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Aboriginal people
In June 1976, Bjelke-Petersen blocked the proposed sale of a pastoral property
on the Cape York Peninsula to a group of Aboriginal people, because according to
cabinet policy, "The Queensland Government does not view favourably proposals to
acquire large areas of additional freehold or leasehold land for development by
Aborigines or Aboriginal groups in isolation." [8]. This dispute resulted in the
case of Koowarta v Bjelke-Petersen, which was decided partly in the High Court
in 1982, and partly in the Supreme Court of Queensland in 1988. The courts found
that Bjelke-Petersen's policy had discriminated against Aboriginal people.
During the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, thousands of protesters
demonstrated in the streets of Brisbane, to protest against Queensland's
treatment of Aboriginal Australians. Police arrested 224 protesters for
breaching the "permit" system, by which protest marches had to have a permit to
exclusively use public thoroughfares. At one point, there were not enough police
cells to hold all the prisoners, and some of them were kept in police vans on
the street for several hours.
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