’d like to see those who use the term (or specifically Andrew and his half-Aboriginal BS) to show us what it is that makes an Aborigine and then demonstrate which “bits” are missing. Keeping in mind that race isn’t actually a legitimate biological concept in the first place.
Somehow I expect these people’s understanding of what constitutes Aboriginality is next to non-existent.
Peter TB:
a. The social engineers were well meaning?
b. The social engineers were maternalistic?
c. The social engineers were not politically aligned?
d. A. O. Neville operated in only one state of the Commonwealth?
e. A. O. Neville himself was well meaning?
f. All of the above?
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make here. Are you suggesting that the practice of removing children forcibly from their parents, with no evidence of neglect, can be forgiven by proving that the Protectors were ‘well meaning’? It’s an odd position to take, nor am I sure it is true in every case.
You also seem to be implying that Neville was the only one to implement such a policy, this is wrong. There was Cook in the N.T, Roth in Qld and South in S.A. Furthermore, Cook’s policy of ‘breeding out the colour’ was adopted by the federal government:
‘. Every endeavour is being made to breed out the colour by elevating female half-castes to white standard with a view to their absorption by mating into the white population. The adoption of a similar policy throughout the Commonwealth is, in my opinion, a matter of vital importance.
(C.E. Cook).
Chief Protector of Aboriginals, February 7 ‘
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR.
MEMORANDUM:
With reference to the memorandum of the 7th February, by the Chief Protector of Aboriginals of the Northern Territory, the policy of mating half-castes with whites, for the purpose of breeding-out the colour, is that adopted by the Commonwealth Government on the recommendation of Dr. Cook.
Nicely framed, Madd.
Having disposed of PeterTB’s rhetorical questions, the only possible conclusion is that in some states and under the Commonwealth administration of the Northern Territory, for at least some of the time between 1901 and some time in the 1970s there opoerated policies of eugenicist-inspired removal of Aboriginal children.
These policies were carried out not primarily for the welfare of individual children, but rather for the objective of manipulating the racial make-up of the population of Australia.
The children who were subject to this regime were stolen from their families with eugenicist end in mind.
Denialism of the Stolen Generations is invalid.
This is too true, indeed the documentary evidence is enormous.
When one takes into account the amount of “half-caste” children that were removed (the fact that a great deal were is never disputed) and the fact that those in control often voiced their intentions so clearly, the logical conclusion is that some of these children were the victims of policy shaped by eugenics.
Nice.
So one turns at last to two questions:
1. What was the nature of political oversight of these administrators? The various state and federal ministers ought to have had some knowledge of the practices of their administrators. And presumably these ministers were asked questions in parliament. Or was there a conspiracy of consensual silence over these questions that lasted at least 70 years?
2. Presumably, at least a few of these cases of removal of children from parental care would have found their way into a court of law. How did the judiciary handle these matters?
I don’t think any researcher would find very much, if any, case law or other documentation about judicial or administrative interrogation of accepted government eugenicist practices towards Australian Aborigines until, at the very earliest, the 1970s.
Interesting that there seems to have been no legal history of the treatment of Australian Indigenous people published to date. Perhaps some one knows of a title worth recommending.
But then how many legal or administrative challenges were launched by Jews or their defenders 1935-45 against the German state and its administrators or, in an earlier period, by Native Americans or their advocates in the US.
Madd:
I wasn’t making a point, I was simply trying to get Katz to explain his statement to the effect that my long held views were wrong. Katz introduced the Neville dimension.
Nothing that you or Katz have said convinces me that (in general) the removals were not well meant, even though in many cases the safety of the child was not at risk. Take this excerpt from the BTH report:
… scores of the children are growing up without any prospect of a future before them, being alienated from their old bush life, and rendered more or less useless for the condition of life being forced upon them (A O Neville quoted by Jacobs 1990 on pages 77-78).
It appears that A O Neville thought that his actions were in some way for the benefit of the victims, though in many cases he was clearly wrong.
Jinmaro, in Nazi Germany, after 1935, Jews faced a growing number of legal restrictions all based on race. For example, individuals’ property was confiscated, Jews were prohibited from marrying or even having sex with non-Jews. German Jews were denied access to justice, such as it was in Nazi Germany.
While Aborigines faced some legal disadvantages, they were very minor in comparison with those suffered by Germany’s Jews.
Throughout the 20th century Aborigines still had access to civil law. I realise that many Aborigines were unaware of their legal rights and many could not afford representation. Nevertheless none of this precludes the possibility that some Aborigines somewhere at some time tried their luck at law in regard to custody of their children.
No it doesn’t *preclude* the possibility, but as far as I know. would love to hear otherwise (anyone?) there was never any Aboriginal legal challenge prior to those launched post the 1997 report by the federal Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission into the Stolen Children and the claims post 1997 were only for compensation and recognition of a past wrong.
Yes, but this doesn’t address the query I have as to whether Jews in Germany in this period legally challenged the restrictions placed on them by the German state or by individual citizens, and if not, why not, and what is analogous here with Australian Aborigines in a comparable historical period.
