By Gary Oakley
Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders have served Australia in the military from before the Boer War to the present day. It will probably never be known how many Indigenous Australians have served in the ADF this is due to the fact that ethnicity was never required to be documented when joining up. Even today in the ADF it is only voluntary to tick the box are you “Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander”?
Australia on its colonisation by Europeans was declared Terra Nullius; this therefore meant there was no recognition of the rights of the Indigenous inhabitants as there were in other British colonies. There were no formally binding treaties with Indigenous Australians so with no treaties and with no rights the Aboriginal population was disposed of their lands and moved into reservations and settlements controlled by either the individual states, or territories. In 1901 it was estimated that there were in the vicinity of about 80,000 Indigenous Australians of which a few had managed to serve in Colonial military units prior to Federation. The Defence Act of 1903 exempted Indigenous Australians from serving in the defence forces. It was not until 1949 that Indigenous Australians had all restrictions lifted to be able to join the Australian Defence Force.
At the outbreak of the First World War large numbers of white Australians enlisted and Aboriginals also answered the call, and there seems to have been no real effort to stop them at this time.
At the end of 1915 it became harder for Aboriginals to enlist and some who tried were rejected because of their race but it did not deter others, some travelling hundreds of miles to do so after being denied the chance at recruiting centres closer to their communities.
In 1916 instructions for the “guidance of enlisting officers at approved military recruiting depots” states “Aboriginals, half-casts, or men with Asiatic blood are not to be enlisted – This applies to all coloured men”.
However some Indigenous Australians who were of lighter skin colour with mixed European parentage enlisted claiming foreign nationality from other countries that did not have the same restrictions as Australia. It was usually left up to the recruiting officer to make the decision whether or not to allow the person to enlist.
By October 1917 recruits were harder to find and one conscription referendum had been lost, restrictions were eased for Aboriginals to join.
A Military Order at this time stated "Half-castes may be enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force provided that the examining Medical Officers are satisfied that one of the parents is of European origin."
At present it is thought that about1000 Indigenous Australians fought in the First World War though this number is probably higher.
The Australian Army was the first equal opportunity employer of Indigenous Australians.
On the 3rd of September the Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies announced Australia’s involvement in the Second World War and Indigenous Australians answered the call.
In 1940 the Defence Committee decided the enlistment of Indigenous Australians was “neither necessary, not desirable” however, when Japan entered the war increased need for manpower forced the loosening of restrictions.
Hundreds of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders served in the 2nd AIF and the militia, many being killed fighting and about a dozen died as prisoners of war.
It is not known how many Indigenous Australians served in the RAAF or the RAN but it was considerably less than that in the Army.
As in the First World War, Aboriginal service personnel served under the same conditions as white Australians with the exception of the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion who were paid less that regular Army troops.
After the Second World War the army re-imposed its restrictions on enlistment but with a change in attitude restrictions based on race were ceased in 1949, since then Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have served in the Korean War, Malaya, Borneo, Vietnam and nearly every other conflict and Peace Keeping operation that Australia has sent personnel to.
Today that the ADF has taken on board the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are a valued part of the Defence Force of Australia and recruit Indigenous Australians for both the uniformed and civilian sections of the ADF as well as the RFSU’s, these units are drawn from communities in the far north of Australia and form the backbone of NORFORCE, the Pilbara Regiment and the 51st Far North Queensland Regiment. They are recruited because they have skills no white person can master.