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Sir Paul Hasluck (1942, quoted in Gale and Brookman, 1975:31)
could rightly comment that the system confined "the native within
a legal status that has more in common with that of a born idiot
than of any other class of British citizen".
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The Aborigine was stereotyped as ,idiot’, of low intelligence,
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as a child who must be protected, his movements restricted, his
liberty curtailed, a person socially unacceptable. Jenkin (1979:246)
notes that the only other people who could be treated in this
way were lunatics or criminals. Perkins (1975:188) complains
"It is a crime to be an Aborigine in Australia". For the Aborigines,
*
having a dark skin was all the evidence needed for them to be
segregated and made subject to a series of laws and regulations
different from that of the white population.
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The courts were given power to decide on sight, that is by
skin colour and physical features, whether an individual was Aboriginal
(Rowley, 1971:45).
The typification and institutionalisation of Aboriginal crime
was also found in a separate strand of social legislation concerned
with the sιq>ply of liquor to Aborigines.
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The 1891 Licensing Act had made it an offence for anyone
to sell, give or supply liquor to Aborigines. The Act was amended
in 1915 when a penalty was imposed on the Aboriginal person found
in possession of liquor, or drinking liquor. This legislation
led to a further invasion of privacy and further demeaning situations .
Rowley (1971:54) points out (and individuals remember - Tatz,
1975:52) that police could enter an Aborigine’s house without
a warrant and arrest a person in his bed for drunkenness.
Millar and Leung (in Berndt, ed., 1971:92) make the comment
that the inclusion in the Licensing Act of special clauses relating
to Aborigines helped to create a drinking pattern for them. They
were forced to drink in seclusion for fear of being caught by
the police. They drank quickly to lessen the chance of detection.
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