What was the significance of 1968 events?

1968 events of significance for Aboriginal Australians included the establishment of the Council for Aboriginal Affairs by the Holt Coalition government to advise on Aboriginal policy following the 1967 referendum, the passage of the Office of Aboriginal Affairs into operation, the establishment of the Aborigines Tent Embassy precursor protests, and the beginning of substantive federal involvement in Aboriginal policy under the federal powers granted by the 1967 constitutional amendments.

The Council for Aboriginal Affairs was the principal 1968 institutional development. Established by Prime Minister Harold Holt after the 1967 referendum, the Council operated as an advisory body to the Cabinet. Its members included Dr H. C. (Nugget) Coombs as chair (former Reserve Bank Governor and a noted economist), Barrie Dexter (a diplomat), and W. E. H. Stanner (an anthropologist). The Council, supported by the new Office of Aboriginal Affairs (later the federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs from 1972 under Whitlam), advised on the first major federal Aboriginal policy reforms and represented the start of substantive federal involvement in Aboriginal affairs.

Specific federal initiatives began in 1968. The federal government took over from the states for some Aboriginal services, particularly in the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory. The Yirrkala Bark Petitions of 1963 and the Gurindji walk-off at Wave Hill station in August 1966 (in which about 200 Gurindji stockmen and their families left Wave Hill cattle station in protest at low wages and poor treatment) had built political pressure for Aboriginal land rights. The Gurindji walk-off continued through 1968 and the years following, with the strike eventually leading to the symbolic 1975 return of land by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam to Gurindji elder Vincent Lingiari.

Other 1968 developments included expanded Aboriginal access to federal social services (many had been excluded until the 1967 referendum reforms), the beginning of substantive federal Aboriginal health programmes, and growing Indigenous political activism. The Australian Black Power movement of the late 1960s drew inspiration from the American civil rights movement and the Black Panthers, with Aboriginal activists including Bob Maza, Gary Foley, and Sam Watson developing more confrontational forms of protest. The Aboriginal Embassy on the lawns outside Old Parliament House in Canberra was established on Australia Day 1972 (26 January 1972) and continues today as a continuous Aboriginal political protest. The Whitlam Labor government from December 1972 formalised the shift to self-determination, with the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (passed under Fraser) creating statutory land rights. The 1968 developments marked the start of the more active federal engagement with Aboriginal affairs that the 1967 referendum had made constitutionally possible.