VCE Australian History key terms

The legal fiction that Australia belonged to no one before British settlement. It denied Aboriginal land ownership and was overturned by the Mabo decision in 1992.

Violent clashes between Aboriginal peoples and European settlers, pastoralists and police as colonisation spread across the continent, especially from the 1820s to the 1900s.

The deliberate killing of multiple Aboriginal people by settlers, troopers or police, often in reprisal for resistance or stock theft, and frequently concealed in colonial records.

The 1838 killing of about twenty-eight Aboriginal people in New South Wales. It was unusual because white perpetrators were tried and hanged, showing contested colonial justice.

Colonial and state laws from the late 1800s that placed Aboriginal people under government-appointed protectors, controlling where they lived, worked, married and whether they received wages.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children forcibly removed from their families under government and church policies, continuing into the 1970s and causing lasting intergenerational harm.

The mid-twentieth-century official aim that Aboriginal people should adopt European-Australian culture and be absorbed into the wider population, often justified as being for their benefit.

A New South Wales government body established in 1883 that managed reserves, rationing and removals of Aboriginal people, gaining expanded powers to remove children in 1909.

A national vote in which over ninety per cent of Australians approved changes allowing the Commonwealth to legislate for Aboriginal people and to count them in the census.

A protest established in Canberra in 1972 demanding Aboriginal land rights and sovereignty. It became a lasting symbol of Aboriginal political activism.

Claims by Aboriginal peoples for legal recognition and return of traditional lands, advanced through activism, legislation and court cases from the 1960s onwards.

Legal recognition that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples may hold rights to land according to traditional law and custom, where those rights have not been extinguished.

The High Court ruling in 1992 that rejected terra nullius and recognised native title, following a case brought by Eddie Mabo and other Meriam people from the Torres Strait.

A 1996 High Court ruling that native title could coexist with pastoral leases, though where conflict arose the lease would prevail. It prompted heated political debate.

Commonwealth legislation passed in 1993 establishing how native title claims would be determined and providing a framework for future dealings in land.

The 1997 report of a national inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal children from their families, which documented the Stolen Generations and recommended reparation and apology.

The formal apology delivered by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Parliament in February 2008 to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, particularly the Stolen Generations.

The long-term process of building respectful relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians, addressing past injustices and ongoing disadvantage.

A 2017 statement by Indigenous leaders calling for a First Nations voice to parliament, treaty-making and truth-telling, following extensive regional consultations.

A set of immigration restrictions, beginning with colonial laws and formalised by the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act, designed to exclude non-European migrants.

The 1901 Commonwealth law that formed the legal basis of the White Australia Policy, using a dictation test to exclude unwanted migrants.

A test in which a migrant could be required to write a passage dictated in any European language, used to exclude non-white applicants in practice.

A postwar slogan arguing Australia needed rapid population growth for defence and economic development, leading to a large immigration program from 1945.

Refugees and people left homeless in Europe after the Second World War, many of whom were accepted by Australia under assisted migration agreements in the late 1940s.

Government schemes that subsidised the fares of British and later other European migrants to encourage settlement and population growth after 1945.

Compulsory military service. Debates over overseas conscription divided Australia during the First World War and again during the Second World War.

Two national votes in 1916 and 1917 in which Australians narrowly rejected compulsory overseas military service, exposing deep sectarian and class divisions.

The enduring national story built around the landing at Gallipoli in 1915, emphasising mateship, endurance and sacrifice, and used to define Australian identity.

Labor then Nationalist prime minister during the First World War who strongly supported conscription, split his party over the issue and led Australia at the Paris Peace Conference.

The severe economic downturn of the 1930s that caused mass unemployment and hardship in Australia, prompting widespread evictions, relief work and political unrest.

Colloquial term for sustenance payments or relief work given to unemployed people during the Great Depression, often requiring labour in return for minimal support.

A 1931 agreement between federal and state governments to cut spending, wages and interest rates in response to the Depression, which deepened hardship for many.

The period of sustained economic growth and full employment in Australia from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, driven by immigration, manufacturing and resource development.

The period of Robert Menzies' prime ministership from 1949 to 1966, marked by conservative government, Cold War anti-communism and suburban prosperity.

The 1955 split in the Australian Labor Party, largely over anti-communism and Catholic influence, which weakened Labor and helped keep the Coalition in power.

The global ideological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union after 1945, which shaped Australian defence policy, alliances and domestic anti-communist politics.

The 1951 security treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States, reflecting Australia's shift toward a US alliance and fears of communism in Asia.

The postwar Australian strategy of fighting potential threats in Southeast Asia rather than near home, leading to involvement in Malaya, Korea and Vietnam.

The conflict in which Australia committed troops from 1962 to 1972 in support of South Vietnam and the United States, provoking major domestic protest.

Large anti-Vietnam War demonstrations held in Australian cities from 1970, reflecting growing public opposition and a generational challenge to established authority.