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Preamble

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If the time scale of Aboriginal history was represented by one hour on a clock, Aboriginal society would occupy over fifty nine minutes and European society a mere thirty seconds. That thirty seconds of European occupation of Australia created devastating effects on Aboriginal culture and society.

Prior to European occupation Aboriginal groups around Australia enjoyed a culturally rich and diverse society which focused on the land and revolved around the family. Aboriginal society developed a highly sophisticated religion, language, and art forms, social organisation, an egalitarian system of justice and decision-making, complex and far flung trading networks, and an ability to adjust and survive in some of the world's harshest climates.

For example, in 1981 at Lake Condah in south west Victoria the remains of 146 stone houses were found in one paddock. The sites have proved to be some 3,500 years old.

The houses were three metres in diameter, U-shaped with low stone walls, a metre high with low ceilings of rushes and sheets of bark supported on a timber frame.

The Condah houses probably housed just one family and were adjacent to Condah waterways teeming with fish, eels, waterfowl and other foods.

It is estimated that nearly seven hundred Aboriginal people lived in this village in a happy environment using technology to harvest eel and fish through specialised, large scale stone structures in elaborate canals or traps.

Condah obliterates the stereotype of the nomadic savage hunter roaming the countryside, spear by the ready, hunting for his next meal.

With European occupation, Aboriginal groups throughout Australia were forced to adapt to an alien society that was in great conflict with our own. This conflict led to deculturalisation and, in some cases, the destruction of groups and their culture. It is estimated that prior to the invasion, the Aboriginal population was between 500,000 to 3 million comprising over 200 tribes made up of 1500 clans or extended family groups.

More recently, the political awareness amongst Aboriginal groups has seen the emergence of Aboriginal community organisations and with it a strong sense of Aboriginal identity and pride in our own culture. It has only been in recent times that Aboriginal culture has been given proper acceptance, recognition and understanding. Cultural annihilation has now been replaced with cultural revival.

The majority of Aboriginal groups now reside in urban or rural areas. Each group has its own distinct community which evolved from and is still influenced by its traditional roots despite over two hundred years of an imposed alien society.

However, at the same time, although Aboriginal groups continue to retain their own cultural distinctiveness there is still the demand that each must receive the same rights enjoyed by all other Australians. Aboriginal groups expect the right to proper housing and the right to live in areas of our choice.

In housing, as in other areas of Aboriginal community development, there are very clear cultural differences that must be treated within the issues of Aboriginal housing not outside it. For example, factors such as family obligations, high mobility and the cultural value of sharing the good, the bad and scarce resources.

Moreover, there are the more contemporary socio-economic problems facing Aboriginal people such as low education retention rates, high unemployment, mistrust of the legal and bureaucratic systems in the community, and racism against Aboriginal people.

Aboriginal communities still comprise the lowest socio-economic group in Australia today and have yet been able to obtain equal access to education, health, employment, housing and mainstream services normally taken for granted by the general community.

For this reason, the Board has prepared a policy document that has been developed by Aboriginal people for Aboriginal people and which culturally and socially complements the Department of Human Services broad goals in Aboriginal housing.

The Boards policies are not about special treatment or conscience pricking for the sake of it. The policies represent a real attempt to create change and evolve an Aboriginal housing policy that Aboriginal people have a sense of ownership of and an obligation to make work within the parameters of the general community but with due weight and respect to Aboriginal culture and values.

The policy document aims to provide clear direction about the Victorian Aboriginal Rental Housing Program and to set out the roles of the Board itself, the Board Member, Aboriginal Housing Services Officers and the Department of Human Services.

The policy document particularly outlines the responsibilities, rights and obligations of the Board, the Department and the tenants.

Like Aboriginal culture, the policy document will continue to respond to changes, particularly those changes developed through the Boards Forward Plan. Such changes are inevitable as Aboriginal community ownership of the Victorian Aboriginal Rental Housing Program becomes an increasing reality.

Aboriginal Housing Board of Victoria
September, 1994

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