The AAPA, was important because of the role it played in planting political seeds that flowered in future generations of indigenous political leaders in southeastern Australia The AAPA campaigned for "freehold title to land, the cessation of the removal of Aboriginal children and the abolition of the NSW Aborigines Protecion Board(APB). The AAPA's political activites were largely confined to the north coast of NSW but in its short existence managed to be a significant thorn in the side of the NSW APB. It eventually faded out in around 1927, but its legacy was still to be seen in the ideas of future generations of indigenous activists.

Salt Pan Creek had been a site of Indigenous resistance from as early as September 1809, when Tedbury (son of Pemulwuy) was involved in a skirmish that saw Frederick Meredith, one of the first two white farmers in the area, injured with a spear wound and forced to abandon his farm. Being between two arms of Salt Pan Creek, the area was probably an important food source for the Aborigines, who no doubt viewed with dismay the intention of Meredith and fellow white farmer William Bond to settle, clear and cultivate it.

A large camp of 200 Aboriginal people near Cumeragunja refused dole in Victoria because they were 'NSW residents', but denied assistance in NSW because they were 'too black and should apply to the NSW APB". Under the prevailing assimilation policies of the NSW APB, they were told that they were "too white" to receive rations because they were not 'predominantly Aboriginal blood'.

Cumeragunja exiles in Melbourne led by William Cooper establish the Australian Aborigines League. Other people of eminence in the early AAL included Doug Nicholls, Shadrack James and Marge Tucker. White supporters in the AAL included trade unionist A.P. Bordeu, a gaggle of Christians and various individual members of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA).

AAL's first campaign is to collect signatures for a petition to King George. In April 1934 William Cooper successfully gains permisiion from the NSW APB to collect signatures in NSW`Aboriginal communities. White feminist Helen Bailie and Bill Ferguson join in collecting signatures for the petition.

By March 1935 the NSW APB had become alarmed at the political organising of Bill Fergusen as he collected signatures for William Cooper's petition to the King. All Reserve managers of the APB were told to deny entry to Bill Ferguson and Hellen Bailie without special permission from the APB Chairman.

During the Depression small scale alliances develop with white unemployed activists who join Aboriginal activists in Dubbo NSW in protests over indigenous unemployed being denied work relief. Key Aboriginal activists Tom Peckham, Ted Taylor, Pearl Gibbs, Jack Patten and Bill Fergusen develop these alliances. These lead to stop-works, protests and strikes around NSW including Wallaga Lake, Menindee, Burnt Bridge, Brewarrina and Purfleet. The major issue of this period in NSW was calls by Aboriginal activists for the abolition of the Aborigines Protection Board (APB).

NSW Aborigines Protection Act amended to give the APB substantial new powers, and for the first time the APB gained the power to confine people against their will. After previously pursuing a policy whereby only those who were of 'predominantly Aboriginal blood' were recognised as Aboriginal, the APB now insisted that anyone who was deemed to have 'any Aboriginal blood' could be brought under its control.

The NSW APB appoints new manager at Cumeragunja. He is called A.J. McQuiggan, and has been transferred from the APB's Kinchela Boy's Home near Kempsey, where he had been Superindent. He was being removed from Kinchea after a Police investigation had found that he was an indebted drunkard and had been sadistic in his treament of Aboriginal boys in the Home, beating them with hosepipes and stockwhips. The NSW Commisioner of Police, who was ex-officio Chairman of the APB had strongly argued for McQuiggan's sacking, but the Chief Secretary's Department chose instead to transfer McQuiggan to Cumeragunja .

Founding of the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA). The APA consisted of a western group led by Bill Fergusen and Pearl Gibbs who had cultivated significant support among members of the AWU, Shearers Union and other left-wing whites. The North-Eastern wing was led by Jack Patten, a charismatic orator and one who had learned his politics growing up in Salt Pan Creek, and who attracted a strange alliance of white supporters from Australian nationalist circles. Both wings of the APA were involved in intense political oraganising on Aboriginal reserves and communities in the North and West of NSW.

In October 1937 the Fergusen and Patton wings of the APA joined forces with William Cooper's AAL to unite behind Cooper's call for a Day of Mourning on Australia Day 1938 (the sesqui-centenery of British settlement). The united front begins an intense and dramatic campaign of public speeches, support meetings and press interviews. The campaign ultimately forces the NSW Premier to set up a Select Committee to inquire into the policies and administration of the NSW Aborigines Protection Board.

