Can a DNA test reveal if youre an indigenous Australian?

Palmer United Party Senator Jacqui Lambie recently created controversy by claiming in her first speech to Parliament that going back six generations, she was related to the renowned Tasmanian Aboriginal leaderMannalargenna.

Responding to accusations that she had never previously identified herself publicly as an indigenous person, Senator Lambie said, "I know what's in my blood", and offered to take a DNA testto prove her indigenous ancestry "once and for all".

No one can tell Senator Lambie or her family how to feel about their heritage, nor the degree of affinity and pride they are entitled to draw from their family history. And Senator Lambie's stated concern to use her political position to advocate on behalf of indigenous people is welcome. However, it is more problematic whether Senator Lambie can do this on the basis that she is an "indigenous person".

The question of whether indigenous, racial or ethnic identity could be determined by genetic testing was considered in a landmark inquiry by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) in 2003, which I chaired and which culminated in the reportEssentially Yours: The Protection of Human Genetic Information in Australia.

As we noted in that report, since British colonisation, various governments had usedno less than 67 classifications, descriptions or definitionsto determine who is an Aboriginal person in Australia.

The propriety of using genetic testing and information as an aspect of determining communal identityhas arisen previously in Tasmania, following challenges to the eligibility of about 600 people to vote in the 2002ATSICelections. This may be unsurprising, given the vexed history of race relations in that state.

The ALRC inquiry followed hard on the heels of the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2000, which concluded that race and ethnicity were social constructs, without a clear genetic foundation. This approach has been reflected in Australia law and practice sinceat least the early 1980s.

As Justice Gerald Brennan wrote in his leading judgment inMabo v Queensland (No 2), when it came to native title law, the accepted test of whether someone is indigenous has three parts:

Membership of the indigenous people depends on biological descent from the indigenous people and on mutual recognition of a particular person's membership by that person and by the elders or other persons enjoying traditional authority among those people.

(You can read the full judgmenthere.)

Originally posted here:
Can a DNA test reveal if youre an indigenous Australian?