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5-5-1999
Robyn Craigie graduates from Wollongong University as Australia's first Aboriginal Clinical Psychologist.
8-2-1999
Australia's first Indigenous member of parliament, Neville Bonner, dies aged 76.
27-10-1998
Aden Ridgeway becomes the first Aborigine from NSW and the second Australian to enter federal parliament.
1-10-1998
The Native Title Act Amendment Bill comes into operation.
26-9-1998
Champion footballer Andrew McLeod win the Norm Smith medal for the second year in a row after the Adelaide Crows defeat North Melbourne in the Australian Football League Grand Final by thirty points.
26-8-1998
Following Senator Aden Ridgeway's maiden speech and the government's negotiations with the Democrats, federal parliament passes a declaration of "deep and sincere regret" for the past injustices to Aborigines.
9-8-1998
International World's Indigenous People Day.
2-7-1998
After 18 months of negotiation the Wik bill, which sets out the ground rules on Aboriginal land rights, is passed after a debate lasting 105 hours. Prime Minister John Howard abandoned his opposition to three of four sticking points raised by Senator Brian Harradine.
27-5-1998
The bells of Sydney cathedrals pealed to mark the first anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report. A "people's movement" produces a series of "sorry books" containing more than one million signatures.
26-5-1998
A National Sorry Day is held exactly one year after Federal Parliament tabled the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their families.
28-4-1998
Mum Shirl (Shirley Colleen Smith), beloved social worker, dies.
1-4-1998
The High Court upholds the validity of the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act, the subject of an Aboriginal challenge, and rules that the federal government may make laws for the detriment as well as the benefit of particular races.
26-1-1998
Cathy Freeman is named Australian of the Year and is the only Australian to be awarded both Junior and Senior Awards.
26-1-1998
Aboriginal men and women from around Australia assemble on the steps of the Sydney Town Hall. Then in silent procession, they follow the original route their ancestors used 60 years previously (see 1938) to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the "Day of Mourning and Protest". The reenactment includes reading from the historic documents of the original 1938 meeting.
1998
The Commonwealth Native Title Act Amendment Act reduces Indigenous Australians access and control over lands.
1998
Neither Western Australia or Tasmania have state land rights legislation. In Western Australia some Aboriginal communities hold 99 year leases over some reserve lands.
6-10-1997
The Western Australian Minister for Transport announces the state's greatest and best known sporting identity, Graham Polly Farmer, would have Perth's northern bypass named after him. It would be known as the Graham Farmer Freeway.
2-9-1997
The head of Aboriginal warrior Yagan, set to England in 1833, is brought back to Western Australia.
18-8-1997
Internationally recognised Aboriginal rights campaigner Burnum Burnum of Woiworung and Yorta Yorta descent dies at 61.
15-8-1997
The skull of Aboriginal resistance leader Yagan, who was murdered by a bounty hunter in 1833 and then sent to England for display, is exhumed from an English grave after months of lobbying by Aboriginal elders for its safe return to Australia.
5-8-1997
Cathy Freeman becomes the first Indigenous Australian to win a World Track and Field event when she won gold in the four hundred metres final in Athens.
30-6-1997
Claimed as a world record for Aboriginal art, the painting "Water Dreaming at Kalipina" by Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula, is sold at Sotheby's Auction for a total of two hundred and six thousand dollars.
26-6-1997
The Juvenile Crime and Justice Report reveals Indigenous youth aged ten to seventeen years are twenty times more likely to be detained in custody than non-Indigenous Australian youth.
26-6-1997
National Indigenous Working Group on Native Title urges the Senate to reject the Federal Government's Ten Point Wik Plan.
3-6-1997
The Stolen Generation Litigation Unit of Northern Australia files an extra 96 writs with the High Court of the Northern Territory in Darwin.
2-6-1997
The Chairperson for the Aboriginal Reconciliation Council, Mr. Patrick Dodson presents a report entitled Weaving the Threads - Progress Towards Reconciliation, to Federal Parliament.