Day of Mourning and Protest on 26 January 1938, the celebration of 150 years of 'theft and genocide'. The Aborigines League called to white Australia: 'You took our land by force ... You have almost exterminated our people, but there are enough of us remaining to expose the humbug of your claim, to be civilised, progressive and humane.' At the Day of Mourning Congress on 26 January 1938, Jack Patten, as President of the Aborigines' Progressive Association, announced: "The conference is called to bring home to the white people of Australia the frightful conditions in which the native aborigines of this continent live. We ask for full citizen rights, including old age pensions, maternity bonus, relief work when unemployed, and the right to a full education for our children."

William Cooper and Australian Aborigines League petition NSW Premier on behalf of Cumeragunja residents gravely concerned at deteriorating conditions and dictatorial behaviour and "arrogant and abusive" demeanor of new manager A.J. McQiggan. Cooper equates Cumeragunja with 'Nazi concetration camps'. McQuiggan's response was to victimise and intimidate those Cumeragunja residents who had signed Cooper's petition and this resulted in significant disillusionment in Cooper and the AAL. The resident's response was to call in Jack Patton toward the end of 1938.

Jack Patten publishes first indigenous newspaper, the Australian Abo Call, funded by Nazi sympathizer W.B.Miles, but with Patten maintaining total editorial control. The newspaper gives Patten not only a vehicle through which to publicise the movement's aims, but also a forum for interaction with the APA's growing membership.

On December 6th William Cooper, leads a deputation of Kooris from the Australian Aborigines League, in an attempt to meet the German Consulate in Melbourne and present a resolution 'condemning the persecution of Jews and Christians in Germany'. The Consul-General, Dr. R.W. Drechsler, refuses them admittance.

Jack Patten goes to Cumeragunja in late January 1939 to talk to the residents about their failed campaign to remove manager A.J. McQuiggan. As a result of Patten's advice 200 Cumeragunja residents decide to 'walk-off' the reserve in protest at APB policies. Patten goes to Barmah to telegram an urgent message to NSW Premier demanding an immediate inquiry into McQiggan's 'intimidation, starvation and victimisation' which, he said, was the cause of the protest. McQuiggan's response was to call in police and have Patten and his brother George arrested for 'incitement'. 200 of Cumeragunja's residents cross the Murray River into Victoria and set up camp at Barmah.

Bill Onus, organising in Redfern, is co-founder of the Redfern All-Blacks Rugby League team which would become a community/political organisation throughout the 50s and 60s. The Redfern All-Blacks would become the political power base of 1960s Redfern legendary community organiser and FCAATSI activist Ken Brindle.

Strike of Aboriginal stockworkers in the Pilbara area of Western Australia, where most of the indigenous workers were receiving no cash wages at all. This affected 6,500 square miles of sheep farming country. Aboriginal strikers were seized by police at revolver point and put in chains. The Pilbara strike was supported by 19 unions in Western Australia, seven federal unions and four Trades and Labour Councils. In the east, Bill Onus is involved in organising support for the strikers. The Western Australian branch of the Seamen's Union placed a ban on the transport of wool from stations affected by the strike, winning almost immediate concessions from the pastoralists. A white Communist unionist, Don McLeod, was arrested during the Pilbara strike for 'inciting Aborigines to leave their place of lawful employment'; the Aboriginal strikers marched on the jail and McLeod was freed.

Bill Fergusen resigns from ALP in disgust at their failure to support his campaign for Aboriginal rights. He decides to stand for parliament as an independent in the Dubbo electorate in the 1949 Federal election but on 22nd December is soundly defeated by the ALP candidate. He enters into a deep depression.

On 4th January 1950, a fortnight after his election loss, Bill Fergusen collapses and dies.

The final word on the strike was made by Federal minister for the Interior, Mr. Anthony, who said that the whole episode had been a "Communist-inspired plan for general industrial disturbance". He stated that, "I am not prepared to allow natives, who are wards of the Commonwealth, to be used for this purpose".

Prominent Aboriginal political activist Bill Onus is invited to visit the United States of America by no less than Walt Disney. However Onus is denied a visa by US authorities on the grounds of his supposed Communist affiliations.

Pearl Gibbs, former Secretary of the Aborigines Progressive Association, co-founds the Australian-Aboriginal Fellowship in Sydney.

