The main emphasis of the petition campaign was ‘upon Aboriginal people being treated the same as other Australians’38 and the campaign called for an amendment to section 51(xxvi) of the Constitution. [62], In the 1992 Mabo judgement, the High Court of Australia established the existence of Native Title in Australian Common Law. Frankly, they also want to give a whole lot of people a kick up the backside and tell them to get on with it’. visits and the reliable Koori ‘grapevine’) with family and other connections from our Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. The second question of the 1967 Australian referendum of 27 May 1967, called by the Holt Government, related to Indigenous Australians.The question was in two parts: whether to give the Federal Government the power to make laws for Indigenous Australians in states, and whether in population counts for constitutional purposes to include all Indigenous Australians. Dexter describes the initial air of optimism when Prime Minister Holt established both the Council and the Office of Aboriginal Affairs. cit., pp. [16], Preceded by:Social Services Amendment (1946), Amendments to theConstitution of Australia, Followed by:Senate Vacancies Amendment [48] No federal government ever enforced this Act. 1950s [64], One last impact of the referendum has been the benefits of counting all Indigenous Australians flowing from the removal of counting "aboriginal natives" ("full-blood") in the official population statistics. government assuming control for Aboriginal affairs and therefore wresting control Overt dissent was occasional, such as a letter to the Courier-Mail published on May 26 claiming that the vote would lead to a ‘blossoming of so called ‘civil rights interests’…as in the USA where they are using the negro as the raw material for racial upheaval’. In achieving this transformation, the campaigners held an unusual advantage. This was despite the weight of the overwhelming ‘yes’ vote. This article was originally published on The Conversation. As Jackie Huggins wrote in 2007, ‘the job may have been finished in the parliament and with a vice-regal signature but the real work was done in kitchens and workplace cafeterias, camps and community halls’. Section 127 was wholly removed. Indeed, the very petitions which were prepared for the public campaign were headline captioned with the words ‘National Petition—Towards Equal Citizenship for Aborigines’.9. The referendum outcome was directly responsible for the involvement of the federal government in Indigenous affairs—something we take for granted today. [38], At this time territorians, while able and required to vote in elections, were not permitted to vote in referendums. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. I feel that while many progressive and significant socio-political developments in Indigenous affairs have occurred since 1967—for example, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, land rights, the Mabo decision and native title, reconciliation, Paul Keating’s Redfern speech, and the National Apology to the Stolen Generations21—the 1967 outcome is nevertheless a ‘stand out’ milestone as the most historic and significant influence in the relationship between Indigenous Australians, governments and mainstream Australia. [60] In the Tasmanian Dam Case,[61] the High Court held that even though this law applied to all people and not only to Aboriginal people, it still constituted a special law. With the advocacy of the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement, tag-along authentic grassroots campaigns, and government action this all eventually led to the successful 1967 referendum. [15] From here, the overall plight of Aboriginal Australians became a fundamental political issue. In this context, the 1967 referendum and its impact is historically significant owing to the success and landslide strength of the ‘yes’ vote. The real legislative and political impact of the 1967 referendum has been to enable, and thereby compel, the federal government to take action in the area of Aboriginal Affairs. [67], When John Howard's Coalition government came to power in 1996, it intervened in the Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy in South Australia with legislation that introduced an exception to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984,[68] in order to allow the bridge to proceed. During 1962 and 1963, the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement ran a national petition campaign calling for constitutional change. The 1967 referendum was the culmination of a long struggle for rights and respect, for social esteem as well as equality before the law. It included compelling factual evidence of discrimination involving voting rights, marriage freedom, parenting rights, personal mobility restraints, property ownership, wage rates, alcohol consumption and the diversity and inconsistency of laws governing Aboriginals within and between states. I am aware that the issue of and any discussion about a treaty (or treaties) has been dismissed and/or assigned to an unspecified time in the future by our political leaders. The real legislative and political impact of the 1967 referendum has been to enable, and thereby compel, the federal government to take action in the area of Aboriginal Affairs. Public records disclose that very soon after federation, and specifically in 1910, the Australian Board of Missions was prominent in its call for the federal government to assume control of Aboriginal affairs on a shared basis with the states. The demands and the formal campaign for constitutional reform in Aboriginal affairs leading to the successful 1967 referendum had a long, complex, tortuous and, to say the least, frustrating history. 24 Referendum Council, Discussion Paper on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2016, p. 1, www.pmc. On voting day, Queensland registered the third highest ‘no’ vote overall, as well as hosting three of the five highest ‘no’ voting townships, despite both State and Federal governments generally supporting the campaign and the lack of a clear policy position for the ‘no’ case.

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