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KNOW IT ALL: AUSTRALIA’S 1967 REFERENDUM…

1967 Referendum

As Australia marks the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum, DAVID ADAMS takes a look at what it was all about…

Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum in which Australians voted in support of counting Indigenous Australians and gave the Federal Parliament the power to make special laws for Indigenous people. Here’s some of the facts and figures surrounding that historic vote…

• The actual question asked in the referendum was whether people approved “the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled— ‘An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to the People of the Aboriginal Race in any State and so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the Population’?”

1967 Referendum

Part of the ballot paper for the 1967 Referendum.

• The “certain words” to be omitted included deleting “other than the Aboriginal race in any state” from Section 51 (xxvi) which followed on from the words “The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to”. The change also deleted Section 127 which said that in “reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a state or other part of the Commonwealth, Aboriginal natives shall not be counted”.

• Some 5,710,120 valid votes were cast on 27th May, 1967, with 90.77 per cent of people – 5,183,113 – voting ‘yes’. The referendum result was the most decisive ‘yes’ vote in Australian history.

• Of the states, Victoria had the highest ‘yes’ vote with 94.68 per cent voting in favour followed by New South Wales (91.46 per cent) and Tasmania (90.21 per cent). Western Australia had the lowest ‘yes’ vote at 80.95 per cent. Citizens in the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory were not permitted to vote.

• The referendum was originally scheduled to be held by in May 1966, after then Prime Minister Robert Menzies introduced a bill legislating it in December, 1965. But it was postponed until the following year when Mr Menzies retired and incoming Prime Minister Harold Holt did not wish to start his term with a referendum.

• The referendum paper in 1967 actually had two parts – the first part actually related the make-up of the Australian Parliament and asked whether the “number of members of the House of Representatives may be increased without necessarily increasing the number of Senators?” Some 59.75 per cent of voters – 3,411,940 – voted no.

• One of the greatest myths about the 1967 Referendum is that it gave Aborignal people the right to vote. It didn’t – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people could already vote in every part of Australia (Queensland was the last state to give Indigenous people the vote when it did so in 1965). It is also often believed the referendum gave Indigenous Australians citizenship – this had taken place in 1949 and included all Australians (prior to this Australians were considered British subjects).

• The outcome of the referendum was largely symbolic – the sitting government, under Prime Minister Harold Holt, did not exercise its new powers granted by the amendment to Section 51. However, prominent Aboriginal activist Pastor Doug Nicholls said the change provided “evidence that Australians recognise Aborigines are part of the nation”.

• The referendum is only one of 44 ever to be held in Australia, of which only eight have been carried but as was the case in 1967, on most occasions the referendum ballot has had more than one question meaning Australians have only attended the polls to vote on them on 19 occasions.

• The last referendum was held in 1999 and concerned the establishment of an Australian republic (45.13 per cent voted yes) and whether a preamble should be inserted into the Constitution (39.34 per cent voted yes).

Other sources: ABC, NSLA and AIATSIS – Right Wrongs

 

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