News – October 2010

Welcome to our first News.

You are part of the launch of Metamorphosoz, a company that tells the story of the Indigenous People of Australia in different ways. We will use the News for information on the history, past and present, and keeping you up to date with upcoming events.

43 years ago, in 1967, the Aboriginal people of Australia were first recognized as human beings – they received the right to Citizenship, the right to marry of their own choice, the right to live, where they wanted, the right to education of their own choice, the right to seek their own employment, the right for ownership of land….
(1967 Referendum, Australian Government)
“This is not ancient history. I was a child. It still staggers me that for the first 10 years of my life, I existed under the Flora and Fauna Act of NSW.”
(Hon. Linda Burney, MP, first Aboriginal minister NSW, May 2007, Interview Sydney Morning Herald). Then came the 1967 Referendum…when her status was elevated from fauna to citizen.

The original People of Australia experienced years of their families being torn apart by ‘laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments…’. Their children being taken away to institutions, missions, being fostered out or adopted through a law that made the state guardian of ALL indigenous children. The law was supported by the belief that ‘you can breed out the colour’ within three generations and ‘save the children’ from a ‘dying race’.
(A. O. Neville, Chief Protector of Aborigines, Western Australia. “Blood on the Wattle” by Bruce Elder, from Michael Howard’s “Aboriginal Politics in SW Australia”)

‘Our mothers inevitably say that they didn’t want to hurt us. But we also realize that here is where our mothers were hurt most deeply. Here is where they were shamed and humiliated – they were deprived of the opportunity to participate in growing up the next generation. They were made to feel failures; unworthy of loving and caring for their own children; they were denied participation in the future of their community.’
(Link Up, NSW, submission to the 1996 National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their families, ‘Broken Circles’, Anna Haebich)

It is their story, their history, and how it relates to you, that we will tell through different mediums. Stay with us, keep in contact – and we are looking forward to meeting you at one of our events in the future.