One people: Aboriginal assimilation and the White Australia ideal

Abstract

This article uses a series of Commonwealth government assimilation propaganda booklets published between 1957 and 1963 as the starting point for an exploration of the relationship between Aboriginal assimilation policy and changing conceptions of Australian nationhood. It argues that the ethnic nationalism that provided the foundations of the White Australia policy in the federation era, and of Aboriginal policy for much of the interwar period, was giving way in the 1950s and 1960s to a stronger emphasis on civic nationalism; and that the Commonwealth promoted this shift in the interests of securing the national inclusion of indigenous Australians.