Study of relationships between colonial women and black Australians

The study is concerned with the history of black and white women in Australia during the colonial period. Particular emphasis is on the variety of cross-cultural relationships which developed between women during that time. As a starting point, male frontier violence is discussed and compared with the more moderate approach taken by women faced with threatening situations. Among Europeans, women are revealed as being generally less racist than men. This was a significant factor in their ability to forge bonds with black women and occasionally with black men. The way in which contacts with Aborigines were made is explored and the impact of them on the women concerned is assessed, as far as possible from both points of view. Until now, these experiences have been omitted from colonial history, yet I believe they were an important element in racial relations. It will be seen that some of these associations were warm, friendly and satisfying to both sides, and often included a good deal of mutual assistance. Others involved degrees of exploitation. Both are examined in detail, using a variety of sources which include the works of modern Aboriginal writers. This study presents a new aspect of the female experiences which was neglected until the emergence of the feminist historians in the 1960’s. It properly places women, both black and white, within Australian colonial history.

Resource use by the Eastern Grey Kangaroo and the Black Wallaby in a managed remnant woodland community

This work studies the interactions and relationships that exist between Eastern Grey Kangaroos and Black Wallabies in their utilisation of spatial and trophic resources in a managed remnant woodland community. The thesis provides a closer understanding of the way in which these species impact upon their habitats. The Coranderrk Reserve, near Healesville in eastern Victoria, Australia was the study site. A floristic analysis of the communities of the study site was conducted. This consisted of plant biomass measurements, estimates of plant abundance and cover determination. Faecal pellets from Eastern Grey Kangaroos and Black Wallabies were collected from ten vegetation communities during three different plant productivity periods. The spatial and temporal distribution of the animals was identified by analysing the frequency of occurrence of faecal pellets in the various communities. The use of faecal pellet density as a measure of habitat utilisation was examined. Eastern Grey Kangaroos utilised communities which were characterised by the presence of a dense grassy statum. Black Wallabies were able to utilise all of the communities of the study site regardless of their floristic composition. A reference herbarium of the leaf epidermis of 233 possible forage plant species was accumulated. These epidermal specimens were prepared for Confocal Scanning Laser Microscopy. The information gained was enhanced and stored digitally. Diagnostic information critical for the identification of plant epidermal fragments was assembled into a computer database. This was used to assist in the recognition of unknown epidermal fragments in macropodid faeces. These epidermal plant recognition techniques enabled a list of the contents of Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Black Wallaby faeces during the sampling periods in the individual communities, to be accumulated. Eastern Grey Kangaroos utilised forage which consisted largely of grass and their diets were similar regardless of their feeding sites or the time of the year. Black Wallaby diets were heterogenous with wide variations over space and time observed. The implications of these findings for current wildlife management practices were considered. Black Wallaby and Eastern Grey Kangaroo herbivory have significant impacts on ecosystem integrity. Management strategies should seek to establish ecologically sustainable populations of both species in remnant woodlands where conservation values are important.

There's a black boy dead and a migloo holding a gun : death, Aboriginality and history in Australian adolescent literature

This essay is concerned with the extent to which the attitudes and ideologies of colonial discourse continue to influence contemporary signifying practices in Australian adolescent historical fiction. Under scrutiny are three novels which take issue with the violent aspects of colonisation when so many members of the Indigenous population either died or were forcibly displaced: Melissa Lucashenko’s Killing Darcy, Gary Crew’s No Such Country and Mark Svendsen’s Poison Under Their Lips. Although these texts share a desire to interrogate monolithic versions of Australia’s history, it is argued that such motivations offer no guarantee that the implied audience is positioned to come to an understanding of perspectives belonging to ex-centric Others.

Resource partitioning in sympatric populations of Red-necked Wallabies and Black Wallabies

Examines the potential for competition to occur between the Red-necked Wallaby and the Black Wallaby by examining the extent of overlap in their dietary preferences and in their utilisation of habitat at different times of the day and year. Significant separation occured between species to facilitate coexistence.

Holding Yawulyu : white culture and black women's law

Analyses the interaction between white and indigenous cultures, specifically the impact of the white practices of Christianisation, bureaucracy and commercialisation on indigenous women's cultural and religious practices, values and cosmology (Tjukurrpa), and argues that indigenous women's gynocentric cultural initiatives should be better resourced.

Poetry, politics and place : black and white perceptions of landscape in modern Australian poetry 1965-1990

Argues that the most influential landscape poetry deals with landscape as an aesthetic concept, and also with the politics of land ownership. Several "landscape poets". Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, have given voice to some of the most compelling social currents in society, and their work has an important place in contemporary political debate.

Re-framing the riot : journalism, creative non-fiction and telling the story of Australia's black history

On 19 November 2004, an Aboriginal man was arrested on Palm Island, off the coast of Townsville in northern Queensland. He was taken to the local watch house on a drunk and disorderly charge. An hour later, he lay dead on a cell floor. His liver, an autopsy showed, had been split in half and his spleen ruptured. But when that autopsy report also found that Mulrunji Doomadgee’s severe injuries were not caused by force, the Palm Island Indigenous community, enraged and grief-stricken, went looking for payback.