I wasn’t trying to address that issue Jinmaro. So let’s try now.
In Germany, Jews who had been thoroughly into German life before 1933, were under the Nazi regime forcibly separated by professional, economic and sexual and connubial prohibitions. They also lost German citizenship. And law enforcement authorities did nothing to prevent acts of indivisual and mob thugery against them.
All this adds up to a picture where Jews really had no political recourse and no recourse at law. Their only remedy was emigration or violent resistance, which would have been unsuccessful. had it been tried. (Some Jews did resort to acts of terrorism, with predictable political results.)
In Australia, before WWII (and probably some time later, but let’s keep the time scale consistent), Aborigines were in a diversity of conditions. Some were still living tribal lifestyles. Some were on missions. Some had taken up residence in the poorest parts of towns and cities. Some had been kidnapped and foster out. Some of this had been enforced by federal, state, and municipal legislation. Fullbloods had state residency, but no Australian citizenship (a concept that was only slowly emerging for all other Australians. For example, Australians travelled on British passports and it is undoubted that all Aborigines were accounted as British subjects.) There were no formal barriers to Aborigines following any profession. However, it is notorious that the opportunities for self-advancement hardly existed. Aborigines’ rights at law were abridged by legislation, but they still had a wide range of legal entitlements.
But here is the big difference.
The Nazi regime was certain about who was a Jew. And that genetic barrier was erected high and hard against persons who had only 1/16 Jewish blood. Eventually, many of those people were killed in the Final Solution.
Australian governments knew what a fullblood Aboriginal was. But they were more interested in “mixing the bloods” than in exterminating everyone who had Aboriginal ancestry. The taint didn’t come in the blood, though it did come with the blood. Remove the source of the taint, which were Aboriginal history, culture and lifestyle, and a person with Aboriginal ancestry could be a “useful” member of society. Australia’s Final Solution was a dissolution of Aboriginal blood into the blood of the rest of Australia. And A.O. Neville’s policies were utterly consistent with that ideology.
‘Nothing that you or Katz have said convinces me that (in general) the removals were not well meant, even though in many cases the safety of the child was not at risk.
Well it all depends on your definition of ‘well meant’. I’m sure Neville truely thought that “half-caste” children were better off living as whites but this doesn’t mean that he didn’t hold other motives for their removal. Thus far you’ve been given much evidence to prove that he and others did have eugenics in mind when they spoke of “half-caste” children, does it really make a difference if he also said they were better off having a white childs upbringing? I just get the feeling that yours is a moot point.
You’d be well aware of comments like these from Neville at the Premiers conference:
‘Are we going to have a population of 1,000,000 blacks in the Commonwealth, or are we going to merge them in our white community and eventually forget there were any Aboriginies in Australia?’
Our policy is to send them out into the white community, and if the girl comes back pregnant our rule is to keep her for two years. The child is then taken away from the mother and sometimes never sees her again. Thus these children grow up as whites, knowing nothing of their environment. At the extirpation of the period of two years the mother goes back into service. So that it really doesn’t matter if she has half a dozen children’
Now you could say that Neville had their best interests at heart but what difference this makes is beyond me. He was removing children from their parents not because they were neglected, but with eugenics in mind.
Katz, the points you make are sound and important. But the BTH report argued that motivation is irrelevant legally if a particular outcome is likely and that the policies of the state and federal governments were discriminatory in fundamental ways, and potentially genocidal. The most important, and there were many directly discriminatory policies and practices, breached longstanding common law rights of Aboriginal parents with regard to their own children, rights of personal liberty and freedom of movement and, under international human rights law, including, by 1948 the UN Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948. This Convention defined genocide as
The report concluded on the evidence that the policies adopted by colonial administrations and both state and federal governments, as well as actions by settlers, from British colonisation up until the 1970s constituted genocide against the Aborigines.
Histories I’ve read do record individual voices of protest against removal of children by a handful of senior bureaucrats, journalists, concerned citizens or clergy, as well as by Aboriginal people themselves through petitions, appeals to the Protector etc . But it wasn’t courts that determined that children should be removed, just individual public servants or missionaries.
The right of appeal against the removal of children did exist in some states prior to the 1970s but was infrequently exercised and basic rights such as to be given legal representation, informed of the date of the appeal hearing and what would be involved were typically not given to Aboriginal complainants.
But what started my speculation was thinking of the parallels of silence by the populace at large in Germany and in Australia, the denialism that still exists to some extent in both countries and the implications of this in Australia for dealing with the ongoing fallout of the former practices and their living legacy today.
I’ve got no argument with what you say Jinmaro. there are many ways of committing genocide. Germany’s method was genetic genocide. Australia’s method was cultural genocide.
If that was all, then the problem was with the complainants’ legal representation. Unless a judge was forced by litigation to declare whether or not the Australian laws were eugenicist, then it must be argued that the complainants never made full use of their legal entitlements.
I think this mischaracterises Germans’ attitude to their Nazi past. Germans have been very candid about their dark history.