In October legendary activist Jack Patten dies in a traffic accident in Fitzroy, Melbourne.

February 1958 twenty-five people representing eight organisations, met in Adelaide and formed the first national Aboriginal organsation, The Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (FCAA). Of the twenty-five people who were at the meeting, only three (Bert Groves, Doug Nicholls and Jeff Barnes) were Aboriginal.

Twenty-six white people living in the NSW north coast town of Nambucca Heads sign a petition opposing the sale of a house on the outskirts of town to an Aboriginal family. An Aboriginal man, Greg Davis, seeks to move from the nearby Aboriginal reserve Bellwood to a house in the 'white area'. The incident attracts significant international media attention and the town is called the "Little Rock of Australia", to the acute embarrassment of the Australian Government which had been trying to counter negative international allegations of racism in Australian immigration policies.

Charles Perkins enrols at Sydney University. Perkins had been born in 1936 at the Telegragh Station Aboriginal Reserve in Alice Springs, and in his early adult life had been an apprentice fitter and turner in Adelaide and a soccer player of some talent who played at one stage in England. In 1963 he is elected as President of Sydney University's Student Action for Aborigines (SAFA).

The action was described as, "Internationally inspired, a product of cooperation between whites and blacks committed to the same ideals, confrontationist but non-violent, the Freedom Ride was a consciousness-raising exercise that was very effective. Awakening media interest in Aboriginal affairs was, for the first time, marshalled in favour of the Black Australian cause, to the severe embarrassment of many white townspeople in rural New South Wales. All of these elements foreshadowed a pattern of protest that was to continue and expand in the 1970s and 1980s."

Charles Perkins graduates from Sydney University and becomes manager of Sydney's Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs, a welfare/social organisation that becomes a meeting place for the next generation of young NSW radical political activists. In the crucial period in which Perkins is with the Foundation the Aboriginal population of Sydney quadruples as young Aborigines leave the rural areas in large numbers. This mass exodus was dramatically intensified when the 1967 referendum led to the closure of the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board.

In March the Aborigines Advancement League elects veteran activist Bill Onus as Chairman. In that position which he held till his death in 1968, he becomes a significant mentor to his nephew Bruce McGuinness who would go on to become one of the most important actvists of his era.

Famous referendum in which 92% of Ausralian people vote "Yes" in favour of Commonwealth control of Aboriginal Affairs, and thereby theoretically a better deal for Aborigines. The referendum achieves minimal real change in the lives of most indigenous people and the resulting disillusionment among younger activists leads to an examination of more confrontational methods. This disillusionment and reassessment of tactics in part gives birth to the Australian Black Power Movement.

The Prime Minister of Australia, Mr William McMahon made his ill-fated statement on Aboriginal Rights. The reaction was instant and dramatic as Redfern-based Aboriginal activists moved quickly to establish a protest camp on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra. The group accidently exposed a flaw in Canberra ordinances when it was discovered that there was no actual prohibition on camping on the Parliamentary lawn. This enabled the activists to establish a permanent office/camp/protest on the lawns. In the six months it stood the "Aboriginal Embassy" protest put the Australian Indigenous struggle for justice onto the the international political stage. Indeed, it was so successful that a desperate McMahon Government covertly rushed through Parliament a special law to make it illegal to camp on the lawns of Parliament and ACT Police demolished the "Embassy" in a series of violent demonstrations in July 1972. The "Aboriginal Embassy" protest was the most effective political action in the history of the Aboriginal struggle.

The Whitlam Government introduces the Aboriginal Land (Northern Territory) Bill 1975 into Parliament. The Bill proposes land rights in the Northern Territory based on the Woodward recommendations with land claimed on grounds of need as well as traditional affiliation and traditional landowners maintaining control over mining and development.

A thousand Aboriginal people march in Alice Springs for land rights and the Land Councils. The march knocks the wind out of Northern Territory administration claims that the Aboriginal people don't support land rights. People travel hundreds of miles from Daguragu in the north-west and Ernabella in South Australia in a stunning demonstration of Aboriginal support. It is a turning point that makes non-Aboriginal people realise that the land rights issue is here to stay. Following the march, an Aboriginal deputation led by Wenten Rubuntja campaigns for land rights across the country, culminating in a meeting with Prime Minister Fraser in Canberra. Mr Rubuntja carries a tjuringa (sacred object) to the meeting as a symbol of authority.

