Editing History of Australia (section)

=== Indigenous civil rights, assimilation and child removal ===

The Menzies era (1949–1972) saw significant strides in civil rights for indigenous Australians. Over the period, Menzies and his successors dismantled remaining restrictions on voting rights for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples culminating in the Menzies Government's 1962 ''Commonwealth Electoral Act'', while the Holt Government's landmark [[1967 Australian referendum (Aboriginals)|1967 Referendum]] received overwhelming public support for the transfer of responsibility for Aboriginal Affairs to the Federal Government, and the removal of discriminatory provisions regarding the national census from the [[Australian Constitution]]. By 1971, the first Aboriginal Senator was sitting on the government benches, with [[Neville Bonner]] becoming a Liberal Senator for QLD.<ref>[https://biography.senate.gov.au/bonner-neville-thomas/ Neville Bonner]; Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate</ref>

[[File:Harold Holt and FCAATSI.jpg|thumb|Prime Minister [[Harold Holt]] with Aboriginal rights campaigners ahead of the [[1967 Australian referendum (Aboriginals)|1967 Referendum]].]]
[[File:Neville Bonner 1979.jpg|thumb|Liberal Senator [[Neville Bonner]], the first federal parliamentarian to identify as Aboriginal, joined the Senate in 1971]]

During this period, the policy of assimilation attracted increasing criticism from Aboriginal people and their supporters on the grounds of its negative effects on Aboriginal families and its denial of Aboriginal cultural autonomy. Removals of Aboriginal children of mixed descent from their families slowed by the late 1960s and by 1973 the Commonwealth had adopted a policy of [[self-determination]] for Indigenous Australians.<ref>Broome, Richard (2019). p. 215-17, 230</ref>

The 1951 Native Welfare Conference of state and Commonwealth officials had agreed on a policy of cultural assimilation for all Aboriginal Australians. [[Paul Hasluck]], the Commonwealth Minister for Territories, stated: "Assimilation means, in practical terms, that, in the course of time, it is expected that all persons of aboriginal blood or mixed blood in Australia will live like other white Australians do."<ref name="humanrights-1997"/><ref name="Broome, Richard 2019. p. 212"/>

Controls over the daily lives of Aboriginal people and the removal of Aboriginal children of mixed descent continued under the policy of assimilation, although the control was now largely exercised by Welfare Boards and removals were justified on welfare grounds. The number of Aboriginal people deemed to be wards of the state under Northern Territory welfare laws doubled to 11,000 from 1950 to 1965.<ref>Broome, Richard (2019). p. 212-13</ref>

In 1997, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission estimated that between 10 per cent and one-third of Aboriginal children had been removed from their families from 1910 to 1970. Regional studies indicate that 15 per cent of Aboriginal children were removed in New South Wales from 1899 to 1968, while the figure for Victoria was about 10 per cent.<ref name="Broome-2015">Broome, Richard (2015). p. 215</ref> Robert Manne estimates that the figure for Australia as a whole was closer to 10 per cent.<ref>Flood, Josephine (2019). p. 285</ref>

Summarising the policy of assimilation and forced removals of Aboriginal children of mixed descent, Richard Broome concludes: "Even though the children's material conditions and Western education may have been improved by removal, even though some removals were necessary, and even though some people were thankful for it in retrospect, overall it was a disaster....It was a rupturing of tens of thousands of Aboriginal families, aimed at eradicating Aboriginality from the nation in the cause of homogeneity and in fear of difference."<ref name="Broome-2015" />