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7.3 The struggle for rights and
freedom — the 1967 referendum
The 1967 referendum issue
referendum: this is a vote in
which people indicate their
support for or opposition
to a proposed change to
the Australian Constitution
(plural: referenda)
On 27 May 1967 Australians voted in one of the most important referenda within
Australian society. The referendum was signiﬁcant for Indigenous Australians and also
for the high level of support it attracted: 90.77 per cent of Australian voters voted ‘yes’.
Such a high ‘yes’ vote was remarkable in a country which other nations often judged to
be racist and where voters were traditionally reluctant to change the status quo. Voters
had only passed four of twenty-six previous referenda proposals.
2. Proposed law 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.’
DIRECTIONS. Mark your vote on this ballot-paper as
follows.
If you APPROVE the proposed law, write the word
the space provided opposite the question.
YES in
If you DO NOT APPROVE the proposed law, write the word
NO in the space provided opposite the question.
DO YOU APPROVE the proposed law for the alteration of
the Constitution entitled –
‘An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit
certain words relating to People of the Aboriginal
Race in any State and so that Aboriginals are to
be counted in reckoning the Population.’?
SOURCE 7.23
An extract from the ballot paper which people received when they
went to register their vote on the two referendum questions which the
Commonwealth Government put to them in 1967
SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Identify the question voters had to respond to in source 7.23.
2 What did they have to do to register their decision on this
question?
The issue
Until 1967, Australia’s Constitution contained only two
references to Aboriginal people. As source 7.24 indicates, both
of these disadvantaged them. The words in bold italic in the
ﬁrst column are those the referendum proposed to delete.
SOURCE 7.24
References to Aboriginal
people in the Constitution
before 1967
References to Aborigines in Australia’s Constitution
(1901)
Section 51: 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: . . . . (xxvi) The people of any race,
other than the aboriginal race in any state, for whom
it is deemed necessary to make special laws.
This section, known as the ‘race power’, denied the
Commonwealth Government the power to make
laws concerning Aboriginal people (except those
in the territories) and gave this power to state
governments. Aboriginal people could not expect
to retain rights from one state to another as each
state had different laws. State governments did
not allocate the resources necessary to tackle the
health, education and housing needs of Aboriginal
people.
census: ofﬁcial count of
the population, carried out
every ﬁve years in Australia
Section 127: 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.
The census enables the government to verify
the size of its population and to gain information
about people which it can then use to improve
their lives, calculate the number of MPs to which a
state is entitled and allocate government grants.
This clause excluded Aborigines from the census,
effectively treated them as non-persons, and meant
that the Commonwealth Government lacked the
information required to tackle their needs.
Results of these clauses
In the 1967 referendum, the issue was the removal of the discriminatory sections
of the Constitution (see source 7.24). It was not about citizenship or voting rights.
Indigenous Australians, along with other Australians, gained Australian citizenship
in 1948 when the concept of Australian (as opposed to British) citizenship came into
existence. In 1949 the Commonwealth Government passed legislation conﬁrming
that Indigenous Australians whose states had granted them voting rights, could vote
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in federal elections. The 1962 Commonwealth Electoral Act stated that as long as they
enrolled for voting, Indigenous Australians could vote in federal elections regardless of
the view of their state governments.
Australia’s Constitution says little about rights. Federal and state laws are what
recognise people’s rights. Many state laws affecting Indigenous people reinforced the
policy of protection and assimilation and so denied Indigenous Australians rights that
other Australians enjoyed. If the Commonwealth Government could make laws for
Indigenous Australians, then it could override laws that discriminated against them and
implement its integration policy recognising their separate identity.
SOURCE 7.25
A table showing how
differing laws across
Australia’s states and
territories in 1962
governed Aboriginal
people’s rights
NSW
Vic
SA
WA
NT
Qld
Voting rights (state)
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
Marry freely
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
Control own children
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
No
Move freely
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
Own property freely
Yes
No
Yes
No
No
No
Receive award wages
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
Alcohol allowed
No
No
No
No
No
No
B. Attwood and A. Markus, The 1967 Referendum, or When Aborigines Didn’t get the Vote,
AIATSIS, Canberra, 1997, p. 13.
SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Explain how moving from northern New South Wales to live 50 kilometres away just over the
border in Queensland would have affected the life of an Aborigine in 1962.
2 Identify the areas of Australia which gave least recognition to Aboriginal people’s rights.
3 Identify the extent to which the Commonwealth Government gave recognition to Aboriginal
rights in the Northern Territory.
Action for reform: right wrongs write ‘yes’
Groups and individuals
It took 10 years of concerted campaigning — from 1957 onwards — for Indigenous and
non-Indigenous groups and individuals to pressure the Commonwealth Government
to hold a referendum to remove the discriminatory parts of the Constitution. The
campaign highlighted the many inequalities Indigenous Australians faced in relation to
segregation, low pay, racism and lack of opportunity. Some of the key people and groups
involved in the campaign were:
sõ the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (FCAA, established 1957) which
developed into the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres
Strait Islanders (FCAATSI)
sõ the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR)
sõ Faith Bandler, activist and Indigenous rights campaigner who played a key role within
FCAATSI and in gathering signatures on a pro-referendum petition
sõ Jessie Street, a political activist and committed social reformer, who was another key
leader in the petition campaign to pressure federal parliament to hold a referendum;
she saw this as essential to making federal resources available to improve the lives of
Indigenous Australians
sõ Labor MP Gordon Bryant, leader within the Aboriginal Advancement League of
Victoria and a long-time supporter of Aboriginal rights.
Referendum advocates, including Faith Bandler and Jessie Street, launched the
petition on 29 April 1957 at the Sydney Town Hall. Their goal was to collect 100 000
signatures. Eventually they and their supporters collected one million signatures.
CHAPTER 7
| Changing rights and freedoms: Aboriginal peoples
269
Working historically
///
As the annotations below indicate, this poster from the 1967 referendum campaign
uses a variety of techniques to express and support its viewpoint.
SOURCE 7.26 1967 poster ‘The Rights of the Australian Aborigines and You’
The Rights of the
Australian Aborigines
AND YOU
LO-RES
“All human beings are born free and equal
. . . in dignity and human rights . . .
and should act towards one another in a
spirit of brotherhood.”
ARTICLE 1. United Nations
Declaration on Human
Rights
WHAT CAN AUSTRALIANS OF
EUROPEAN DESCENT DO
TO MAKE THIS A REALITY
FOR THEIR FELLOW-AUSTRALIANS
OF ABORIGINAL DESCENT?
Vote YES
in the Federal Referendum on
‘And you’ is a
personal appeal to
target someone’s
individual attention.
The reference to
the Human Rights
Declaration is a
way of supporting
the action required,
giving it credibility
and associating
it with something
that has a positive
image.
This question
appeals to people’s
conscience and to
a sense of purpose.
‘Vote YES’ is a clear
message and a
direct order telling
the audience what
to do.
Saturday, May 27, 1967
Appeal by . . .
THE AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL OF
SALARIED AND PROFESSIONAL
ASSOCIATIONS
The Aboriginal
image is a reminder
of what the
referendum issue
is about.
SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Identify the audience for this poster and the group that promoted it.
2 Explain the purpose of the poster.
3 Identify the reason the poster provides in support of its message.
The campaign was a national exercise in raising people’s awareness of the situation of
Indigenous Australians. People learned through:
sõ campaigners lobbying politicians to table their petitions in federal parliament
sõ William Grayden’s 20-minute ‘Warburton Ranges ﬁlm’ exposing the plight of
Pitjantjatjara Aborigines living in the Warburton Ranges. The government had
displaced them from their land, to allow nuclear testing there. Graydon was Western
Australia’s Minister for Native Welfare and his ﬁlm showed the impact of drought and
lack of adequate food, water and medical resources on their existence.
sõ media reports, especially of conditions highlighted during Charles Perkins’ 1965
‘Freedom Ride’ in New South Wales (see page 359)
sõ discussions in school classrooms
sõ listening to guest speakers at universities.
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In 1965 FCAATSI representatives
reported how even Prime Minister
Menzies was surprised into realisation
of restrictions on Indigenous people’s
lives. At the end of a meeting with them,
he offered them a glass of alcohol. They
reported later that he was ‘shocked’ when
poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker)
told him that in Queensland he could be
jailed for making an offer like that.