The Fraser Government introduces the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Bill into Parliament. The new Bill weakens the Land Councils, prevents claims over Aboriginal-owned pastoral leases and gives the Northern Territory Government responsibility for passing legislation for the protection of sacred sites and land claims based on need. The CLC strenuously objects to several sections of the Bill and negotiations continue through the rest of the year. Meanwhile, mining companies approach CLC seeking to work on areas which are likely to become Aboriginal land. The CLC gathers expert advice and details of proposals for traditional landowners to consider fully. A few days after the Bill is introduced Wenten Rubuntja is elected CLC Chairman at a council meeting at Amoonguna, east of Alice Springs. Aboriginal Affairs Minister Ian Viner attends the meeting and promises the Commonwealth will overrule any Northern Territory law which doesn't truly protect sacred sites.

The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 is passed. The Act has been amended but is still significantly weaker than Woodward's recommendation and the Whitlam Bill. Under the Act, land which had been designated as Aboriginal reserve is converted to Aboriginal land without having to be claimed (so-called Schedule I land).

The granting of land rights to Aboriginals recognises not only the justice of prior claims to ownership, it also recognises the validity of Aboriginal traditional law and cultural values. It will provide for the Aboriginal people a land base for future social advancement according to their own cultural values and their own aspirations and importantly, in their own time. What we require now is the goodwill of the people of Australia to make this legislation work. White Australians are not unaware of their own attachment to the soil. To Aboriginals it is more. It is their very life, the source not only of their spirit but of the place to which their spirit must return. They are indivisible with their land. It is life itself. It is the force that has enabled them to survive for 40,000 years. It has been the strength of their fight - now won - for their birthright.
Ian Viner, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the Fraser Government, at the proclamation of the Land Rights Act, 26 January 1977

The Northern Territory is granted self-government. Paul Everingham, the leader of the Country Liberal Party, becomes the first Chief Minister and soon lifts the freeze on new leases of vacant crown land. The freeze was introduced by Prime Minister Whitlam in 1974 to allow breathing space for the Woodward Commission and the preparation of land claims. The move means that vacant crown land can be alienated by the Northern Territory Government and so become unavailable for claim under the Land Rights Act. The Chief Minister promises that he won't take any action that will interfere with land claims, and writes to the CLC: 'It is not the intention of the Northern Territory Government to attempt to avoid the intentions of the [Land Rights Act].' This promise is repeatedly broken.

The Northern Territory Government's opposition to the basic principles of the Land Rights Act continues and Chief Minister Paul Everingham proposes a package of amendments to the Act. The package would stop claims over Aboriginal-owned stations, stock routes, stock reserves and national parks, and severely restrict the ability of Aboriginal people to apply for living areas on pastoral leases.

The ALP wins the federal election. Bob Hawke becomes Prime Minister. The new Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Clyde Holding, sets up a National Land Rights Working Party to develop national land rights legislation and in April he meets with the CLC Executive and reiterates the Government's five land rights principles: inalienable freehold title for Aboriginal land; full legal protection of sacred sites; Aboriginal control over mining on Aboriginal land; access to mining royalty equivalents; and compensation for lost land.

Prime Minister Bob Hawke Although the transfer has been on the agenda since 1979, Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Everingham claims that his Government was not consulted: 'It came like a bolt out of the blue - I feel sick in the stomach.' Mr Everingham calls a snap election over the handback decision.

Mr Charles Perkins becomes Secretary of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.

Indigenous groups nationally call on the Commonwealth Government to initiate a public awareness campaign about land rights to dispel the prejudices and misconceptions being exploited by the anti-land rights lobby, but the call is unheeded.

The Central and Northern Land Councils send a joint delegation to Canberra to meet with Prime Minister Bob Hawke, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Clyde Holding and Resources and Energy Minister Peter Walsh to discuss the mining industry's campaign against land rights. Senator Walsh has already stated publicly that he wants to see mining and exploration speeded up in the Northern Territory and Mr Holding won't commit the Government to maintaining Aboriginal control over mining and exploration on Aboriginal land.

The new model: (a) requires no Aboriginal consent for mining on Aboriginal land, (b) prevents land claims over stock routes, stock reserves and Aboriginal-owned pastoral leases, and (c) restricts eligibility for excisions. The National Federation of Land Councils and the National Aboriginal Conference walk out of the next Land Rights Working Party meeting in protest.