27-5-1997
The Bringing Them Home report by the Human Rights Commission is released. The report uncovers the stories of the stolen generations, Aboriginal people removed from their families and sent to live with white families.
26-5-1997
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Report on the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their families is tabled in Federal Parliament. The Government rejects the central recommendations of the report.
26-5-1997
The Australian Reconciliation Convention commences at the World Congress Centre in Melbourne. Prime Minister John Howard refuses to make a formal apology for past injustices to Indigenous Australians.
22-5-1997
Commonwealth Attorney General, Darryl Williams rules out any payment of compensation to members of the Stolen Generations.
12-5-1997
First Aboriginal Magistrate, Patricia O'Shane, announced her retirement from the bench in New South Wales.
8-5-1997
The amended Ten Point Wik Plan is released by the Federal Government.
5-5-1997
New South Wales Attorney General, Jeff Shaw, announces the appointment of Robert Bellear as Judge in the District Court of New South Wales. He is Australia's first Aboriginal judge.
30-4-1997
Australian Indigenous groups foreshadow a black boycott of the Sydney Olympic Games 2000, in response to the Australian Government's plan to extinguish or severely restrict Native Title claims.
12-4-1997
Queensland Independent Pauline Hanson MP, launches her new political party named "One Nation" at the Ipswich Civic Centre in Queensland.
10-4-1997
An Australian Bureau of Statistics Report highlights that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still being removed from their families.
9-4-1997
Artist Harold Thomas is recognised by the Federal Court of Australia as the original designer and copyright owner of the Aboriginal flag.
7-4-1997
The first Native Title deed granted on mainland Australia is awarded to the Dunghutti people for land at Crescent Head near Kempsey in New South Wales.
5-4-1997
A Minister within the Queensland Government formally apologises to a group of Palm Island elders who were underpaid for a decade.
3-4-1997
An historic agreement is reached between traditional Aboriginal land owners and the Anaconda Mining Company in Western Australia.
25-3-1997
John Moriarty is appointed to the Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of the Australia Council.
20-3-1997
The Australian Rugby League and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission propose a policy regarding racism in rugby league.
18-3-1997
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Lands Council is established.
12-3-1997
The Northern Territory Government introduces a six month trial for an Aboriginal Languages Interpreter Service.
1997
The Queensland Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act provides for Superintendents to direct Aboriginal people where to live. There is no right of appeal.
1997
The Stolen generations report from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission outlines the experience of many generations of Aboriginal people who have been forcibly removed from their families. It called for a formal apology and compensation to support communities to heal.
23-12-1996
The Australian High Court hands down its decision on the Wik Native Title claim. This process results in the Federal Government establishing the Wik Ten Point Plan on Native Title. The plan is premised on the ruling that native title and pastoral leases can coexist and that the granting of a pastoral lease does not necessarily extinguish native title.
21-12-1996
Deacon Gloria Shipp is ordained as Australia's first Aboriginal priest, to preside over the Koori Anglican fellowship in Dubbo, NSW.
6-12-1996
Gatjil Djerrkura succeeds Lowitja O'Donoghue as Chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.
2-12-1996
The Barkindji people of the lower Darling River region and the Governments of New South Wales and South Australia reach an agreement for a long term management plan of Lake Victoria.
1-12-1996
The Larrakia people lodged a Native Title claim over vacant crown land in Darwin in the Northern Territory.
24-11-1996
The Minister for Education, the Honourable Senator Amanda Vanstone, announces funding of $8 800 000 over three years to be provided for establishing Indigenous Higher Education Centres across five state universities for supporting Indigenous research.
7-11-1996
The Northern Land Council and the Northern Territory Fishing Industry Council agree upon a collaborative dugong protection strategy for the Borroloola area.
3-11-1996
Six members of the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community in New South Wales are appointed as members to the first Jervis Bay National Park Board of Management.
31-10-1996
The Federal Parliament reaffirms its commitment to the reconciliation process between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia.
31-10-1996
More than five hundred writs claiming compensation from the Australian Government for the Stolen Generations are lodged with the High Court of the Northern Territory.
