The Australian Hall is a heritage-listed community building located at 150–152 Elizabeth Street, in the Sydney central business district, in New South Wales, Australia. It was the site of the Day of Mourning protests by Aboriginal Australians on 26 January 1938. It was also known as the Cyprus–Hellene Club until 1998. The property is owned by the Indigenous Land Corporation, a statutory corporation of the Australian Government. It was added to the Australian National Heritage List on 20 May 2008 and was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
History The building that houses the Australian Hall was erected in 1910–1913 for the Concordia German Club. It was purchased in 1920 by the Knights of the Southern Cross, a Catholic fraternal lay group linked with the Catholic Right. In 1922 the name of the hall in the building was changed from Miss Bishop's Hall to the Australian Hall.
Phillip Theatre 1961–1974 The next significant change to the site on Elizabeth Street was the Phillip (Street) Theatre. In 1961 the Australian Hall was renovated and the interior of the building remodelled to turn it into a theatre capable of seating 453 with a raised area at the back to give a balcony effect. The Phillip Theatre broke away from traditional Australian theatre and became a significant force in Australian Theatrical History.
Cinema 1974—1998 In the early 1970s the theatre was the only exclusively live theatre remaining in the city but it was hard to find shows suitable for a venue of its size. The site became the Rivoli Cinema in 1974. Changes were made to the auditorium and foyer to make it more of a cinema rather than a live theatre venue. With Haymarket being identified with the Chinese community, the Rivoli was let to Chinese interests who reopened in 1976 as the Mandarin Cinema, showing Chinese language films and in 1989 the Australian Hall became the home of the Mandolin Cinema.
Cyprus–Hellenic Club 1979–1998 The Knights of the Southern Cross sold the building in 1979 to the Hellenic Club and it was then used by Greek Cypriots as the Cyprus Hellene Club, a Greek organisation offering cultural and social links for its members. The club was and still is instrumental in promoting and maintaining the Cypriot culture in Australia. The Cyprus Club and use of the building were directly connected with the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia in the support of charitable organisations, particularly those associated with the Greek Welfare Centre. The Cyprus Club owned the property until 1998. Similarly to previous owners, the Cyprus–Hellenic Club used the premises for cultural and social activities while still sub-letting the old hall, which continued as a cinema with various owners and names until 1988. Over the years, the building accommodated a restaurant, dining and community facilities and the interior of the building was altered on a number of occasions.
It was the site (as the then Hellenic Club) of the first national conference of the Australian Labor Party, called the "Inter-Colonial Conference of Labour" held in January 1900, which formally established a federal party and platform, and adopted the "maintenance of a White Australia" and the "total exclusion of coloured and other undesirable races" as the first plank in the new federal party's "fighting platform" and its "general platform".
It was the location of the 26th National Conference of the Australian Labor Party in 1965, when the White Australia policy was abolished from the ALP platform.Ramsey, 2004
In the early 1990s the owner of the Cyprus Hellene Club planned to demolish most of the building and erect a 34-storey residential development. This proposal started a campaign by Indigenous people and the National Aboriginal History and Heritage Council to protect the building and gain recognition of the significance of the building to Indigenous people for its association with the Day of Mourning.Mesnage, 1998.
Indigenous community ownership After several years of inquiries and objections, the NSW Minister for Urban Affairs and Planning made a Permanent Conservation Order over parts of the building. In 1998 the Indigenous Land Corporation, a Commonwealth statutory authority, purchased the building on behalf of the Metropolitan Aboriginal Association Inc, who now manages the building.
History of the Day of Mourning
Since European settlement, Indigenous Australians have been treated differently to the general Australian population; denied the basic concession of equality with whites and rarely given full protection before the law.Bennett, 1989:3 Indigenous people have long resisted and protested against European settlement of their country.Foley, 2001. Early protests were initiated by residents of missions and reserves as a result of local issues and took the form of letters, petitions and appeals.Attwood, et al, 1999.
One of the earliest examples of this form of protest was during the mid 1840s at the Aboriginal reserve called Wybalenna on Flinders Island. Residents of Wybalenna sent letters and petitions to Queen Victoria and the Colonial Secretary and other Government officials, protesting against the living conditions and administration of Wybalenna. Similarly in the mid 1870s residents of Coranderrk in Victoria began a decade long protest against the management and closure of the reserve using letters to the editors of daily newspapers and government ministers as well as seeking support from humanitarian organisations.
This pattern of protests focusing on local concerns continued during the 1880s and 1890s with residents of Cummeragunja in New South Wales and Poonindie in South Australia also using letters and petitions to lobby for the allocation of parcels of land within the reserve to families so that they would be responsible for farming their allocated parcel.
