Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders

Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders be aware there are references to deceased persons on this site.

Here is a glimpse into Indigenous independence history through two documents: one before the so-called legal watershed in Indigenous rights of the 1966 Referendum, the other following the event. These two documents - the Mapoon forced evacuation of 1963 as told in the leaflet "They have made our rights wrong" and in the FCAATSI, 1971 Presidential Report (President Joe McGinness a key in both), tell otherwise about this white-people-controlled “watershed”.

By 1971, the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) faced, on the one hand deeply conservative State governments, and on the other an often younger Indigenous urban group rebelling and forming organisations like Tribal Council. Small signs (in the Agenda document at the end and in President McGuiness's Report) of this change in Indigenous politics make this document of further historical significance.

Struggle for Mapoon

See the conference documents