Aboriginal Self-determination, Land Rights, and Recognition in the Whitlam Era: Laying Groundwork for Power Sharing and Representation

The Whitlam Labor government (1972–75) is remembered for ushering in a new era in Indigenous affairs, with the move to “self-determination”, abandoning the longstanding insistence on “assimilation”. The new government intended to deploy the Commonwealth's new legislative power established in the 1967 constitutional referendum to bring in a range of reforms, responding to consistent demands from Indigenous leaders, activists, and supporters through the previous decade. Whitlam's campaign speech promised anti-discrimination legislation, provisions to allow Aboriginal communities to incorporate, and legislation of a system of land tenure. The government faced considerable political obstacles, ultimately curbing the ambitious reform agenda. Nevertheless, these initial efforts to conceptualise representation, recognition, and compensation laid important foundations for the current public debate about “Voice, Treaty, Truth”, following the Uluru Statement from the Heart. This paper explores self-determination through the path-breaking work of the Woodward Aboriginal Land Rights Commission and the establishment of well-resourced land councils as authoritative and legitimate representatives of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. The Whitlam government's willingness to experiment with power-sharing in the sensitive area of land ownership provided a valuable prototype for genuine engagement with First Nations people today, as Australia contemplates the failure of the constitutional referendum around a Voice to parliament.