Draft:New Deal for Aborigines

The New Deal for Aborigines (or Aboriginal New Deal) was a landmark Australian federal government policy statement on Indigenous Australians. The policy was announced in September 1938 by interior minister John McEwen and detailed in a white paper released in February 1939. It provided for Indigenous people to be granted full civil rights in conjunction with a process of cultural assimilation.

The New Deal policy

Department of the Interior (1939–1972) Department of the Interior (1932–1939)

Aims and provisions
The New Deal "aimed to convert Aboriginal people from their traditional, nomadic inclinations to a settled life".

It envisioned a whole-of-government approach whereby state governments would cooperate with the federal government.

detribalisation

Implementation
The initial steps taken by McEwen to effectuate the New Deal included the establishment of a Native Affairs branch within the Department of the Interior, based in Darwin.

The implementation of the New Deal stalled with Lyons' death in April 1939, which saw Robert Menzies become prime minister and McEwen's Country Party leave the governing coalition. McEwen's successor as interior minister was Harry Foll, who. The new cabinet referred the matter to a subcommittee on "Citizenship Rights for Australian Aborigines". World War II and the failure of the 1944 referendum also contributed to delays in its implementation.

Contemporary reaction
The New Deal was "enthusiastically received" by the Australian Aborigines' League (AAL) and Aborigines Progressive Association (APA). William Ferguson

Later in 1939, communist leader Tom Wright published New Deal for the Aborigines, a critique of the government's policy.

Anthropologist Donald Thomson, who supported the creation of Aboriginal reserves, felt that the government had misrepresented his views.x

Legacy and analysis
The New Deal has been described as a "classic statement of assimilationist thinking".

Later writers have noted that, outside of administrative changes,

In the Bringing Them Home report around the Stolen Generations, the New Deal is identified as the turning point where the government moved from a policy of "protection and segregation" – where Indigenous people were confined to reserves and had limited legal and civil rights – to an assimilationist policy