The Aborigines Protection Amending Act 1915 was a significant increase in the powers of the Aborigines Protection Board. It allowed the Board to assume parental rights over Aboriginal children and to remove children ‘of any aborigine’ without Court orders, or parental consent, and treat children ‘absconding’ from care as ‘neglected’ under the Neglected Children and Juvenile Offenders Act 1905. The Act also removed the provision that apprenticeship of children by the Board was to be subject to the terms of the Apprentices Act 1901, effectively reducing the conditions of Aboriginal apprentices. The Aborigines Protection Act was further amended in 1918, 1936, 1940, 1943 and 1964. It was repealed by the Aborigines Act 1969.
This Amendment was a critical increase in the power of the Aborigines Protection Board over Aboriginal children. It removed the requirement that an aboriginal child had to be found to be neglected before the Board could remove him/her. The Act provided that ‘the Board may assume full control and custody of the child of any aborigine, if after due inquiry it is satisfied that such a course is in the interest of the moral or physical welfare of such child’ and remove such child to such control and care as it thinks best.’
From
1915
To
1969
Alternative Names
An Act to amend the Aborigines Protection Act, 1909; and for other purposes
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