Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to British colonisation.

[11] Isolated for millennia by rising sea water after the last Ice Age, Australian Aboriginal peoples developed a variety of regional cultures and languages, invented distinct artistic and religious traditions, and affected the environment of the continent in a number of ways through hunting, fire-stick farming, and possibly the introduction of the dog.

[7] Being as specific as possible, for example naming the language group (such as Arrernte), or demonym relating to geographic area (such as Nunga), is preferred as a way to affirm and maintain a sense of identity.

[48] The Tasmanian Aboriginal population are thought to have first crossed into Tasmania approximately 40,000 years ago via a land bridge between the island and the rest of mainland Australia during the last glacial period.

However, genetic studies have suggested significantly higher figures, which are supported by Indigenous oral traditions that indicate a decline in population from diseases introduced by British and American sealers before settlement.

[93] Genetic studies have revealed that Aboriginal Australians largely descended from an Eastern Eurasian population wave during the Initial Upper Paleolithic, and are most closely related to other Oceanians, such as Melanesians.

Phylogenetic data suggests that an early initial eastern non-African (ENA) or East-Eurasian meta-population trifurcated, and gave rise to Australasians (Oceanians), the Ancient Ancestral South Indians, Andamanese and the East/Southeast Asian lineage including the ancestors of Native Americans, although Papuans may have also received some geneflow from an earlier group (xOOA) as well, around 2%,[94] next to additional archaic admixture in the Sahul region.

[98] Genetically, while Aboriginal Australians are most closely related to Melanesian and Papuan people, McEvoy et al. 2010[99] believed there is also another component that could indicate Ancient Ancestral South Indian admixture or more recent European influence.

Research indicates a single founding Sahul group with subsequent isolation between regional populations which were relatively unaffected by later migrations from the Asian mainland, which may have introduced the dingo 4–5,000 years ago.

[100][101] A 2012 paper reports that there is also evidence of a substantial genetic flow from India to northern Australia estimated at slightly over four thousand years ago, a time when changes in tool technology and food processing appear in the Australian archaeological record, suggesting that these may be related.

Australia was the exception to British imperial colonisation practices, in that no treaty was drawn up setting out terms of agreement between the settlers and native proprietors, as was the case in North America and New Zealand.

After losing a significant number of their social unit in one blow, the survivors were left very vulnerable – with reduced ability to gather food, reproduce, or fulfill their ceremonial obligations, as well as defend themselves against further attack.

"[171] He concluded that "The policy of forcible removal of children from Indigenous Australians to other groups for the purpose of raising them separately from and ignorant of their culture and people could properly be labelled 'genocidal' in breach of binding international law from at least 11 December 1946...The practice continued for almost another quarter of a century.

[185] A group of University of Sydney students organised a bus tour of western and coastal New South Wales towns in 1965 to raise awareness of the state of Aboriginal health and living conditions.

[189] In the controversial 1971 Gove land rights case, Justice Blackburn ruled that Australia had been terra nullius before British settlement, and that no concept of native title existed in Australian law.

On 13 February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd reversed Howard's decision and issued a public apology to members of the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Australian Government.

The policy has been criticised by organisations such as Amnesty International and other groups, including on the basis that it maintains "racially-discriminatory" elements of the Emergency Response Act and continues control by the federal government over "Aboriginal people and their lands".

The statement calls for a "First Nations Voice" in the Australian Constitution and a "Makarrata Commission" to supervise a process of "agreement-making" and "truth-telling" between government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

[citation needed] Knowledge contained in the Dreaming has been passed down through different stories, songlines, dances and ceremonies, and even today provides a framework for ongoing relationships, kinship responsibilities and looking after country.

[263][264] However, some missionaries taught only in English, and some Christian missions were involved in the placement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children after they were removed from their parents upon orders of the government, and are therefore implicated in the Stolen Generations.

[262][266] A small minority of Aboriginal people are followers of Islam as a result of intermarriage with "Afghan" camel drivers brought to Australia in the late 19th and early 20th century to help explore and open up the interior.

[301] The documentary TV series Blue Water Empire (aired 2019), featuring Fa'aoso and Bani, tells the story of Torres Strait Islands from pre-colonial era up to contemporary times.

Cricketer and Australian rules football pioneer Tom Wills coached the team in an Aboriginal language he learnt as a child, and Charles Lawrence accompanied them to England.

[336] The Australian Human Rights Commission's Social Justice Report 2008 said that the 2005–2006 ABS statistics did not appear to support the "allegations of endemic child abuse... that was the rationale for the NTER" ("The Intervention" by the Howard government) that followed.

[340] An AIHW survey covering eight years to 2019, published in December 2021, revealed that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people accounted for 28 per cent of all hospitalisations due to family violence, despite only making up 3.3% of the total population.

[343] In 2021, Australia's government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, announced the creation of a reparations fund for members of the Stolen Generations—Indigenous Australians who were forcibly removed from their homes as children.

The reparations fund includes one-off payments of 75,000 Australian dollars to victims, as part of a broader initiative to address the serious disadvantages faced by Australia's Indigenous population.

[citation needed] In December 2015, the 16-member Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Referendum Council was jointly appointed by the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten.

Bands such as Yothu Yindi, and singers Christine Anu, Jessica Mauboy and Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, have combined Indigenous musical styles and instruments with pop/rock, gaining appreciation amongst non-Indigenous audiences.

The voices of Cape York activists Noel Pearson and Jean Little, and academics Marcia Langton and Mick Dodson, today loom large in national debates.