Frank Ellis Gare interviewed by W.J.E. Bannister in the Bringing them home oral history project (1999)

From

1999

To

1999

Website

http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-218181263/listen

Reference No

1379490

Legal Status

National Library of Australia Bib ID

[From the National Library of Australia's 'Bringing them home oral history project']

Gare speaks about working as a patrol officer for the Western Australia Native Welfare Department in the 1940s and about his appointment in 1949 as a travelling inspector to Carnarvon and Geraldton. He discusses white attitudes towards Aboriginal people, child removal practices, Chief Protector A.O. Neville and the policy of assimilation, the impact of child endowment from 1954, his efforts to establish Aboriginal housing projects and hostels, and the 1958 Inquiry into Aboriginal Matters and the resulting recommendation of social security pensions for Aboriginal people. Gare was the State Commissioner of Native Welfare from 1962 until the late 1980s. He talks about the effect of the 1967 Referendum that recognised Aboriginal people as citizens and thus entitled them to awards rates and the changes implemented from 1972 leading to Aboriginal self-determination.