William Cooper, Hidden Identity and the New Gatekeepers of Aboriginality

By NATSIC-AS – National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation – Advocacy Service

For generations, Aboriginal Australians were pressured to disappear.

Some were removed from Country. Some were separated from family. Some were forbidden from speaking language or practising culture. Others learned that openly identifying as Aboriginal could cost them employment, housing, education, safety and even custody of their children.

Many families responded in the only way they believed would protect the next generation:

They went into hiding.

They changed names, avoided questions and replaced their Aboriginal ancestry with explanations that were considered more socially acceptable. Children were told they were Indian, Māori, Chinese, Spanish, Italian or simply “dark-skinned”.

Others were told nothing at all.

Today, descendants of those families are finding their way home. They are researching family lines, reconnecting with Country, locating relatives and attempting to recover cultures their ancestors were compelled to conceal.

Yet some are encountering a new obstacle: gatekeepers who tell them they have been absent too long, do not look Aboriginal enough, were not raised in community, or have not demonstrated the “right” kind of cultural connection.

That raises an uncomfortable question:

What would William Cooper say about Aboriginal people being prevented from returning to the culture their families were once forced to hide?

William Cooper, Hidden Identity and the New Gatekeepers of Aboriginality

We cannot place modern words into Cooper’s mouth. But when his life, campaigns and recorded principles are considered, the answer appears compelling.

It is difficult to imagine William Cooper supporting a system that punishes descendants for the consequences of the very discrimination he spent his life fighting.

William Cooper Refused to Accept Aboriginal Erasure

William Cooper was a Yorta Yorta man born around 1861. He lived through an era in which governments exercised extraordinary control over Aboriginal lives.

He witnessed dispossession, segregation, institutional control and the operation of so-called “protection” policies that frequently harmed the very people they claimed to protect.

In 1932, at approximately 71 years of age, Cooper established the Australian Aborigines’ League and served as its honorary secretary. The organisation campaigned for citizenship, political representation and improved conditions for Aboriginal people. (Parliament of Australia)

Cooper coordinated a petition seeking Aboriginal representation in the Commonwealth Parliament and federal responsibility for Aboriginal affairs. More than 1,800 signatures were reportedly gathered, but the Commonwealth Government refused to forward the petition to King George V. (AIATSIS)

His advocacy centred on a simple but radical proposition:

Aboriginal people were entitled to participate in Australia without surrendering their Aboriginality.

Cooper and the White Australia Era

The formal White Australia Policy principally operated through immigration laws designed to restrict non-European migration.

William Cooper’s best-documented campaigns were directed toward Aboriginal citizenship, representation, living conditions and protection from discriminatory government control rather than the immigration policy itself.

However, Cooper was plainly confronting the broader racial ideology that sustained White Australia.

That ideology promoted a nation defined by whiteness while treating Aboriginal people as a problem to be controlled, absorbed or erased.

The same society that sought to exclude non-white migrants also subjected Aboriginal people to laws regulating where they lived, worked and travelled and, in many cases, whether families remained together.

Cooper opposed that racial hierarchy.

His advocacy asserted that Aboriginal Australians were not a dying race, an administrative inconvenience or a population destined to be absorbed into white society.

They were First Peoples entitled to equality, dignity, representation and an enduring future.

When Hiding Aboriginality Became a Survival Strategy

The concealment of Aboriginal identity did not occur in a vacuum.

Families had seen children removed.

They had seen people refused work and accommodation.

They had seen Aboriginality treated as evidence of inferiority.

They had seen governments and institutions interfere with family life, wages, movement, marriage and culture.

For some families, silence became protection.

A parent might deny Aboriginal ancestry because they feared their children would be targeted. A grandparent might refuse to discuss Country because speaking openly had once attracted punishment or humiliation.

A family might move to another town, change its story and attempt to pass as something considered safer.

