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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2014
This article compares the two most significant paradigm shifts in the administration of Aboriginal affairs in Australia's Northern Territory. The Welfare Ordinance 1953 (NT) constituted a then-unique attempt to reclassify the diminished legal status of most indigenous Territorians as justified not by their racial heritage but by their level of social need, while the 2007 legislation behind the “Northern Territory intervention” has jettisoned formal racial neutrality through a campaign to curb the breakdown of “community standards and parenting behaviours” in many remote indigenous communities. The authors argue that while both initiatives had similar fundamental aims—encouraging remote Aboriginal people to adopt social habits generally evident in non-indigenous society—the decision to jettison racial neutrality has ushered in a new era of race relations in Australia, in which race has openly and formally been reestablished as a marker of legal inferiority.
Cet article compare les deux changements de paradigme les plus importants survenus dans l'administration des Affaires autochtones du Territoire du Nord de l'Australie. En premier lieu, l'Ordonnance de Protection de 1953 représentait, à l'époque, une tentative unique, quoique fondamentalement maladroite, de réinterpréter le statut juridique inférieur des statuts légaux des aborigènes du Territoire du Nord comme étant causé non seulement par leur héritage racial mais aussi par l'ampleur de leurs besoins sociaux. En second lieu, la législature de 2007 dans «l'intervention du Territoire du Nord» cessait de prétendre qu'une neutralité raciale existait dans l'effort du gouvernement de contrer l'affaiblissement des standards communautaires et des comportements parentaux dans plusieurs communautés indigènes lointaines. Tandis que ces deux initiatives avaient des buts fondamentalement similaires, soit d'encourager des peuples autochtones éloignés à adopter des comportements sociaux généralement acceptés dans une société non-indigène, la décision de réfuter la neutralité raciale marquait le début d'une nouvelle ère de relations raciales en Australie, où la race est ouvertement et formellement rétablie comme un indicateur d'infériorité.
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23 Welfare Ordinance 1953 (N.T.), s. 15 and Second Schedule.
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