ABSTRACT
A clear indication of the attitude towards Aborigines in the highest level of the public service was provided in 1928 at the time of the Coniston massacre. Having decided that it was necessary to establish a public inquiry, the government and its advisors faced the crucial question of who was to conduct it. Discussing the attempts of missionaries to educate Aborigines, there were some encouraging results, ‘in the main’ their efforts had been ‘a waste of time’. What had been achieved for the Maoris in New Zealand could not be done for the Australian Aborigines, for the Maori was ‘a much more highly developed native than the aboriginal’. Knowledge of a sensitive nature in the possession of the government was not to be made public. Carrodus, in the manner of practically all bureaucrats, was not a believer in what a later age would come to know as open government and consultation.