29-10-1996
The Federal Court hearing commences on the Yorta Yorta Native Title Claim.
12-10-1996
Close to fifty thousand Indigenous Australian voters turned out for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission elections. There are a total of three hundred and seventy five Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander regional councilors across Australia.
2-10-1996
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission finds that the Queensland Government breached the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act 1975, by not paying award wages to six Palm Islander Aboriginal people.
28-9-1996
Aboriginal Community Legal Centres launch celebrations of twenty five years of service, since first opening on 26 July 1971 at Redfern in New South Wales.
21-9-1996
Archaeologists working on a patch of rocks, known as the Jinmium by local Aboriginal people, date the limits of human activity at 176 000 years. The common understanding is that Aboriginal people occupied Australia between 40 000 and 60 000 years ago. The new evidence that people were in Australia more than 100 000 years earlier, before the time that Homo sapiens were suppose to have emerged from Africa.
16-9-1996
Evonne Goolagong-Cawley receives an honorary doctorate.
11-9-1996
A compromised version of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Bill is passed with bipartisan support through both Houses of Federal Parliament.
22-8-1996
The Governor General of Australia states that reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians should be Australia's prime objective in the years leading up to the year 2001.
2-8-1996
Nova Peris-Kneebone becomes the first Indigenous Australian to win an Olympic Games Gold Medal.
30-7-1996
Cathy Freeman became the first Indigenous Australian to win an Olympic Games Silver Medal.
25-6-1996
The National Native Title Tribunal gives the go ahead for the first issue of mining leases under the procedures of the Commonwealth Native Title Act 1993, to the Western Australian Government.
13-5-1996
Governor-general Sir William Deane says Aboriginal health is a "national calamity" with Aboriginal women dying of cervical cancer at four times the rate of non-Aboriginal Australians.
23-4-1996
Discussions are held on Masig Island, Yorke Peninsula between Torres Strait Islanders and John Herron, Senator for Queensland, over a proposal for the Torres Strait Islands region to become financially self managed.
22-4-1996
Prime Minister John Howard, fighting to get the Native Title bill through parliament, is forced to bow to demands by his own back-benchers to further curtail Aboriginal rights.
16-4-1996
The Environment Minister, Senator Robert Hill, states that the Federal Government has an electoral mandate to proceed with plans for the mining of uranium at Coronation Hill within the world heritage listed Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory.
30-3-1996
Federal Attorney General Daryl Williams states that Indigenous customary law should be given greater recognition in legislation at the meeting of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General in Darwin.
11-3-1996
John Herron, Senator for Queensland, is sworn in as Federal Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs.
8-2-1996
The High Court of Australia upholds a bid by Waanyi people for a Native Title claim in northwest Queensland.
1996
The Federal High Court Wik decision states that native title rights can co-exist with pastoral leases. Where there is conflict in the exercise of those rights, Native Title rights are to be subordinate to those of the pastoral lease holder.
18-10-1995
Tasmanian government legislates to return twelve cultural sites, including Risdon Cove, Oyster Cove, and five Bass Strait Islands, to those who still identify as Tasmanian Aborigines.
1-7-1995
Federal cabinet proclaims the Aboriginal flag and the Torres Strait Islander flag as official flags of Australia.
1-1-1995
The Aboriginal Education (Supplementary Assistance) Amendment Act commenced.
24-9-1994
Cathy Freeman causes a furore during the Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada. Cathy celebrated her win in the 400 metres sprint by running her victory lap wrapped in the Aboriginal flag.
27-8-1994
Aboriginal athlete Cathy Freeman becomes the first runner to win a two hundred and a four hundred metres double at a Commonwealth Games.
24-8-1994
Cathy Freeman becomes the first female Indigenous Australian to win an individual track gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Canada.
11-8-1994
Aboriginal policeman Mr. Ken Jurotte tells a federal parliamentary inquiry that racism is still rife at the highest levels of the NSW Police Service and that racial equality programs are purely tokenistic. The inquiry is examining the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody.
