4.

 Based on the research you have conducted, and on the consultation with the external Aboriginal or Torres Strait
Islander, write a report of around 750 words. Your report should cover the following topics:

 a) Traditional custodians: Summarise the findings you have gathered on the traditional custodians in your
area/region. 
b) Timeline: A historical timeline of significant events that have shaped the history of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people. Include historic policy changes, legislative changes and the extent to which the
Government has impacted Aboriginal communities.
 c) Impacts of settlement on law: The impact of European settlement on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people in relation to law.
 d) Impacts on land ownership and kinship: The impact of European settlement on the loss of land, loss of
kinship and culture for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
 e) Impacts on people: The impact of this trauma for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
 f) Current issues: Current racism and discrimination against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and
how its roots can be linked to European settlement.
 g) Considerations for educators: Your understanding of any issues that may influence an educator's
relationships and ability to communicate with Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders.
 h) Strategies: Identify and document five (5) strategies to help educators improve their communication with
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander children, families and colleagues in a service.

6. Write a reflective journal of around 300 words. Your reflection should cover the following topics:

 a) Insights: The new knowledge you acquired about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that may
assist you in promoting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural safety.
 b) Connections: The connections you made to the local community and Traditional Custodians, and how this
impacted your cultural competence.
 c) Communication: Communication strategies you will start to use in order to demonstrate cultural safety.
 d) Future practice: How your experience in completing this assessment will influence your future practice
and pedagogy.

A Posthumous Exposition
An educator’s insight into aboriginal condition

“The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice” – Mark Twain
Excluding the few who understand the legal foundations and legislature in depth, Terra Nullius is just a
phrase synonymous with a few dusty history books, buried away in the pages of time and in turn our
nation’s history.
For many these core issues are still very much prevalent and a despotic reality.
Veronica Sullivan, a writer and editor for The Guardian, in her piece ‘Speculative fiction is a powerful
political tool: from War of the Wolds to Terra Nullius’ provides an acrimoniously acerbic and didactic
critique of the ‘Dystopian Australia’.

Having being regarded by historians and academics, many as influential as Dawkins and Blainey, the
indigenous populus in Australia has been classed as among one of the oldest civilizations to this date.
With roots traced as far back as 50,000 years ago, though contentious about the time that the once
‘Great Migration from Africa’ as stated by Dawkins, there is no doubt that the indigenous population
on the mainland of Australia were the Aboriginals prior to Anglo Saxon arrival.

Interpretation of the data from the Aboriginal Heritage Office, it is postulated that there was a lexical
range of tribes and various clans which had settled among the coastal inland portions of the mainland.
Each Clan and Tribe was then further branched into individual nations. According to the late Aunt
Beryl Timbery Beller there were over 400 ‘Nations’ in Australia prior to 1770, the arrival of Lt James
Cook.
With instructions to take possession or the ‘Southern Continent’ Lt Cook was to proceed with his
mandate, however lost in the of history it is often overlooked that Cook was provided with secondary
instructions;
-To occupy the continent if uninhabited or seek native consent if occupied.
With a rough estimate of 750,000 to 1.25 million Aboriginals prior to first contact, there was hardly a
shortage of Natives to consult.
Thus Lt Cook’s failure to consult the natives has lead to Australia’s greatest Legal Fiction, Terra
Nullius.

Henry Reynolds, an Honorary Research Professor of Aboriginal Studies at the University of Tasmania,
in his piece “Australia was founded on a hypocrisy that haunts us to this day” compares the same
hypocrisy of US slavers who wrote and spoke of liberty, freedom, equality and pursuit of happiness to
that of the Australian Settlers.
Well documented within the Common law, the law striking a balance between the crown and the
commons (British People), 17th century jurist Sir Christopher Yelverton highlights the fundamentals of
‘Common law’ and its power:
“No mans property can be legally taken from him or invaded by the direct act or command of the
Sovereign (i.e. the King) without the consent of the subject…is a jus indigene, an old home born truth,
declared true by the diverse statutes of the realm”
Thus when the continent became subject to the Sovereign rule of King George III, the subjects i.e. the
native inhabitants were under the obligation to follow the common law, but were also under the
protections that the common law would offer.

