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Definitions - who are Indigenous Australians?

The dictionary definition of the word 'Indigenous' is ‘belonging from the beginning'1 and the word 'Aboriginal' is defined as 'existing from the beginning, before earliest records'2. 

That means where the arrival of a race of people to a country precedes that country's recorded history those people are known as 'Indigenous' or 'Aboriginal'. 

"We are the Indigenous peoples of Australia, descendants of generations of people who have lived on this land for more than 60,000 years. Our culture is one of the world's most ancient and that's something all Australians can be proud of. "

Matilda House

But pride in Australia's Indigenous history and culture hasn't always been the case : The rights of citizenship were not extended to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian Constitution in 1901 even though at the time technically they were considered British subjects.

Section 51 clause 26 read:

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:
 
The people of any race, other than the aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws.

Section 127 read:

In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted.

Early Australian law classified Aboriginal people by the place in which they lived and gave local authorities the power to dictate every aspect of our lives. In the 1840s, the classification system became based on the extent of a person’s Aboriginal ancestry, essentially a person's skin colour.

Through the 1960s and '70s these 'blood' definitions were finally abandoned and today, a person is legally Aboriginal if they are a member of the Aboriginal race. This is explained better in statements such as this one from Justice Gerard Brennan in the famous Mabo judgement of 1993:

Membership of the Indigenous people depends on biological descent from the Indigenous people and on mutual recognition of a particular person's membership by that person and by the elders or other persons enjoying traditional authority among those people.3

Torres Strait Islanders are the Indigenous people of the Torres Strait Islands which are part of Queensland. Their identity and culture is distinct from Aboriginal peoples on the mainland.

1, 2 Universal English Dictionary
3 http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/QUTLJJ/2003/7.html  - para 115 (Michael)





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