Reconciliation Timeline
1768
Captain Cook is issued with orders from the British Empire that if he discovers the great southern land he is "with the consent of the natives take possession of convenient situations in the name of the King... or if you find the land uninhabited Take Possession for His Majesty".
1770
April 29 Captain James Cook in the Endeavour enter Botany Bay. After an encounter with local people in Botany Bay Cook writes "all they seem'd to want was us to be gone".
1788
The First Fleet arrives and builds a settlement at Port Jackson in NSW. As modern day commentator Robert Manne writes “At Sydney Cove two incompatible versions of life collided. The British could never understand why the Australians did not appreciate their civilisation and the protection it provided under an impersonal law. The Australians could not understand why the British disapproved of their system of justice - based on revenge, honour and complex intertribal relationships. The longer the two peoples lived together, the more mysterious to each other did they become."
- Learn more – Inga Clendinnen’s Dancing With Strangers; Europeans and Australians at First Contact an account of these first years based on original source material.
- Read the account of Watkin Tench, a member of the first fleet
1835
John Batman attempts to make a 'treaty' with Aboriginal people for Port Phillip Bay, near present day Melbourne by 'buying' 243 000 hectares with 20 pairs of blankets, 30 tomahawks, various other articles and a yearly tribute. Governor Bourke does not recognise the 'treaty’. This is the only time colonists attempt to sign a treaty for land with Aboriginal owners.
1836 - 1837
A select committee of the British House of Commons says that Aborigines have a ‘plain right and sacred right’ to their land. The committee reports genocide is happening in the colonies.
January 1938
The Aborigines Progressive Association declares a Day of Mourning on Australia Day and holds the first Aborigines Conference in Sydney. The Conference resolves to appeal to the nation to give Indigenous Australians full citizenship rights.
1948
The Commonwealth Citizenship and Nationality Act for the first time gives the category of "Australian Citizenship" to all Australians, including Aborigines. However, at state level Aborigines still suffer legal discrimination.
1962
The Commonwealth Electoral Act is amended to give the vote to all Aboriginal people.
1966
Vincent Lingiari leads a walk-off from the cattle station Wave Hill in the Northern Territory, protesting inadequate wages and poor conditions. The protesters set up camp at nearby Wattie Creek and demand the return of some of their traditional lands, beginning a seven-year fight by the Gurindji to obtain title to their land. The protest eventually leads to the Commonwealth Land Rights Act (Northern Territory), 1976.
Read more about Vincent Lingiari walk-off, a significant event in Australian civil rights history
1967
After 10 years of campaigning for equality by Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, 90.77% of Australians vote YES that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be counted in the national census of the population and that the Commonwealth Government should have the power to legislate for Aboriginal people.
1972
The Whitlam Government establishes the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and makes a firm commitment to the policy of self-determination. The new Government also sets up the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee.
The 'Aboriginal Embassy' is pitched outside Parliament House in Canberra, demonstrating for land rights.
1975
The Australian Senate unanimously endorses a resolution put up by Senator Neville Bonner acknowledging prior ownership of this country by Aboriginal people and seeking compensation for their dispossession. Federal Parliament passes the Racial Discrimination Act.
1976
The Fraser Government passes the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act and brings the new legislation into operation.
1979
The Aboriginal Treaty Committee is formed and the National Aboriginal Conference calls for a treaty between the Commonwealth Government and Aboriginal people. The Hon. Fred Chaney, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, welcomes the initiative and funds a nationwide consultation process.
1984
Nine members of an extended Pintupi family, dubbed The Printupi 9, still living a semi-nomadic life in the Gibson Desert are found and brought in to communities.
1986
Pope John Paul II visits Alice Springs and makes a public statement saying 'There is a need for a just and proper settlement (with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people) that still lies unachieved in Australia.'
1987
Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gerry Hand presents to the Parliament the statement Foundations for the Future, aimed at progressing the idea of a compact with Indigenous Australians.
1988
Australian Heads of Churches issue a statement, Towards Reconciliation in Australian Society -Reconciliation and Aboriginal Australians, arguing for just and proper settlement of differences and the healing of division.
