The Aborigines Act 1957 (No. 6086) was drawn up following the McLean Inquiry’s ‘Report on the operation of the Aborigines Act [1928]’. The 1957 legislation repealed the Aborigines Act 1928, and was itself repealed by the 1958 legislation on 1 April 1959.
The Aborigines Act 1957 abolished the Board for Protection of Aborigines, replacing it with the new Aborigines Welfare Board.
It established the new role of Superintendent of Aborigines Welfare. The Superintendent was also the executive officer of the Board.
Section 6 provided:
It shall be the function of the Board to promote the moral intellectual and physical welfare of aborigines (which term for the purposes of this Act includes not only full-blooded aboriginal natives of Australia but also any person of aboriginal descent) with a view to their assimilation into the general community.