115
Broom and Jones (1973:90) showed that any organization
of data to be used as a basis for Aboriginal policies suffered
from the fact that not only was there under-reporting and mis-
reporting but the information gathered was based on divergent
definitions of who was an Aborigine.
The annual Reports of Aboriginal Boards in the states
and Northern Territory are notable for their
incompleteness, non-comparability and self-
serving blandness (Broom and Jones, 1973:74).
The lack of anything approaching precision in census categories
was consistent with Government policies in general.
9.3 Government Policy on the identification of Aborigines
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The identification of an individual as Aborigine or part-
Aborigine was the result of changing Government policy - policy
that changed from state to state, and from state to Commonwealth;
policy that changed from one government to another; policy that
changed within the platform of any one political party.
Research carried out by Schapper (1970) in Western Australia
and Stevens (1974) in the Northern Territory highlight the
confusion that existed in the identification of Aborigines.
Schapper outlined the Western Australia basis for
categorisation of Aborigines.
The Aborigines Protection Act, 1886, extended the
definition of Aboriginal from full-bloods to include
half-castes and the child of a half-caste where such
child habitually associates and lives with
Aborigines (Schapper, 1970:13).
derived from that used
The definition used by Schapper was
by the Western Australian government.
This definition includes any person with more than
one quarter Aboriginal blood. This is not the same
as the definition used for the Commonwealth census