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BlackWords Historical Events Calendar
Significant Dates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
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  • 1990-1999

    1990

    The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) is established to facilitate the formal involvement of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders in the processes of government that affected them and their lives.

    Doris Pilkington Gari Mara wins the David Unaipon Award for Caprice: A Stockman's Daughter.

    Jimmy Chi's musical Bran Nue Dae tours Australia.

    Ilbijerri Aboriginal Theatre was established by local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and community members in Melbourne. Ilbijerri (pronounced il BIDGE er ree) is a Woiwurrung word meaning ‘Coming Together for Ceremony’. Ilbijerri is the longest running Indigenous theatre company in Australia.

    Cathy Freeman, Commonwealth Games gold medallist, named Young Australian of the Year.

    Yothu Yindi Foundation is established to promote Yolngu cultural development. Its vision is defined as: “For Yolngu and other Indigenous Australians to have the same level of wellbeing and life opportunities and choices as non-Indigenous Australians”

    1991

    Final report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody is released.

    Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation formed.

    Bill Dodd wins the David Unaipon Award for Broken Dreams.

    Bill Rosser wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for Creative Prose for his book Up Rode the Troopers : The Black Police in Queensland.

    1992

    3 June: High Court's Mabo Decision : The High Court of Australia brings down its decision that rewrites Australia's law on the impact of colonisation. Australia was not terra nullius when invaded by the British in 1788 but occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples who had their own laws and customs and whose 'native title' to land survived the Crown's annexation of Australia.

    Each year Mabo Day is celebrated on 3 June in respect of the Elders Eddie Mabo, James Rice, Father Paul Passi, Sam Passi and Celuia Mapo Salee who were the five plaintiffs in a landmark case brought against the Queensland Government in 1982. It is not until 1992 that the High Court declares that the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act 1985 contravenes section 10 of the Racial Discrimination Act (1975). Mabo Day is a result of this landmark decision by the High Court of Australia that overruled the legality of terra nullius that failed to recognise Indigenous Peoples' prior occupation where Native Title had not been extinguished

    Mabo Day is named after Eddie Mabo, a Meriam man from the Murray Islands in the Torres Strait. Mabo Day also marks the last day of Reconciliation Week and commemorates Indigenous voices and supports the co-existence of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people Australia wide.

    10 December: Paul Keating is the first Australian Prime Minister to publicly acknowledge that Europeans were responsible for Aboriginal disadvantage. Known as the 'Redfern Park Speech', it is now considered to be one of the great Australian speeches. Speaking to a crowd at Redfern Park, Keating acknowledges the impact of European settlement on Indigenous Australians. He said: 'It was we who did the dispossessing; we took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases and the alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practiced discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice, and our failure to imagine that these things could be done to us.'

    Mandawuy Yunipingu, Aboriginal educator, musician and ambassador, is named Australian of the Year.

    Jack Davis wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for his play, No Sugar.

    Philip McLaren wins the David Unaipon Award for Sweet Water-Stolen Land.

    1993

    John Muk Muk Burke wins the David Unaipon Award for Bridge of Triangles.

    Yirra Yaakin is established in Perth as an offshoot of Barking Gecko Theatre Company.

    The first Wardarnji Festival is held in Fremantle and grows to become one of the biggest Aboriginal celebrations on the Perth calendar. The name comes from the Wardandi Nyoongar people of the south-west of WA.

    1994

    The Going Home Conference, Darwin (see Koori Mail coverage, brings together over 600 Aboriginal people removed as children to discuss common goals of access to archives, compensation, rights to land and social justice.

    The Deadly Awards (The Deadlys) are established to recognise the contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to their community and to Australian society.

    Valda Gee and Rosalie Medcraft win the David Unaipon Award for The Sausage Tree.

    1998

    The Garma Festival is established by the Yothu Yindi Foundation, running in August each year in the North East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. 

  • 1995

    Inquiry into the Stolen Children conducted by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

    Search subject: Stolen generations

    Warrigal Anderson wins the David Unaipon Award for Warrigal's Way.

