Australian referendum, 1967 (Aboriginals)
The Australian referendum of 1967 was a pivotal moment in the country’s history, aimed at amending the constitution to eliminate discriminatory provisions against Aboriginal peoples. Specifically, it sought to change two sections: one that prohibited the national government from making laws that applied to Aboriginals and another that excluded them from the national census. On May 27, 1967, Australians overwhelmingly voted in favor of these changes, with nearly 91% supporting the referendum.
Although the referendum is celebrated as a landmark decision, it did not lead to immediate improvements in the daily lives of Aboriginal peoples. Many continued to face disparities in rights, living conditions, and pay compared to non-Aboriginal Australians. The referendum did, however, increase awareness of the challenges Aboriginal communities faced, subsequently leading to greater funding for programs aimed at improving their circumstances. The changes also ignited a wave of activism in the following decades, as Aboriginal groups continued to demand equality and civil rights. This period marked the beginning of a broader civil rights movement that sought to address persistent injustices and discrimination against Australia's indigenous populations.
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Australian referendum, 1967 (Aboriginals)
The Australian referendum of 1967 was a public vote to change two sections of Australia's constitution that discriminated against Aboriginal peoples. Australians voted overwhelmingly in favor of the changes, which when ratified allowed the national government to change laws to include Aboriginals and to include Aboriginals in the national census. The referendum did not result in obvious sweeping changes in the everyday lives of the Aboriginals. However, the referendum is still considered a landmark action because it drew attention to the challenges they faced and led to increased funding for programs to benefit them as well as improved rights and living conditions.
Background
The Aboriginals are Australia's indigenous, or original, people. They have lived on the continent for about 50,000 years. According to some twenty-first-century genetic studies, these Aboriginal peoples may be the earliest distinct population in the world. Over time, as many as 250 individual tribes and clans developed, but the Aboriginal people themselves consider all these tribes to be Aboriginal.
For centuries, the Aboriginals lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, traveling at will across the Australian continent. Some lived in communities along the coast and improved their chances of survival by moving wild plants into garden areas that could be watered and tended. Some also settled in the Torres Islands near Queensland. Known in the present day as Torres Strait Islanders, they are also considered to be indigenous Australians.
Life for both native groups began to change in April 1770 when British explorer James Cook (1728–1779) and his crew sailed the Endeavour into an area they named Botany Bay. Within twenty years, European settlements had taken over the continent. The Aboriginal population, estimated at about one million in the late 1780s, was decimated by disease and war. As years passed, the indigenous people were either integrated into the European populations or settled on reserves.
By the mid-twentieth century, the population of Aboriginals was reduced to about one-half million, and many of these Aboriginals no longer practiced their ancient traditions. While many had lost their ancestral heritage, they were also not part of the culture established by the Europeans two centuries earlier. Some nineteenth-century European leaders were reluctant to apply some of the laws passed by the Australian British colonies to the indigenous people because they thought it was unfair to force the Aboriginals to adopt all European ways. Others considered Aboriginals to be a people slowly fading into extinction and of no consequence as far as laws were concerned.
Overview
When the Australian constitution was being written in the late 1890s, only two short provisions addressed the Aboriginal people. One provision, known as Section 51, said in part that the national government would not make laws that applied to Aboriginals. This was also referred to as the "races power." The second provision, Section 127, excluded Aboriginals from being counted in the census.
Because of Section 51, the six states that make up Australia made all rules and laws pertaining to the Aboriginals. These laws differed from state to state, so Aboriginals living in different parts of the country had different rights. For example, only three states allowed Aboriginals to marry freely, and only two allowed them to own property without restrictions. None of the states allowed Aboriginals to legally drink alcohol.
Section 127 excluded the Aboriginals from being counted as part of the population. Explanations for this varied. Some claimed it was difficult to accurately count the Aboriginals, many of whom still lived in remote sections of the country. Others said it was to keep Aboriginals from receiving allocations of government representation or finances. While they were considered citizens, the census exclusion meant that no money from the national commonwealth government was allocated for use for services for Aboriginals. It also meant that they had no representation on the parliamentary governing board. The result was that no national provisions were made for Aboriginals to access education and other government-paid services, and they had no voice in the government to improve their situation.
Because of these exclusions, when the constitution became effective in January 1901, it did little to protect the rights or address the concerns of the country's indigenous people. By 1910, activists were lobbying for better rights for the Aboriginals. Over the next few decades, changes were made that granted the country's first people citizenship. In 1962, the Commonwealth Electoral Act was passed, which gave them the universal right to vote.
Over the next few years, a growing movement pushed to remove the two constitutional provisions that allowed discrimination against the Aboriginal people. In 1965, a campaign was launched in support of a referendum to change the constitution. The move had fairly universal support; in fact, it was so well-supported that while there was a "Yes" movement in favor of the referendum, a "No" movement was not established. On May 27, 1967, the referendum passed with 90.77 percent of the vote. It was affirmed by the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginals) 1967 (Act 55 of 1967) on August 10 of the same year.
Although the movement had near unanimous support, it did not have the immediate effect most Australians expected. Since the Aboriginal people were already citizens and had the right to vote, these important aspects of national life were unchanged. However, even into the twenty-first century, some mistakenly believe it was this referendum that granted voting rights and citizenship to the country's first people.
The referendum also did not change the discrimination Aboriginals faced in their daily lives. Many were still not paid the same as non-Aboriginals. Furthermore, while most people assumed that in lifting Section 51, the government would only pass laws that were beneficial to Aboriginals, this was not the case.
The lack of immediate changes left many Aboriginals and their supporters disillusioned. This led to a growing wave of activism in the 1970s to eliminate the discrimination and unfair treatment they received. During the following decades, this disillusionment became a civil rights movement on behalf of the Aboriginals that led eventually led to greater equality and less discrimination.
Bibliography
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"The 1967 Referendum." State Library of Victoria, /ergo.slv.vic.gov.au/explore-history/fight-rights/indigenous-rights/1967-referendum. Accessed 30 Oct. 2017.
"The 1967 Referendum—Fact Sheet 150." National Archives of Australia, www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs150.aspx. Accessed 30 Oct. 2017.
"Aboriginal People." Survival International, www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/aboriginals. Accessed 30 Oct. 2017.
Aikman, Amos. "The 1967 Referendum." The Australian, 27-28 May, 2017, www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indigenous/how-the-1967-referendum-unfolded/news-story/c20726a61f4c0f769f80c48af67ccc4e. Accessed 30 Oct. 2017.
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"Right Wrongs, Write 'Yes': What Was the 1967 Referendum All About?" The Conversation, 25 May 2017, theconversation.com/right-wrongs-write-yes-what-was-the-1967-referendum-all-about-76512. Accessed 30 Oct. 2017.