The Bringing Them Home report documented the profound consequences experienced by people who were separated from their families and denied knowledge of their Aboriginal heritage. Those consequences have extended into subsequent generations, including people attempting to reconnect with Aboriginality as adults. (humanrights.gov.au)

The absence of an uninterrupted cultural record does not necessarily prove the absence of Aboriginal ancestry.

Sometimes it proves the effectiveness of the policies designed to break that record.

Returning Is Not the Same as Claiming Something That Is Not Yours

Aboriginal communities have legitimate reasons to protect identity, Country, cultural authority and limited resources.

Fraudulent claims of Aboriginality can cause real harm. They may displace Aboriginal people from positions, funding, opportunities or cultural spaces intended for them.

Reasonable verification is therefore not inherently wrong.

But verification and gatekeeping are not the same thing.

Verification asks:

• What is the person’s ancestry?

• How do they identify?

• What evidence exists?

• What relationships are being rebuilt?

• Has the person approached community honestly and respectfully?

Gatekeeping may instead declare:

• You were not raised here, so you cannot belong.

• Your family denied being Aboriginal, so the ancestry must be false.

• You do not look Aboriginal.

• Nobody currently knows your family.

• Your disconnection disqualifies you forever.

• You cannot return because your ancestors successfully concealed themselves.

That approach risks converting the effects of colonisation into permanent exclusion.

It effectively tells descendants:

Your family hid to survive, and because they survived by hiding, you can never come home.

That is not cultural protection.

It is the continuation of erasure by different means.

What Would William Cooper Say?

No one can honestly claim to know exactly what William Cooper would say about a contemporary dispute.

However, we can draw a reasoned inference from what he did say and do.

At the 1938 Day of Mourning conference, Cooper spoke about continuing the struggle until Aboriginal people achieved their objectives. He criticised protection authorities for failing to protect Aboriginal people from injury and injustice. (AIATSIS)

His political life was directed toward inclusion, citizenship, representation and collective advancement.

He helped build an Aboriginal movement capable of gathering people from different places and circumstances. The Day of Mourning itself brought together Aboriginal activists and delegates from across eastern Australia. (AIATSIS)

Against that history, it is reasonable to conclude that Cooper would have strongly questioned any system that:

• blamed descendants for their family’s enforced disconnection;

• treated racial appearance as proof or disproof of identity;

• demanded continuous community participation from families historically driven out of community;

• allowed personal politics to override verifiable descent;

• permanently excluded people who were honestly attempting to return.

He would likely have understood that the people coming back were not necessarily abandoning Aboriginal culture and then changing their minds.

In many cases, they were recovering something taken from their families before they were born.

Is Gatekeeping Wrong?

Gatekeeping becomes wrong when it is arbitrary, politically motivated, discriminatory or incapable of recognising historical disconnection.

It is particularly damaging when one individual or organisation claims an unrestricted power to decide who is Aboriginal without transparent criteria, procedural fairness or any meaningful opportunity to provide evidence.

No person should be recognised merely because they make an unsupported assertion.

Equally, no person with credible ancestry should be permanently rejected because their family was assimilated, removed, displaced or compelled to conceal its identity.

The appropriate question should not be:

Why were you not here before?

It should be:

What happened to your family, what evidence establishes your ancestry, and how can reconnection occur respectfully?

The Three-Part Test

Australian law commonly refers to three interconnected considerations when determining Aboriginal identity:

1. Aboriginal descent

2. Self-identification as Aboriginal

3. Recognition or acceptance by an Aboriginal community

The tripartite formulation has appeared in High Court jurisprudence, including Mabo v Queensland (No 2) and, in a specific constitutional context, Love v Commonwealth; Thoms v Commonwealth. The High Court described Aboriginal Australians, for the purpose considered in Love and Thoms, by reference to the tripartite test. (High Court of Australia)

However, it is important to be legally precise.

The three-part formulation is not necessarily an exclusive statutory test governing every Aboriginal identification process in Australia. Different legislation, programs, organisations and administrative schemes may impose different evidentiary requirements.

It is nevertheless a far more principled starting point than appearance, hearsay, popularity, internal politics or personal hostility.