In short, the legal dispute and point of contention to this day among legal professionals and scholars is
this:
Did Australia and its inhabitants become subjects of the crown prior to its settlement and land
cessation, and as a result the land ‘loss’ is the greatest heist in human history? This is the powder keg
that had fueled the Mabo decision (Eddie Mabo & Ors V State of Queensland) whereby the first
successful dispute between an Aboriginal and the Crown has ultimately resulted in the repatriation of
once stolen lands back to their rightful owners.
Justice Isaacs dictates in the High Court of Australia 1913, the “whole lands of Australia had already
become the property of the King of England prior to the Commission from King George III on the 12th
October 1786”.

However, it still fails to explain how the Aboriginal people became subjects and lost their land at the
same time. The Terra Nullius myth can be loosely explained by a little known case of Cooper v Stewert
1889. The case determination has found at the time of first settlement, New South Wales was a “tract of
territory” and practically uninhabited without settled inhabitants, this was binding on Australian Courts
until the 1970s.
As a result of counsel from Sir Joseph Banks, who was not only the President of the Royal Society and
a member of Cook’s expedition in 1770, who had submitted to the British parliamentary committee that
the long coast of Australia was “Thinly inhabited” and in turn assumed the rest of the vast continent
was uninhabited. Though a perfectly reasonable assumption that this advice was influential enough to
send an expedition to Botany bay.

This was a departure from the North American precedents that would ultimately have disastrous
consequences for the Australians in the future and was the catalyst for much of the violence against the
British settlements for more than a century.
The troubling reality is not just the fact that the British Imperial Government has a heavy burden of
responsibility for the horrors that unfolded.
No convict on those ships were ever excused for their crimes if they had claimed their theft was all a
mistake and that they thought the stolen goods did not belong to anyone, as a result why were settlers
excused for their “mistake”. More troubling is that it took Australian courts until the 1992, Mabo, but
still provided only limited remediation, but not reparation and as a result in one of the “greatest land
grabs in modern history”

Claire G Coleman, the champion in Veronica Sullivans piece depicts a massacre, shamefully among
many and sharing the list with Myle creek, that had taken place on her family’s traditional land. Her
peripatetic lifestyle hidden in the masquerade of natural landscapes and romanticized scenery is often a
good entrée for the reader to become slowly acquainted with the author’s flow before being unsettled
by the horrific details of the tragedies.

