Aboriginal people

Aboriginal people gathered food, fished and swam along the coast for thousands of years. Middens along the coast testify to the variety of fish and shell fish they ate.

Only a few of the current ocean baths are recognised as occupying the sites of Aboriginal fish traps. Given the popularity of the ocean bath as fishing places, it is highly likely that other ocean baths also occupy sites long used for fishing, food gathering and swimming. While bathing (rather than swimming) was a popular recreation from the early days of colonial settlement, few colonists had swimming skills comparable with these of the local Aboriginal communities.

From the nineteenth century, Aboriginal people were excluded from many of the community facilities and programs available to other Australians.  From 1883, Aboriginal children could be excluded from any NSW public school, if any white parent objected to their presence. After 1893, when the NSW Aborigines Protection Board took over reserves for Aboriginal people, the Reserve schools were usually taught by untrained teachers and were not required to follow the standard curriculum for NSW public schools.

After the Australian colonies federated in 1901, Aboriginal people were officially excluded from the national census and the lawmaking powers of the Commonwealth Parliament, the vote, pensions, employment in post offices, enlistment in the armed forces and maternity allowances. Nevertheless, Aboriginal men did enlist and serve in the armed forces during WWI.

In 1909, the NSW Aborigines Protection Act empowered the Aboriginal Protection Board to remove Aboriginal children from their families, if a magistrate considered that the children were 'neglected' or had  'no visible means of support or fixed place of abode'. By 1915, the Board had the right to remove any Aboriginal child without parental consent, if the Board considered that removal of the child was in the interest of the child's moral or physical welfare. By 1939, the Child Welfare Act meant Aboriginal children deemed 'uncontrollable' could also be removed from their families.

During the 1930s Depression-era, Aboriginal men were often excluded from work relief programs administered by local government bodies, though Stroud Shire Council did discuss the possibility of using Aboriginal relief workers on the construction of the Forster Ocean Baths.

The Aborigines Protection Board was replaced by the Aborigines Welfare Board in 1940. By 1949, the Australian Citizenship Act gave Aboriginal people the ability to vote in Commonwealth elections, if they had served in the Armed force or were enrolled to vote in state elections. In 1962, all Aboriginal people were given the right to vote in Commonwealth elections.

Into the 1960s, racial discrimination was practised at public baths in NSW country towns, in cinemas in coastal towns like Forster and at NSW public schools.  The 1965 Freedom Rides by Sydney University students highlighted the extent of discrimination against Aborigines, in particular their exclusion from public places and recreational facilities, like the Moree Baths. Policies of assimilating Aboriginal people into mainstream Australian society were superseded by policies of integrating Aboriginal people into mainstream society.

A Commonwealth referendum in 1967 gave Aboriginals the right to be counted in the census and gave the Commonwealth government power to make laws on behalf of Aboriginal people. The NSW Aborigines Welfare Board was abolished in 1969. In 1970, only three Aboriginal students sat the NSW Higher School Certificate examination.

The White Australia policy was abolished in 1972. The Commonwealth's Racial Discrimination Act was passed in 1975.

In 1983, the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act setup a network of Aboriginal land councils.

In 1992, the High Court of Australian ruled that native title exists over unalienated Crown land, national parks and reserves and that Australia was never 'terra nullius'. The 1993 Commonwealth Native Title Act set up the National Native Title Tribunal to determine native title rights. Amendments to this Act in 1998 were seen as reducing native title rights. 

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