Genocidal intent of the Western Australian Government

“Neville [Commissioner of Native Affairs] presented a three-point biological plan. First, keep ‘fullbloods’ in inviolable reserves where they were destined to die out. Second, take all ‘half-castes’ away from their mothers. Third, control marriages so that ‘pleasant, placid, complacent, strikingly attractive, auburn-haired and rosy-freckled’ quarter- and half-blood Aboriginal maidens would marry into the white community.³⁶ In doing so, it would be possible to ‘eventually forget that there were ever any Aborigines in Australia’.³⁷ Here, indeed, was the quintessence of Australian genocidal intent: the erasure of the Aboriginal presence, one way or another.”