The Palm Island “riots” ensured that this Aboriginal death in custody made international news headlines where others barely got a mention, if at all (Hollinsworth, 2005). The ensuing Coronial Inquest and criminal prosecution of the arresting Queensland police officer, Chris Hurley, also were covered consistently by the news media. Senior Sergeant Hurley has, however, so far escaped punishment and the Queensland media’s most recent report of the case was to tell how the Qld Police Union now funds a legal bid to clear his name. Meanwhile, little is heard in the news media of the Doomadgee family, the Palm Island community, or of other deaths in custody occurring steadily through the 18 years since the Royal Commission that was supposed to implement a raft of preventative recommendations.

While the news media’s framing of these issues has most often followed historically predictable and ultimately racist lines, a work of creative non-fiction tells the story with warranted complexity and power. Chloe Hooper’s The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island documents Cameron Doomadgee’s death, the riots, and the ensuing legal farce from the front row. Hooper, in the tradition of Truman Capote, arrived at Palm Island as a white writer from a big city. But by “walking the talk” – being with the Doomadgee family and their community through the hearings and after, Hooper was given extraordinary access to community, history, and significant cultural nuance barely identified by, let alone understood by, non-Indigenous readers.

By focussing on Hooper’s experience with sources and court reporting, compared with some print media coverage, this paper will consider the comparative roles of journalism and creative non-fiction in re-framing the Palm Island “riot”. It will suggest that Hooper’s work subverts some dominant (and racist) news media representations of Australian Indigenous peoples through its use of source relationships in an extended narrative structure.

Black and white : in search of an ‘apt’ response to Indigenous writing

‘The good editor,’ suggests Thomas McCormack in his Fiction Editor, the Novel and the Novelist, ‘reads, and … responds aptly’ to the writer’s work, ‘where “aptly” means “as the ideal appropriate reader would”.’ McCormack develops an argument that encompasses the dual ideas of sensibility and craft as essential characteristics of the fiction editor. But at an historical juncture that has seen increasing interest in the publication of Indigenous writing, and when Indigenous writers themselves may envisage a multiplicity of readers (writing, for instance, for family and community, and to educate a wider white audience), who is the ‘ideal appropriate reader’ for the literary works of the current generation of Australian Indigenous writers? And what should the work of this ‘good editor’ be when engaging with the text of an Indigenous writer? This paper examines such questions using the work of Margaret McDonell and Jennifer Jones, among others, to explore ways in which non-Indigenous editors may apply aspects of McCormack’s ‘apt response’ to the editing of Indigenous texts.

Black fella land – white fella tax : changing the CGT implications of aboriginal/native title

The taxation of aboriginal/native title payments gives rise to a number of complex and difficult legal and policy issues. Reform measures announced on 13 February 1998 by the then Federal Treasurer and Attorney-General did not address the possible capital gains tax (‘CGT’) implications and even those relating to ordinary income under s 6-5 Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth) remain unimplemented. The much anticipated Report of the Native Title Payments Working group (6 February 2009), while primarily focusing on non-taxation issues, also recognises the need for taxation reform and makes some recommendations in regard to such. Most recently, on 18 May the Assistant Treasurer, Senator Nick Sherry, the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, and the Attorney General, Robert McClelland, announced the commencement of a national consultation on the tax treatment of native title, including the interaction of native title, Indigenous economic development and the tax system. The Assistant Treasurer recognised the need for “greater clarity and increased certainty for native title holders on how the tax system and native title interact.” At the same time, they released a paper entitled Native Title, Indigenous Economic Development and Tax to guide the national consultation. The proposed measures considered in the paper, including exempting Native title payments and/or creating a new tax exempt Indigenous Community Fund, provide a welcome step towards reform in this area. This article is part of a broader research project that explores the CGT implications of aboriginal/native title. While these provisions impact on both Indigenous traditional owners and relevant payers, such as mining companies, the focus in the project is particularly on the CGT implications for the traditional owners. This first part of the project examines the status of aboriginal/native title and incidental/ ancillary rights as CGT assets. The broader research project will then build on this analysis in the context of relevant CGT events. As the preliminary findings in this article evidence the CGT implications of aboriginal/native title are far from certain. The application of CGT to aboriginal/native title raises more issues than it answers. The key reason is that the current law is entirely unsuitable to communally held inalienable aboriginal/native title. Nevertheless, it will be seen that it is arguable that aboriginal/native title and/or incidental rights are post-CGT assets and acts in relation to such could trigger a CGT event with tax implications for the traditional owners. It will be suggested that these current tax provisions provide a very pertinent example where the law operates as a blunt tool that does not appropriately promote justice and reconciliation. To tax Indigenous communities as a result of acts that extinguish or impair their traditional ownership is incongruous. A specific provision(s) should be included in the capital gains provisions to ensure any such payments are exempt from taxation. This is not only fair given the history of uncompensated extinguishment of aboriginal title Australia, but also promotes the ability of Indigenous communities to optimise the financial benefits stemming from aboriginal/native title agreements.