Historical Reprints

July 2011: Summary statement by PGE Albrecht, JC Pfitzner, G Stoll, RP Ziersch and RK Fargher (July 1976)
Objections of traditional Aboriginal landowners to the proposed Aboriginal Land Rights legislation [Historical Reprints, No. 3]

Land rights have not only proved problematic for Aborigines, at the very outset they transgressed Aboriginal law, imposing a Whiteman's conception of land title. Pastor Paul Albrecht and colleagues took evidence from traditional Aborigines in 1976. This is what Aborigines had to say of the NT Land rights legislation: "The present submissions that they are making are a desperate last effort by them to prevent the enactment of a law which they consider will cause serious trouble and resentment and which cannot satisfy them. Instead, they feel that they will have been robbed of their land and left 'naked' ... "

March 2009: Cubillo and Gunner: "The Stolen Generations" 2000

The Cubillo and Gunner case failed to establish that two Aborigines put forward as prime examples of children forcibly removed from a parent were members of the so-called 'Stolen Generations'. In the interests of keeping the record straight, the Bennelong Society is pleased to make available the Commonwealth's case against the claims of Cubillo and Gunner that they were forcibly removed from their families by employees of the Commonwealth Government. The claims of Mrs Lorna Cubillo and Mr Peter Gunner failed.

Documents available:
Commonwealth's Opening Submission (150 k PDF)
Commonwealth's Final Submission (Part I) (1.2 Mb PDF)
Commonwealth's Final Submission (Part II) (1.2 Mb PDF)
Commonwealth's Final Submission (Part III) (880 k PDF)
Commonwealth's Final Submission (Part IV) (1.3 Mb PDF)

The legal judgment (Federal Court of Australia) may be found here.

For a comment at the time by Gary Johns, first published in The Australian, click here.

August 2008: EP Milliken and PL Wilson, Employment Arrangements for Aboriginals in Government Departments and on Settlements. [Historical Reprints, No. 1] "Two Welfare Branch officers in the Commonwealth Department of Territories, Edwin Milliken and Lloyd Wright, knew 40 years ago some simple truths. Instead of giving Aborigines 'the habits, attitudes and skills of work' we gave them welfare. Instead of 'induc[ing] social change ... in the direction of western culture' we left them with a culture that recreated squalor and dysfunction..." [390k PDF]