Traditional custodians of the city of Boorondara include primarily the Wurundjeri in the Northern parts
of the city. Widely placarded by the council public media release and documentation the phrase “we
respect and acknowledge the original custodians and owners of these lands” it has been considered an
unnecessary and sometimes offensive comment to many of the Aboriginals in Australia to this day.
Institutionalized racism in the outer suburbs of many major cities still goes by and has become an
unfortunate part of our language repertoire and has unfortunately had its hand in poisoning the minds of
many Australians. Comparable to that of the Jewish plight to seek repatriation and recognition of their
suffrage, the Aboriginal community has been accused of the same showboating.
Throughout industry companies such as Rio Tinto have had to employ the services of an ‘Aboriginal
Burial Expert’ to consult and make sure no burial sites are disturbed, further Mining Royalties are also
paid to the appropriate Indigenous community near establishments.
Since the 1970’s it has been policy to pay royalties to the economically impoverished communities as
stated in Professor Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh’s Distinguished Lecture 2017. In the 1980s the Department
of Aboriginal Affairs assisted in drafting the complex Constitution for the recipient of royalties for the
Nabarlek mine, the Kunwinjku Association and its establishment under the Northern Territory
Associations Incorporation act 1978.
“Paternalism and racism towards Indigenous peoples represents a rationale for refusing to grant
autonomy to Indigenous people, on the grounds that the Indigenous people are incapable of managing
and fending for themselves”. Professor O’Faircheallaigh’s report in 2017 is an accurate reflection of
the stigma towards the Indigenous populous from the Legislative and layman view.
From generations of viewing the Aboriginal as “a sub human” the reality is that Australia has yet to
come to terms with the reality that over the period from 1788 to the 20th century the Indigenous
populous has been decimated from around 500,000 to 93,000 and that all Indigenous people were
dispossessed of nearly all of Australians land mass that was even marginally suitable for agriculture
production, the impact has been absolutely profound.
Despite Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations and Paul Keatings acceptance in his ‘Redfern
Speech’ fear arising from the failure to deal with history helps explain “racist attitudes towards
Indigenous people and the reluctance to grant them autonomy”. Or as Marcia Langton claims in her
interview on Q&A 7th August 2016: “The fear is that recognition of our peoples brings into question
their status as Australians… they believe Australia is a white country and they don’t want to admit how
they obtained that country”
Though Australia can look back on its shameful past, there is only room for movement in two
directions, as hypothesized by Henry Reynold in his publication ‘The Whispering in Our Hearts’, the
idea of making an appeal to the International Court of Justice for an opinion may not be practical but
the only way to achieve true justice via means of law and procedural fairness.
Alternatively, we as Australian must live with the burden that the predecessors who have been involved
in the legislature have caused irreversible damage and take this into account the long term effects into
the next generations.
a) Traditional custodians: Summarise the findings you have gathered on the traditional custodians in your area/region. 

Traditional custodians of the city of Boorondara include primarily the Wurundjeri in the Northern parts of the city. Public
media release and documentation the phrase “we respect and acknowledge the original custodians and owners of these
lands” it has been considered an unnecessary and sometimes offensive comment to many of the Aboriginals

b) Timeline: A historical timeline of significant events that have shaped the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people. Include historic policy changes, legislative changes and the extent to which the Government has impacted
Aboriginal communities.

1770 arrival of Lt Cook

1788 First fleet arrival

1901 Commonwealth of Australia is formed

1948 Commonwealth Nationality and Citizenship Act gives Citizenship to all Australians including Aboriginals

1965 Charlie Perkins launch the Freedom Rides

1995 Government Officially recognizes the Aboriginal Flag

1998 National Sorry Day is commemorated for the first time 26 May

c) Impacts of settlement on law: The impact of European settlement on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in
relation to law.

Despite coming under the protection of the crown, the Aboriginals still had their land stolen. As a result, the dilemma of
Terra Nullius still remains.

However, it still fails to explain how the Aboriginal people became subjects and lost their land at the same time. The Terra
Nullius myth can be loosely explained by a little known case of Cooper v Stewert 1889. The case determination has found
at the time of first settlement, New South Wales was a “tract of territory” and practically uninhabited without settled
inhabitants, this was binding on Australian Courts until the 1970s.

d) Impacts on land ownership and kinship: The impact of European settlement on the loss of land, loss of kinship and
culture for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Despite Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations and Paul Keatings acceptance in his ‘Redfern Speech’ fear
arising from the failure to deal with history helps explain “racist attitudes towards Indigenous people and the reluctance to
grant them autonomy”. Or as Marcia Langton claims in her interview on Q&A 7th August 2016: “The fear is that
recognition of our peoples brings into question their status as Australians… they believe Australia is a white
country and they don’t want to admit how they obtained that country”

e) Impacts on people: The impact of this trauma for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Though Australia can look back on its shameful past, there is only room for movement in two directions, as hypothesized
by Henry Reynold in his publication ‘The Whispering in Our Hearts’, the idea of making an appeal to the International
Court of Justice for an opinion may not be practical but the only way to achieve true justice via means of law and
procedural fairness.
f) Current issues: Current racism and discrimination against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and how its roots
can be linked to European settlement.

