Australian Aboriginal flag
flag representing Aboriginal Australians
The Australian Aboriginal flag is an official flag of Australia that represents Aboriginal Australians. It was granted official status in 1995 under the Flags Act 1953, together with the Torres Strait Islander flag, in order to advance reconciliation and in recognition of the importance and acceptance of the flag by the Australian community. The two flags are often flown together with the Australian national flag.
The Australian Aboriginal flag was designed by Aboriginal artist Harold Thomas in 1971, and it was first flown in Adelaide in July of that year. Thomas held the intellectual property rights to the flag's design until January 2022, when he transferred the copyright to the Commonwealth government. The flag was designed for the land rights movement and became a symbol of Aboriginal people of Australia.
The flag is horizontally and equally divided into a black region (above) and a red region (below); a yellow disc is superimposed over the centre of the flag. The overall proportions of the flag, as proclaimed and in its original design, are 2:3; however, the flag is often reproduced in the proportions 1:2 as with the Australian national flag.
Status
On 14 July 1995, the Keating government advised the proclamation of the Aboriginal flag as "the flag of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and to be known as the Australian Aboriginal flag", under section five of the Flags Act 1953. The proclamation noted that the flag was "recognised as the flag of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and a flag of significance to the Australian nation generally".
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Australian Aboriginal flag” is flag representing Aboriginal Australians. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Australian, Aboriginal and flag, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “flag representing Aboriginal Australians” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1285625. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1995, 1953, 1971 and 2022.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Australian Aboriginal flag”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Australian Aboriginal flag primary sources, Australian Aboriginal flag archive and Australian research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Australian Aboriginal flag”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Australian Aboriginal flag” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.