    Kevin Gilbert wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for poetry for his collection, Black from the Edge.

    1996

    High Court Wik decision: Native Title co-exists with leasehold property rights but in the event of conflict, the rights of the leaseholder will prevail.

    See: Jean George

    27 May: Reconciliation Week, celebrated annually and starting on 27 May. Reconciliation Week began nationally in 1996. It starts on 27 May and runs till 3 June every year. The week is designed to celebrate differences whilst bringing people together and making people aware of the disadvantages of Indigenous people. Reconciliation Week is also about celebrating our past and our future and in the process informing others of Indigenous history and culture.

    NSW Premier Bob Carr is the first State premier to apologise to the Stolen Generations in Parliament. He said in November: 'I reaffirm in this place, formally and solemnly as Premier, on behalf of the government and people of New South Wales, our apology to Aboriginal people.'

    Steven McCarthy wins the David Unaipon Award for Black Angels Red Blood.

    1997

    Bringing Them Home: The 'Stolen Children' Report (Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families) delivered.

    See: Bringing Them Home Oral History Project

    8 May: The Wik '10-Point-Plan' announced.

    See: Human Rights Council summary

    12 October: First ANTaR Sea of Hands is assembled on the lawns of Old Parliament House, Canberra.

    John Bodey wins the David Unaipon Award for When Darkness Falls.

    John Harding wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for his play Up The Road.

    Kyle Morrison is awarded National NAIDOC Youth of the Year.

    See: NAIDOC Award recipients

    Festival of the Dreaming was the first of four Olympiad arts festivals leading up to the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. The festival was a celebration of the world’s indigenous cultures and included dance, song, story-telling, painting and craft as well as contemporary indigenous arts such as music, theatre, dance, painting and literature. The festival was produced by Rhoda Roberts. Box the Pony premiered at the Festival of the Dreaming. Co-written by Leah Purcell and Scott Rankin, it is one-woman show, set in an Aboriginal community in Queensland much like Cherbourg where Purcell grew up.

    Olympic Gold Medallist Nova Peris is named Young Australian of the Year

    1998

    26 May: First National Sorry Day. This first National Sorry Day was a result of one of the recommendations from Bringing Them Home: The 'Stolen Children' Report by Sir Ronald Wilson. This day is in recognition of the inhumane treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders by the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families by government policies such as the 1905 Act. Sorry Day is now an annual event year with community activities such as marches, the signing of 'Sorry Day' books and the creation of websites and artworks marking the the beginning of Reconciliation Week.

    See the Koori Mail coverage here.

    Patrick Dodson and Mick Dodson are Joint Winners of the National NAIDOC Person of the Year award.

    Queenie McKenzie is awarded National NAIDOC Elder of the Year (Female).

    Ali Drummond is awarded National NAIDOC Sportsperson of the Year.

    Ruth Hegarty wins the David Unaipon Award for Is that You, Ruthie?

    World champion athlete Cathy Freeman is named Australian of the Year.

    Mutawintji National Park handed back to traditional owners on 15 September. For thousands of years, Aboriginal people throughout western New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland used Mutawintji as a meeting place and ceremonial place. The hand-stencilling tradition in this area goes back at least 15,000 to 20,000 years.

    1999

    Samuel Wagan Watson wins the David Unaipon Award for Of Muse, Meandering and Midnight.

    Kim Scott wins the Western Australian Premier's Book Award in both the fiction and overall categories for Benang: From the Heart.

    Author and musician Bob Randall is awarded National NAIDOC Person of the Year. Geoff Shaw is awarded National NAIDOC Elder of the Year (Male). Author and painter Wenten Rubuntja is awarded National NAIDOC Artist of the Year. Designer and artistic director Samantha Cook is awarded Joint Winner of National NAIDOC Youth of the Year alongside Jeremy Geia.

    Prime Minister John Howard proposes a preamble to the Constitution, which recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures - but it is defeated along with the referendum on becoming a Republic.

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