In 1770, Captain James Cook took possession of the Australian territory on behalf of the Kingdom of Great Britain, using the legal concept of terra nullius (territory without owner). In 1778, considered the founding year of the Australian nation, the indigenous population was estimated at more than half a million people. By 1900, it had been reduced to less than 50,000 people. It is estimated that up to 1928 there were around 304 massacres of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia.

The actors involved in frontier massacres (as human rights violations of native populations in the process of colonial settlement are known in Australia) and others include the British Navy, European settlers from various countries, members of the New South Wales Mounted Police, the Border Police, the Western Australian Police and the Northern Territory Police. Most of these massacres were summary, against defenseless groups and as indiscriminate punishment for theft of property and/or in competition for possession of land and resources between settlers and native peoples. In at least nine instances, mass poisonings of individuals belonging to the latter have been documented.

In addition to massacres, displacements, resettlements and numerous infectious diseases introduced by the colonizers, various systems of exploitation and slave labor have been documented. Even into the 20th century, events such as the forced separation of children and their families by government agencies and church missions in the name of racial assimilation (the so-called “lost generations”) continued to occur with these populations as victims. Official Australian government reports estimate that, in some regions, between 1 in 10 and 1 in 3 indigenous children were forcibly separated from their families and communities between 1910 and 1970.

Other significant examples of gross violations of the human rights of Australia’s indigenous peoples include the forced removal of South Sea Islanders for use as slave labor on cotton and sugar plantations, and the extinction of Tasmanian native peoples. In the first case, between 55,000 and 62,500 “Kanakas” (a Hawaiian word meaning “man”) were abducted to work in fields in Queensland and New South Wales between 1863 and 1904. In the following four years, most of these workers were deported in order to “racially purify” the Australian nation and protect white workers from lower labor costs. In the second case, between 1824 and 1908 white settlers and the Queensland Native Mounted Police murdered more than 10,000 native inhabitants, who were considered a pest and were hunted for fun.

The segregative consequences of the colonial system extend to the present: Australia’s native populations make up 3% of the total population but 27% of the prison population, their life expectancy is eight years lower than the national average and their average school results are consistently very low, as is their access to health benefits and state assistance.