Reframing and revising Australia's planning history and practice

Planning in Australia is always occurring on Indigenous lands. However, within the Australian planning canon, our institutions and practices have rarely acknowledged this reality. The lack of historical accuracy in accounts of urban planning histories, and the persistent inattention to the theory and practice of settler-colonialism, has blinded the profession to its complicity with colonial rule and effaced Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experiences. We present in this article a new way of thinking about the history of Australian planning that situates the discipline and practice of planning within Indigenous Australia. This reframing locates the history of planning inside the coexisting geographies and histories that encapsulate the subjugation, survival, resistance, and self-determination of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. To do so, we analyse the literature and distil key periodizations as represented in the standard planning canon and then contrast them with the histories and geographies of Indigenous peoples to construct a very different periodisation of Australian planning history – one that places Indigenous political, social and cultural concerns at the centre of analysis. This reworked periodisation, which aligns planning histories with major events in Indigenous history and policy, not only provides a more accurate account of the history of planning in Australia but also provides a framework for thinking about the possibilities of more positive and transformative future relationships between planning and Indigenous peoples in Australia.