“Paternalism and racism towards Indigenous peoples represents a rationale for refusing to grant autonomy to Indigenous
people, on the grounds that the Indigenous people are incapable of managing and fending for themselves”. Professor
O’Faircheallaigh’s report in 2017 is an accurate reflection of the stigma towards the Indigenous populous from the
Legislative and layman view.

g) Considerations for educators: Your understanding of any issues that may influence an educator's relationships
and ability to communicate with Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders.

Educators should exercise caution and fragility when dealing with children and parents of Aboriginal or Torres Strait
Islander Descent.

Aboriginals have had generations of institutionalized trauma given these past experiences and recounts passed
down through generations.

h) Strategies: Identify and document five (5) strategies to help educators improve their communication with
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander children, families and colleagues in a service.

1. Caution and Fragility

2. Consideration

3. Patience

4. Understanding

5. No Judgement
 All Aboriginal & Torres Strait Island Peoples are healthy, strong and thriving

Engaged Communities
Engaging Aboriginal & Torres Strait Island Peoples in meaningful dialogue to lead collaborative
partnerships and solutions

Effective Health Care Excellence in Training

Delivery and Education
Delivering cultural Ensuring cultural safety
Responsive care so that & cultural responsiveness
Aboriginal & Torres Strait are embedded in ongoing

Island children and families professional development,

experience cultural safety training and education.

Culturally Safe and Capable Workforce

Supporting a strong, resilient and culturally responsive workforce

Reflective

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards”- Seren Kierkegaard
The human condition encompasses the essentials of existence, birth, growth, emotionality aspiration
and conflict. Our history is a dichotomy between unspeakable acts of brutality and the triumph of the
forces of good.

Admittedly much of the Australian populous has never been aware of the reality of how we became a
nation, much of it has been romanticized by fiction or been buried in the human condition of
disinterest.
Exposure of the Aboriginal suffrage and their unfair treatment provides significant exposure and is
quintessential in educating educators in their approach towards the young and adolescent.
It can also be argued that it should be part of the educational curriculum in Australia at the early
primary levels.

The best forms of cultural communication would be to exercise levels of sensitivity when approaching
children and parents of indigenous descent. It is often understated the level of caution that must come
with approaching the Indigenous.
Connecting with the Indigenous provides critical and important knowledge for all Australian as we
truly do not appreciate how fortunate we are. Their insights are truly valuable and provides valuable
insight.
In short the Aboriginal research project has been a valuable process for all educators. The sensitivity
training and its spotlighting of the Aboriginal condition plays a crucial role in educators who wish to
excel in their roles and play a part in shaping the hearts and minds of the next generations.
Coming from an Asian household, my youth has traces of prejudice and racism, but upon inspection of
the Aboriginal history. The racism I faced was short and painless, to be subject to generations of
discrimination, abuse and abandonment must have been unimaginable.
I believe if all educators have seen what I have seen, the improvements to legislature and social stigma
would be most beneficial to those who need it most.

 a) Insights: The new knowledge you acquired about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that may
assist you in promoting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural safety.

Terra Nullius has its flaws and still remains to be explicitly explained in a legal definition

 b) Connections: The connections you made to the local community and Traditional Custodians, and how this
impacted your cultural competence.

Developing a wider breadth of knowledge and experience impacts upon the perception of the Indigenous
community.
  c) Communication: Communication strategies you will start to use in order to demonstrate cultural safety.

Patience, Caution and Fragility

 d) Future practice: How your experience in completing this assessment will influence your future practice
and pedagogy.
 Patience, Caution and Fragility

Research reference:
Tenancy Mediation Group
Director: Bob Gu
Ph: 1300 659 622
SNAICC-- https://www.snaicc.org.au/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-childrens-cultural-needs-2013-snaicc-
resource/

AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS HEALTHINFONET--https://healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/key-resources/resources/29039/

NINTIONE--https://healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/key-resources/resources/29039/