12-2-1994
The Aboriginal All-Stars Football Team comfortably defeat Collingwood by twenty points in Darwin.
22-12-1993
Native Title legislation is passed in Federal Parliament and comes into effect on 1st December 1994. The Act, stemming from a High Court decision on an application by Torres Strait Islander Eddie Mabo, is aimed at allowing Native Title to be either absolute or to coexist with other titles or leases held by pastoralists, miners or other parties. Prime Minister Paul Keating said the legislation would end "the great lie of terra nullius and the beginning, we all hope, of a new deal, the basis of social justice and recognition." Aboriginal leaders say it is a vital first step towards reconciliation.
11-1993
Daniel Yock, an 18 year old Aboriginal man is arrested and carried by paddy wagon to the Brisbane watchhouse. He dies on the way. Demonstrations by Indigenous people bring deaths in custody back into the headlines for the first time since the Royal Commission.
11-1993
A number of leading Aboriginal spokespeople are dissatisfied with the implementation of recommendations of Deaths in Custody Royal Commission, reports the ACIJ's multicultural newspaper, Voices. Particularly critical is the NSW Watch Committee's Ray Jackson who says "The sum of $430 million has been spent and yet deaths in custody are still continuing. In fact, there have been 52 deaths since May 31, 1989 and nothing's changed".
11-1993
In Western Australia, the Aboriginal Legal Service in Perth reports that the WA Government is ignoring key recommendations of the Royal Commission. The study says that 43 per cent of the people sent to prison in Western Australia this year were Aboriginal, although Aboriginal people comprise only 2.5 per cent of the state's population.
15-9-1993
Oodgeroo (of the tribe) Noonuceal dies aged 72. Fellow poet Les Murray says of her that she "was a voice that White Australia needed to hear in English". Rodney Hall, chairperson of the Australian council says that "When her first book (We Are Going, 1964) was published, people had this tremendous sense that something important had happened, and that here was voice that we needed to hear."
3-8-1993
The First Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Native Title Summit is held at Manyallaluk at Eva Valley in the Northern Territory.
24-6-1993
The Tasmanian State Service Aboriginal Employment and Career Development Strategy is launched.
11-5-1993
The first compulsory Aboriginal Studies Program in Tasmania is introduced to Cosgrove High School in Hobart.
2-4-1993
Aboriginal activist and writer Kevin Gilbert of Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi descent in New South Wales, dies aged sixty years.
4-1993
The office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner is created within the Human Rights Commission partly as a response to the Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody. Mick Dodson is appointed Commissioner.
12-3-1993
Ancestral remains are returned to Eaglehawk Neck from the Tasmanian Museum.
3-1993
Amnesty International reports that imprisonment conditions for many Indigenous people are "cruel and inhumane". The report condemns governments for failing to implement the Deaths in custody Royal Commission recommendations.
19-2-1993
The people of Bourke pay homage to renowned eye specialist Professor Fred Hollows. His coffin is draped with the Napalese and Eritrean flags as well as an Aboriginal Commemorative Blanket.
19-1-1993
The first Tasmanian Native Title meeting is held on Cape Barren Island.
1993
The South Australian Fisheries Amendment Act means that only Aboriginal people can fish in certain places.
1993
The Commonwealth Native Title Act recognises native title rights of Indigenous peoples of Australia who have maintained a 'continuing connection' with their land and waters in accordance with their traditions. Native title is extinguished by valid grants of land to non-Indigenous people.
22-9-1992
Wycliffe Well Red Area is handed over to the Arrernte of central Australia.
9-1992
Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) reports that Aboriginal people are jailed at 18 times the rate of non-Aboriginal people, with NSW and the NT actually increasing their rate over the 12 months since the Royal Commission.
9-1992
Helen Corbett, interviewed in an alternative newspaper Broadside, says about the implementation of the Deaths in Custody Royal Commission on recommendations, "The political will is not there. It's a question of state and federal governments showing to the international community it is taking steps to rectify the situation. Their interest is to promote themselves as doing something on the issue."