Should the Three-Part Test Be the Only Measure?

As a matter of fairness, the three elements should ordinarily form the core framework for assessing Aboriginal identity:

• ancestry provides the objective foundation;

• self-identification demonstrates the person’s own identity;

• community recognition reflects the relational and collective character of Aboriginal belonging.

But the third element must be applied with historical intelligence.

Community recognition cannot fairly be treated as an impossible barrier for people whose families were:

• forcibly removed;

• dispersed from Country;

• institutionalised;

• adopted outside community;

• falsely recorded as another ethnicity;

• told to deny their ancestry;

• prevented from maintaining community relationships.

The three elements have been described in legal argument as interacting and interdependent rather than operating as rigid, isolated hurdles. (High Court of Australia)

Accordingly, community acceptance should not be reduced to whether one gatekeeper is willing to sign a form.

It may be demonstrated through broader evidence, including:

• recognition by relatives or Elders;

• documented family connections;

• genealogical evidence;

• historical records;

• participation in community;

• acceptance by more than one Aboriginal person or organisation;

• genuine and sustained efforts to reconnect.

A person returning after generations of concealment may need time to rebuild relationships. That process should be assessed honestly, but it should not be made impossible.

Community Authority Must Not Become Personal Ownership

Aboriginal identity is collective and relational. Community recognition therefore matters.

But no individual owns an entire Nation.

No organisation should claim that its administrative decision erases ancestry.

No family faction should be permitted to veto another family’s identity merely because of historical disagreement, lateral conflict, politics or competition over resources.

Cultural authority must be respected, but authority must also be exercised responsibly.

When recognition processes lack transparency, reasons, evidence standards or review mechanisms, they can reproduce the same arbitrary control Aboriginal people historically experienced under government boards and protectors.

The institution may have changed.

The experience of being told that another person has absolute authority over your identity may feel disturbingly familiar.

A Better Approach to Reconnection

A fair approach should distinguish between fraudulent appropriation and genuine return.

A person seeking recognition should be expected to act honestly, produce available evidence and approach community with respect.

In return, organisations and community decision-makers should:

• assess evidence impartially;

• recognise the effects of removal and assimilation;

• avoid appearance-based judgments;

• provide clear reasons for decisions;

• identify what further evidence is required;

• permit review or reconsideration;

• support genuine reconnection rather than merely rejecting it.

The objective should be truth, not exclusion.

The Cruelest Victory of Assimilation

The cruelest victory of assimilation would be this:

First, governments force families to conceal their identity.

Then, generations later, their descendants are told that the concealment succeeded so completely that they no longer have the right to return.

That outcome would reward the historical project of erasure.

William Cooper fought for an Aboriginal future. He did not spend half a century advocating so that survivors and their descendants could later be locked out because colonial policies had damaged their family connections.

His work was about bringing Aboriginal people into collective political strength—not narrowing belonging until only those untouched by colonisation could qualify.

Very few Aboriginal families were untouched.

The NATSIC-AS Position

NATSIC-AS supports the protection of Aboriginal identity from false and opportunistic claims.

We also believe that verification processes must recognise the historical reality that many families were removed, displaced, assimilated or forced into silence.

Descent, self-identification and community recognition provide the most credible general framework.

However, community recognition must not become an arbitrary veto exercised without evidence, reasons or regard for historical disconnection.

Where descent can be established, self-identification is genuine and a person is making respectful efforts to reconnect, the response should not automatically be rejection.

It should be a pathway home.

William Cooper spent his life confronting a system that excluded Aboriginal people from their own country.

It would be a profound betrayal of that legacy if the descendants of those who survived by hiding were now excluded from their own people.

Protect culture from exploitation.

Protect identity from fraudulent claims.

But never confuse protection with preventing genuine descendants from coming home.

About NATSIC-AS

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation – Advocacy Service promotes fair, transparent and culturally informed approaches to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identity, recognition, human rights and community participation.

NATSIC-AS is an advocacy organisation. It is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice.

Website: www.natsic.org