Conditions on reserves 1909-1969
The standard of living on stations and reserves was often very poor. Aboriginal people suffered from sickness, malnutrition, ill treatment and inadequate accommodation. They were expected to work on or off the reserves.
Reserves included stations, managed by station managers, and unmanaged reserves (see SUB0560 for more about the meaning of reserve and station). The Board used police to ‘act as its agents in all localities where the Board [did not have] its own officers’ (). Religious missionaries also assisted with managing reserves ().
Living conditions
The living conditions on reserves were of a very poor standard (). A former resident on the Brewarrina mission described:
malnutrition, sicknesses of all descriptions, and so this was devastating to the people there, and of course you couldn’t go and come, as you like. You had to report to the manager if you went, you had to report to the manager again when you come back on the mission ().
The Purfleet Station, near Taree, was described as ‘resembling an open prison’ in the 1930s (). In 1931, the Board reported ‘At a numbers of [reserves] they are living under very bad conditions, occupying shanties of their own construction, or galvanised huts with. earthen floors, and to which the Board desires, in the interests of health and decency, to turn its urgent attention when funds will permit’ ().
Between 1934 and 1936 there was ‘overcrowding, poverty and epidemics of respiratory and eye diseases on managed stations’ ().
In 1937, the Member for Cobar, Mark Davidson, chaired a select committee on the administration of the Aborigines Protection Board, which heard evidence about disease, inadequate housing and malnutrition on reserves (). Mr Davidson later claimed that Board members had intimidated people from giving evidence about conditions, and people who did speak out about the treatment of Aboriginal people were fired (). Mr Davidson also criticised the condition of housing on reserves in Menindee and Moree saying they were ‘not fit for a dog to live in’ ().
The poor condition of housing on reserves continued throughout the Board’s existence, with a 1966 Parliamentary Committee hearing evidence of significantly substandard housing (, ). See SUB0305 for more information about housing on reserves.
When the Aborigines Welfare Board was disbanded, the housing on reserves was inherited by the Aboriginal Lands Trust and then Local Aboriginal Land Councils when they became the owners of reserves (see SUB0540 and SUB0541).
Oversight and Control
Parliamentary committees in both 1937 and 1966 heard evidence from Aboriginal people about the level of power and control managers exercised on reserves. This included acts of collective punishment, withholding rations and restricting who could visit or stay on reserves (, ).
The police’s power to enter homes on reserves without restraint was also identified as an issue of frustration for residents of reserves in evidence given to a Parliamentary Committee in 1966 ().
Matrons had power over the domestic life of women and children on stations. Their duties were
to exercise oversight of all women, with special charge of girls and young children; to daily visit the dwellings of the married and unmarried women and give instructions in cooking, washing, sewing and other domestic duties, and be responsible for the cleanliness of the women and children and the buildings they occupy’ ().
A manual for Managers and Matrons recommended the visits to homes be conducted irregularly so that residents could not prepare for them (). Matrons would report to the board monthly on their home inspections.
Managers also had authority to refuse entry to the station to any person ‘likely to prejudice the good order and discipline of the station’ or to suspend a person from the station. The Board could issue an expulsion order prohibiting a person from living on the station ().
Conditions in training homes
The board also had control of training homes such as Kinchela Boys Home and Cootamundra Girls Home. Many children who had been removed from their families were placed into these homes and faced extreme hardship, abuse and poor conditions. (, ). See SUB0087, SUB0093 and SUB0463 for more about apprenticeships and training homes.
Labour
Aboriginal people living on stations managed by the Board were mandated by the law to work. Food rations could be taken away from any Aboriginal person who persistently refused to do labour, or they could be removed from the reserve (). The type of labour included a wide range of physical work including building, cleaning, cultivating land, farming and fencing (, ). There were also instances of Aboriginal people leaving reserves to try obtaining employment in the wider non-Aboriginal community ().
Managers were responsible for finding work for residents on the station ().
Regulations could be made about how Aboriginal people’s earnings were to be distributed (). Until 1941, the regulations said that an Aboriginal person who worked individually could keep the ‘proceeds of the sale of his crop’. However, where a group of people worked collectively, a local committee could report this to the Board, who would make a decision about the distribution of the proceeds ().
See SUB0513 and SUB0463 for more information about adult and child labour.
See SUB0540 for information on reserves following the end of the Aborigines Welfare Board in 1969.