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The policy of assimilation means that all Aborigines l,
and part Aborigines will attain the same manner of
living as other Australians and live as members of
a single Australian community enjoying the same rights
and privileges, accepting the same responsibilities
observing the same customs and influenced by the
same beliefs, hopes and loyalties as other Australians
(Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers, Vol. iii, 1963, ∣
•'Aboriginal Welfare, Conference of Commonwealth and
State Ministers, Darwin, July, 1963", p. 651). і
The statement goes on to acknowledge the conflict between
such a policy and the existing legislation referring to Aborigines.
It notes the fact that there was specific (restrictive) legislation
for Aborigines and to the "rather loose use of the term ’citizenship'",
but dismisses this by saying that
...such statutes can in no sense derogate from their
citizenship in the sense of their status as Australian
citizens.
Thus on the one hand Aboriginal people in 1963 in most states were
not entitled to vote. On the other hand this was not to be
seen as derogating from status as Australian citizens.
As late as 1964, Beazley, the member for Fremantle, was pleading
for the need for all Commonwealth instrumentalities including
the armed services, to pay Aborigines employed by them a wage
at least equivalent to the award rate as fixed by the Arbitration
Commission for a worker similarly employed who was covered by
awards, and for the need for the extension of the protection of
Australian Commission awards to Aborigines employed privately in
the Northern Territory (Commonwealth of Australia Parliamentary
Debates, House of Representatives 25 February - 16 April, 1964,
Vol. H. of R. 41, pp. 821-822).
In the debates, the emphasis both by Hasluck and Beazley
is on the avoidance of the creation of differences. This developing
notion of difference is an indication of the stirring of consciousness
of identity. It made a protest concerning the injustice to which
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Aboriginal people had been subjected; at the same time, the noting
of differences by the white world gave recognition to the existence
of Aborigines.
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