PM Transcripts

FOR PRESS: PM. No. 125/ 196 7
APPOINTMENTS TO COUNCIL FOR ABORIG" ANAL AFFAIRS
Statement by the Prime Minister, Mr Harold Holt.
Following the -decision announced on 2nd November to
establish a Council for Aboriginal Affairs, significant progress has been
made. The Members of the Council In addition to the Chairman,
Dr Coombes, whose appoint m ent was announced at that time, have now
been decided upon. They are Professor W i E. H. Stanner, MA, Ph. D, and
Mr Barrie Dexter, MA ( Hons.) Dip. Ed. Mr Dexter will be the executive
member of the Council and will direct the Commonwealth Office of
Aboriginal Affairs1 which Is being established to serve the Councili
Professor Stanner Is Professor of Anthropology and
Sociology in the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Australian National
University. He has had a long personal and academic association with the
aboriginal people and will bring to bear extensive knowledge of their life
and culture on the problems of their advancement. He has also had
extensive experience as an anthropologist in Africa and the South S13eas and
is familiar with policies being adopted in these and other areas in the
advancement of native peoples.
Mr Dexter has, since 1964, been Australian Ambassador
in Laos. He has had a distinguished career in the Department of External
Affairs and has seen service in the USA, Africa and South East Asia.
Mr Dexter will return from Laos early in the New Year to take up his new
appointment. Work is already In progress on the establishment of
the office and Members of the Council will be establishing early contact
with Commonwealth and State authorities in the field, with academic and
other groups with Interest in, and knowledge relevant to aboriginal
advancement and with representative groups of the aboriginal people
themselves. I am confident that, when these contacts have been
established, prompt and effective progress will be made in the necessary
studies and in the formulation of Commonwealth policies for aboriginal
advancement.
CANBERRA, 24 November, 1967