27-8-1992
The Australian Indigenous Peoples Party is founded out of a perceived need in the black community for an Indigenous alternative to existing political parties.
7-1992
Amnesty International releases a report criticising the State and Federal governments over lack of action in implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission.
11-6-1992
Archaeological sites at Rocky Cape in northwest Tasmania are reclaimed by Aboriginal people.
3-6-1992
The Federal High Court hands down the Mabo Decision, recognising native land title where it has not been extinguished.
19-4-1992
The Injinoo people of Queensland purchase the very tip of Cape Yorke Peninsula for approximately $2 200 000 with assistance from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.
17-3-1992
Prime Minister Keating strengthens his call for a new Australian Flag to symbolise greater cultural independence in Australia.
18-2-1992
The Aboriginal Children's Kindergarten opens in Hobart.
28-1-1992
The Aboriginal occupation of the old Parliament House ends with the arrest of four people. The demonstration marks the 20th anniversary of the 1972 'tent embassy', a watershed in the struggle for self-determination for Aboriginal people.
26-1-1992
Mandawuy Yunupingu is named Australian of the Year.
1992
The High Court finds that the Murray Islanders in the Torres Strait hold native title to the islands. They also find that Australia was not unoccupied on settlement and that the indigenous inhabitants had, and continue (unless extinguished validly) to have, valuable legal rights to their traditional land.
1992
By this year approximately 480 000 square kilometres (or 36%) of the Northern Territory has been granted to Aboriginal land trusts under the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act 1976.
27-10-1991
Helping police capture more than 40 criminals, world renowned Aboriginal tracker Jimmy James has his feats commemorated on a plaque on North Terrace, Adelaide.
2-10-1991
Yothu Yindi becomes Australia's first Aboriginal band to achieve a top forty hit with 'Treaty'. The video version of Treaty goes on to win the best Australian Video section in the International Music Television Awards at Los Angeles in the United States.
2-9-1991
The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation is established by legislation with unanimous support of Federal Parliament.
15-7-1991
Reoccupation of Wybalenna on Flinders Island in Tasmania takes place.
20-6-1991
Federal Cabinet bans mining at Coronation Hill within Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory.
25-4-1991
Forty six years after the second world war, the Australian Government announces that one hundred Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander veterans are to receive one million, four hundred thousand dollars compensation. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander veterans were known as the "Black Diggers".
19-4-1991
The National Inquiry into Racial Violence against Aboriginal and ethnic minority groups, conducted by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, reveals that conscious and unconscious racist attitudes towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are endemic and very severe nationwide.
15-4-1991
The report for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody is tabled in Federal Parliament.
3-4-1991
A second Aboriginal Land Bill is introduced to the Parliament of Tasmania.
4-1991
The Royal Commission after examining 99 deaths of Aboriginal people between 1980 and 1989 makes 339 recommendations. A central objective of these recommendations is to reduce the rate of Aboriginal imprisonment. The Commonwealth says it will spend $400 million over five years to implement the report.
27-2-1991
The Pemulwuy Koori College opens at Newtown in Sydney.
4-1-1991
Expert American geologist Dr. Ronald Dorn announces that some of the fifty thousand examples of ancient rock carvings found in the outback of South Australia are the oldest surviving examples of human artistic expression on earth.
1991
NADOC becomes known as NAIDOC to include Torres Strait Islanders. NAIDOC is now used widely to refer to all the events and celebrations that go on during National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Week.
1991
The Queensland Aboriginal Land Act and Torres Strait Islander Land Act allows for vacant crown land to be claimed on the basis of traditional association, historical association or on an economic or cultural viability needs basis. Vacant crown lands which have not been set aside for public purposes, state forests, timber reserves and town and city land are not claimable, nor are pastoral properties or excisions or stock routes. Only 2% is claimable. There is no land fund for buying or developing lands and no structure to support the making of claims. Land claimed is not saleable.
1991
The Aboriginal United Party, an Aboriginal political party, is formed by Jim Wallace.
