Born and educated in South Africa, Colin migrated to Australia in 1961, and in 1964 graduated from the Australian National University with a PhD, having written a thesis on Aboriginal administration in the Northern Territory and Queensland.
He was an adviser to the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) from 1961 to 1970 and a member of North Shore Temple Emanuel’s Jews for Social Action committee.
In 1964 he founded the Aboriginal Research Centre at Monash University, Melbourne, and served as its inaugural Director. Foundation Professor of Politics at the University of New England, Armidale, from 1971 to 1982, he was Chair of Politics at Macquarie University, Sydney, from 1982 to 1999.
A Visiting Fellow in Social Sciences at the Australian National University and Visiting Fellow at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, he was also the Director of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies based at the Shalom Institute, University of New South Wales.
In 1997 Colin was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the community ‘through research into social and legal justice for people disadvantaged by their race, particularly the Aboriginal community, and to promoting the equal participation in community life of all Australians.’
One of Australia’s foremost scholars on race, genocide and antisemitism, Colin’s major books included Race Politics in Australia (1979), Aborigines and Uranium and Other Essays (1982), Obstacle Race: Aborigines in Sport (1995), and Aboriginal Suicide is Different (2001).