More than 1,000 Aboriginal people march on Parliament House in Canberra to protest against the Preferred National Land Rights Model. The CLC's Patrick Dodson attacks Mr Holding's policies and the Preferred Model at a National Press Club luncheon. At first Prime Minister Bob Hawke refuses to answer their calls for a meeting, but later agrees to meet a delegation although little progress is made.

Title to the 1,325-square-kilometre Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is handed back to the traditional landowners by Governor-General Sir Ninian Stephen. Aboriginal people from throughout Australia attend the ceremony but not the Northern Territory's Chief Minister Ian Tuxworth. He reiterates the Northern Territory Government's opposition to the handover.

The Commonwealth drafts amendments to weaken the Land Rights Act and make it consistent with the Preferred National Land Rights Model. The Australian Mining Industry Council launches a national campaign alleging that Land Councils are a menace to national economic recovery and that the 'experiment' in the Northern Territory hasn't worked. CLC works to refute these arguments throughout 1986.

The Commonwealth Government abandons its own national land rights legislation but not proposed amendments to weaken land rights in the Northern Territory. In the face of a public scare campaign by the mining industry and the backdown by the Western Australian Labor Party, the Government retreats from its own commitments feebly claiming that most states have made 'advances' towards land rights.

Twenty years after the Gurindji walkoff sparked the modern struggle for land rights, the Gurindji are given inalienable freehold title to Daguragu under the Land Rights Act.

In a national election the Australian Labor Party retains Government. Gerry Hand, a former member of the Labor Party Caucus Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, replaces Clyde Holding as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.

The Central, Northern and Tiwi Land Councils and Pitjantjatjara Council meet together and decide to boycott the Bicentennial celebrations. They believe that the anniversary of white settlement provides little for Aboriginal people to celebrate and decide to spend the year celebrating the survival of Aboriginal culture.

In a speech to Parliament, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gerry Hand announces an intensive round of consultation with Aboriginal organisations Australia-wide to discuss reorganisation of Aboriginal and Islander affairs under a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Commission (ATSIC) based on elected regional councils.

Huge march in Sydney on Australia Day where an estimated 20,000 Aboriginal people join their supporters from the trade unions, the churches, ethnic groups and the wider community, in a demonstration of survival. A joint statement signed by the heads of fourteen church's calls for Aboriginal rights, including a secure land base.

And affirm: The importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and heritage; The entitlement of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders to self-management and self-determination subject to the Constitution and the laws of the Commonwealth of Australia; And consider it desirable that the Commonwealth further promote reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander citizens providing recognition of their special place in the Commonwealth of Australia.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Commission (ATSIC) Bill is introduced into Federal Parliament. It will dissolve DAA and establish elected regional Aboriginal councils and a national Aboriginal council to make decisions about policy and allocation of funds.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Commission (ATSIC) Act is passed. The Act provides a national elected representative structure for Commonwealth Aboriginal Affairs. It is one of the most amended pieces of legislation in the history of the Commonwealth Parliament and is passed despite the strenuous objections of the Northern Territory Government.

The ALP is returned to government, although by a much slimmer margin.

Robert Tickner is appointed as the new Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.

The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 is regarded by Aboriginal people as the benchmark of achievable land rights legislation. [Aboriginal people] are united in their view that land. is the key to their cultural and economic survival as a people.
Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody National Report, 19.1.1, 19.2.6

The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Bill is passed to establish a mechanism for discussion of the reconciliation of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. Former CLC Director Pat Dodson is appointed Council Chairman

On 3 June 1992 the High Court overturns the doctrine of terra nullius and recognises the existence of native title in the case of Eddie Mabo and Others v the State of Queensland. The decision brings Australian common law into line with international precedents and historical fact, by recognising the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders had, and in some cases still have, property rights in their traditional lands.

By doing away with the bizarre conceit that this continent had no owners prior to the settlement of Europeans, Mabo establishes a fundamental truth and lays the basis for justice. It will be much easier to work from that basis than has ever been the case in the past. For that reason alone we should ignore the isolated outbreaks of hysteria and hostility of the past few months. Mabo is an historic decision- we can make it an historic turning point, the basis of a new relationship between indigenous and non- aboriginal Australians. The Message should be that there is nothing to fear or to lose in the recognition of historical truth, or the extension of social justice, or the deepening of Australian social democracy to include indigenous Australians.
Prime Minister Paul Keating, 10 December 1992