1988
At the Barunga Festival, Prime Minister Bob Hawke is presented with two paintings and text calling for Indigenous rights. This has become known as the Barunga Statement. In his speech Bob Hawke says there will be a treaty within the life of the current Parliament. The statement now hangs in Parliament House in Canberra.
February 1991
Robert Tickner appointed as Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Aboriginal Reconciliation.
May 1991
Minister tables Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody which inquired into the deaths of 99 Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders in Australian jails. The final recommendation supports the concept of a process of reconciliation, with Commissioner Elliott Johnston commenting that 'All political leaders and their parties recognise that reconciliation between the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in Australia must be achieved if community division, discord and injustice to Aboriginal people are to be avoided.'
June 1991
Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Act is passed in the House of Representatives with unanimous support.
August 1991
Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Act is passed in the Senate with unanimous support.
February 1992
The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation holds its first meeting in Canberra.
1992
High Court hands down its Mabo decision, recognising special relationship that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have with the land. The court decrees that Australia was never terra nullius (empty land). The decision includes the words, the “majority of the Court held that the common law of Australia recognises a form of native title; where those people have maintained their connection with the land; and where the title has not been extinguished by acts of Imperial, Colonial, State, Territory or Commonwealth government."
Prime Minister Paul Keating delivers his famous Redfern address, in which he says ‘There is one thing today we cannot imagine. We cannot imagine that the descendants of people whose genius and resilience maintained a culture here through 50 000 years or more, through cataclysmic changes to the climate and environment, and who then survived two centuries of dispossession and abuse, will be denied their place in the modern Australian nation’
The Government creates the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner position as a part of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
1993
International Year of the World's Indigenous People.
September 1993
First national Week of Prayer for Reconciliation with support from all major religious groups.
December 1993
Native Title Act passed by Federal Parliament recognising native title and providing a process by which native title rights can be established.
July 1994
The Uniting Church National Assembly formally apologises for past wrongs and pledges to work in solidarity with the Aboriginal and Islander Congress.
1994
The Australian Football League releases a new code of conduct on racism which receives strong endorsement from the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. Indigenous player Nicky Winmar draws attention to racial vilification in sport.
March 1995
The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation presents Going Forward: Social Justice for the First Australians to Prime Minister Paul Keating. This document contains 78 recommendations covering a range of issues including access to land, protection of culture and heritage, and the provision of adequate health, housing and other services.
February 1996
Aboriginal, pastoral and environmental organisations on Cape York sign the Cape York Land Use Heads of Agreement, showing that organisations representing disparate interests can agree on diverse land uses. The agreement is seen as the first step towards a possible Regional Agreement as defined in the Commonwealth Native Title Act.
May 1996
The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation launches the first National Reconciliation Week (NRW).
May 26-28 1997
Australian Reconciliation Convention attended by 1,800 participants - this event is an historic landmark in the reconciliation process and stimulates a grassroots people's movement around the country.
The Bringing Them Home Report uncovering in stark detail the suffering of the stolen generations is launched at the National Reconciliation Convention.
2000
Over 300,000 people walk across Sydney Harbour Bridge and hundreds of thousands more around the country as part of National Reconciliation Week, demonstrating their support for the reconciliation process.
December The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation winds up, presenting a report and list of recommendations.
2001
Reconciliation Australia set up as an independent, not-for-profit organisation to carry the movement forward.
2005
National Reconciliation Planning Workshop, attended by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.
- Read the Prime Minister John Howard’s speech from the workshop
2006
Reconciliation Australia launches its Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) program, calling on governments, business, peak bodies, non-government and community organisations to commit to specific, measurable, action oriented plans. The RAPs are part of a broader plan of action committed to closing the 17 years life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.
2007
27 May – the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum honours surviving campaigners and stimulates Australians of today to realise the vision of equality that attracted such a high vote four decades ago.
June - At a joint press conference Prime Minister John Howard and Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough announce a dramatic intervention into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities in response to the findings of a report about sexual abuse.
August - 6 weeks after the announcement the Northern Territory Emergency Response Act is passed, giving the Government power to acquire Aboriginal land for 5 years and hold back 50% of all welfare payments for necessary items. The long standing permit system, enacted as part of the 1976 Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory) is scrapped. The legislation includes exemptions from the Racial Discrimination Act.
2008
13 February - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologises to the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Australian parliament and the Australian people.
