Perth Prohibited Area
…
“[On] this 9th day of March, 1927,” “I … hereby declare the City of Perth to be an area in which it shall be unlawful for aborigines or half-castes (sic) not in lawful employment to be or remain”
From 1927 to 1954, a State Government proclamation declared an ill-defined exclusion zone within the ‘City of Perth’, which was imposed upon the Aboriginal (Whadjuk Noongar) population.
The Prohibited Area was instigated under the paternal guise of ‘native welfare’ by the ‘Chief Protector of the Aborigines’, A.O. Neville. He stated “there is no reason why aboriginals or half-castes should wander about the city without any visible occupation“. He deemed the formation of the Perth Prohibited Area (PPA) to “certainly be in the best interest of the natives themselves“. Neville elaborated on the PPA’s rationale when describing the former amusement park (at the now Elizabeth Quay area) unironically named ‘White City’:
“I repeat that it is my desire that neither half-castes nor aboriginals be permitted to frequent the White City on any pretext whatever. It is simply debasing the natives, and the [Aboriginal boxing] contests lower the status of the whites in their eyes.”
By mid-1937, a ‘Native Pass’ system was adopted wherein the Chief Protector or police officers had the power to issue Aboriginal individuals a pass to allow for conditional entry within the PPA.
Police officers were often reluctant to enforce the strict Native Pass system. The Police Commissioner revealed it “was not desired to harass well conducted natives visiting Perth for genuine reasons.” However, the Commissioner’s admittance agitated Neville: “Perth is a prohibited area for natives … those who cannot give a good account of themselves, as well as their reasons for being about town, are to be ordered out immediately“.
Regarding the pass system, the Deputy Commission wrote:
“There are still some natives about the Prohibited Area of the City of Perth without passes. No doubt, some of them are somewhat civilised and dressed decently but the fact remains that they are natives and should be in possess of passes if the native situation in Perth is to be kept in hand.”
The ambiguous and contradictory PPA system began to unravel and the enforcement of passes waned. Looming regulatory change was set to revive the system, however the onset of war resulted in further police staffing difficulties and a changing social attitude to conceptions of Aboriginal assimilation.
By 1947, the lack of an official demarcated PPA boundary caused confusion. The Lands Department was engaged to formalise the PPA boundaries, which were scaled back from the ambiguous 1927 City of Perth ward boundary – stretching from Victoria Park west to the coast – to an area surrounding the Perth (Boorloo) city centre.
Though the Lands Department’s formalised boundaries were completed in vain, in June 1954, the PPA proclamation was revoked, thus unceremoniously ending 27 years of segregation.
Perth Prohibited Area 