A new dynamic began in the late 1920s with the creation of regional and state based Aboriginal controlled organisations. The first of these was the short lived Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association (AAPA), founded on the mid north coast of New South Wales (NSW) by Fred Maynard. Subsequent state based organisations were formed in NSW with the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA) and in Victoria with the Aboriginal Advancement League (AAL). Key founders of these organisations included William Cooper, Doug Nicholls, Margaret Tucker, William Ferguson, Jack Patten and Pearl Gibbs.
The key members of both these organisations shared common life experiences; they grew up on missions or reserves controlled by protection boards but were either expelled on disciplinary grounds or left to find work.Attwood, 2003. The majority of these people had at one time resided at Cummeragunja and/or Warrangesda missions in NSW and a number also had lived at Salt Pan Creek, an Aboriginal squatter's camp south-west of Sydney. This camp housed refugee families, the dispossessed and people seeking to escape the harsh and brutal policies of the Aborigines Protection Board.Reason in Revolt Project, 2007. It became a focal point for intensifying Aboriginal resistance in NSW.
While living off an Aboriginal reserve provided some level of freedom, these Aboriginal people experienced the full force of laws that impacted on the ability of Indigenous people to find employment, receive equal wages, seek unemployment relief and the ability to purchase or own property. The experience of living under the control of a protection board on a mission or reserve, and the barriers they faced off these reserves, united the members of these early Aboriginal organisations in their concerns for the lack of civil rights, the growth in the Aboriginal Protection Board's powers and the condition of people remaining in missions and reserves.
It was in this environment that in November 1937 William Cooper called a meeting of the AAL in Melbourne which William Ferguson from the APA also attended.Jumbunna Centre for Australian, Indigenous Studies, Education and Research, 1994. During this meeting the two groups agreed to hold a protest conference in Sydney to coincide with sesquicentenary celebrations planned for Australia Day 26 January 1938. They decided to call this protest the Day of Mourning.Horton, 1994.
The AAL and APA widely promoted the Day of Mourning through radio interviews and other media. To encourage Aboriginal people to attend, Jack Patten and William Ferguson took turns in touring the reserves to promote it. Jack Patten and William Ferguson also published a 12-page pamphlet entitled "Aborigines Claim Citizen Rights" to promote the purpose of the Day of Mourning amongst non-Indigenous people. This "manifesto" has been described as perhaps the most bitter of Aboriginal protests.Rowley, 1972:79. It explained the significance of the action:"The 26th January, 1938, is not a day of rejoicing for Australia's Aborigines; it is a day of mourning. This festival of 150 years' so-called 'progress' in Australia commemorates also 150 years of misery and degradation imposed upon the original native inhabitants by the white invaders of this country. We, representing the Aborigines, now ask you, the reader of this appeal, to pause in the midst of your sesqui-centenary rejoicings and ask yourself honestly whether your "conscience" is clear in regard to the treatment of the Australian blacks by the Australian whites during the period of 150 years' history which you celebrate?"Patten, et al, 1938.The pamphlet asked the reader to acknowledge the impact of the "protection" approach, the restrictions that it continued to place on Aboriginal people's rights, and to be proud of the Australian Aborigines and not misled by the superstition that they are a naturally backward and low race.
It also made explicit that the choice of holding the Day of Mourning on Australia Day, the national holiday celebrating the arrival of the First Fleet and the birth of Australia as a nation, was to highlight the exclusion of Aboriginal people from the Australian nation:"We ask you white Australians for justice, fair play and decency, and we speak for 80,000 human beings in your midst. We ask—and we have every right to demand—that you should include us, fully and equally with yourselves, in the body of the Australian nation".The organisers distributed approximately 2,000 leaflets and posters advertising the Day of Mourning which advised that "Aborigines and persons of Aboriginal blood only are invited to attend". The organisers were denied permission to hold the Day of Mourning in Sydney Town Hall, but were able to rent the Australia Hall at 150-152 Elizabeth Street. The use of Australia Hall was granted on condition that the delegates watched the sesquicentennial parade from the Town Hall steps and then marched behind the parade to the Australian Hall.NSW Heritage Office, 2000:9.
The official Australia Day celebrations included a re-enactment of the arrival of Governor Phillip by boat at Port Jackson "who will put the Aborigines to flight".Horner, 1980. The Government had brought in Aboriginal people from the Menindee reserve to participate in the re-enactment of the arrival of Governor Phillip at Port Jackson as this was a safer option then using Aboriginal people from the Sydney area.Parbury, 1986:107.Dodson, 2000. These people were housed at the Redfern Police Barracks and were not allowed any contact with "disruptive influences" before the re-enactment.