The Northern Territory Emergency Response: Liberal Forms of Governing Indegenous People

This article considers three different historical events from the point of view of their connections to aspects of the history of liberal political reason: the actions of the British in New South Wales in the late 18th century in its claim to sovereignty over Indigenous lands; the establishment of Aboriginal missions and subsequent removal of Aboriginal children in the 19th century; and the Northern Territory Emergency Response and suspension of the Australian Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act (1975) at the beginning of the 21st century. The aim is to review the basis for examining accounts of Indigenous governance deploying „authoritarian liberalism‟ and „race war‟ as central concepts, and call into question the Northern Territory campaign as an „exceptional‟ event