5467342_monash_6263_SOURCE2_4.pdf (17.07 MB)
The Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders : the politics of inter-racial coalition in Australia, 1958-1973
thesis
posted on 2017-11-02, 03:04 authored by Sue TaffeThis thesis is a history of the Federal Council for
Aboriginal Advancement, later the Federal Council for the Advancement of
Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) during its years of
coalition from 1958 to 1973. It is both a narrative of the organisation
as no published history yet exists, and an analysis which seeks to
understand the genesis of the organisation, the nature of the coalition
which existed in the 1960s and the demise of inter-racial co-operation
in the 1970s. In 1973 FCAATSI came under Indigenous control, essentially
becoming an organisation for Aboriginal and Islander members, thus
ending the black/white coalition which existed, tenuously, until then.
The Federal Council was a coalition in a number of senses. It comprised
people from the left of politics including members of theCommunist Party
of Australia as well as active members of Christian churches. Although
during the Cold War years of the 1960s Christians and communists often
viewed each other with deep suspicion within the Federal Council they
were, on the whole, able to work together. The 1960s were also years of
racial coalition as FCAATSI members sang of 'black and white together'
and gained inspiration from the civil rights campaigning in the United
States. This coalition was, however, never one which could be taken for
granted. Tensions, always present, erupted at a FCAATSI conference in
1970 and led to a split in the movement when those Indigenous members
who no longer believed that a black/white coalition was the best vehicle
for the changes they sought left the Federal Council. In the period
from 1963 to 1970, however, the Federal Council provided opportunities
for Indigenous people from all over the country to meet at annual
conferences, to exchange views and to organise politically to advance
their causes. FCAATSI conferences and meetings provided opportunities
for Indigenous political activists to gain experience in pressure group
politics necessary for later organising on a national scale. In
analysing the Federal Council movement I have sought to understand the
genesis of the national pressure group, the factors which help to
explain its success during the 1960s when campaigns for equal wages, a
referendum and land rights were waged, and its demise as a coalition in
the early 1960s. I have considered FCAATSI's relationship with
government, its response to government approaches as expressed, for
example, in the assimilation policy which characterised the Liberal
Country Party governments of the 1950s and 1960s. I have analysed the
failure of the ruling clique in the early 1970s to respond to changing
Indigenous desires for political autonomy within the organisation. The
ascendancy of Labor to government in 1972 proved to be a catalyst for a
change of leadership required by active Indigenous members at this time.
My research into FCAATSI has been undertaken in the hope that this
resulting thesis will provide information about a period when black and
white activists did succeed in coalition in forwarding their joint
goals. It is also written to further understanding about the processes
of social change with regard to relationships between Indigenous and
other Australian and to chart a small part of the longer journey taken
by some non-Indigenous Australian towards addressing long-standing and
serious injustices experienced by Aboriginal and Islander Australians.