SOURCE 7.27
Photo from the front
page of the Sydney
Morning Herald,
25 May 1967
Commonwealth Government
In the late 1950s, the Australian
Parliament’s Constitutional Review
Committee twice recommended the
repeal (cancellation) of Section 127
of the Constitution. After an electoral
redistribution in Western Australia,
politicians saw that counting Aboriginal
people in the census would enable
them to retain a seat in the House of
Representatives that they might otherwise
have lost.
In November 1965 Prime Minister
Menzies announced a referendum on
Section 127 alone. Menzies argued that retaining all of Section 51(xxvi) would enable the
government to discriminate to advantage Aboriginal people. Menzies’ successor, Harold
Holt, took this a step further after he became Prime Minister in January 1966. Later that
year, Holt committed Australia to the International Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). This meant that Australia would have to enact
laws to eliminate discrimination against its Indigenous people.
In March 1967, Holt announced the referendum to repeal the offending parts of both
sections of the Constitution. This meant removing the words from the Constitution that
prohibited the Commonwealth Government from making laws for Aborigines. Holt
acknowledged that this was in response to the many people who had signed petitions
demanding this. No-one in either House of Parliament voted against the Bill supporting
this change. All major political parties supported the ‘Yes’ vote. Politicians spoke of the
government gaining power to enact laws ‘for the beneﬁt ‘of Aboriginal people.
SOURCE 7.28
Gordon Bryant, Labor
MP in 1967, explains
some of his reasons for
supporting a ‘yes’ vote.
Tonight, to a certain extent, we have taken the ﬁrst step towards carrying out an instruction
that was issued 180 years ago. This instruction was given to Governor Phillip in the Commission of 1787. ‘You are to endeavour by every possible means to open intercourse with the
natives and to conciliate their affection.’
To most people, the Aboriginal people have been on the edge of the nation. The Bill will
provide equitable distribution of ﬁnancial assistance to Aborigines among the States, the
wealthiest of which have the lowest percentage of Aborigines.
Hansard (Parliamentary records), vol. 54, p. 281.
SOURCE QUESTIONS
1
2
3
4
5
Identify the intended audience for the photo shown in source 7.27.
Explain who the two boys represent and in what ways they are different.
What do you think is the perspective of the creator of the source?
Explain what the Bill to which Gordon Bryant refers in source 7.28 is proposing to do.
Identify two beneﬁts that Bryant thinks will come from this decision.
CHAPTER 7
| Changing rights and freedoms: Aboriginal peoples
271
The significance of the 1967 referendum
mandate: an authorisation
to carry out an action
The 1967 referendum campaign exempliﬁed the power of ordinary people to achieve
change. The result was a public recognition of the existence of Australia’s Indigenous
people as a distinct group within Australian society. It marked the change from
Indigenous Australians’ exclusion from to inclusion within the Constitution. The
referendum results:
sõ extended the Commonwealth Government’s ‘race power’ so it could make laws and
implement policy for Aboriginal people. Presumably this meant laws for the beneﬁt of
Aborigines (see page 284). This also meant that it could enact laws which would take
precedence over any state government laws for Aboriginal people.
sõ increased momentum for change among Aboriginal Australians and came to
symbolise their broader struggle to achieve recognition of their rights.
The result enabled the government to improve Australia’s international image by
removing discriminatory sections from its Constitution. In voting ‘yes’ Australian voters
gave the government a mandate to take action to correct a constitutional injustice
against Aborigines without necessarily expecting it to examine injustice more broadly.
At the same time, although the referendum result had great symbolic importance, it
had little practical beneﬁt for Aboriginal people, because:
sõ inequities continued in pay and working conditions
sõ Aborigines continued to be victims of racism and discrimination
sõ land rights remained a key issue to be resolved
sõ political parties, which had united to achieve the ‘yes’ vote, did not share a
commitment to improving health, housing, employment and education beneﬁts for
Aboriginal people. Prime Minister Harold Holt created an Ofﬁce of Aboriginal Affairs
and announced that his government would not be providing any speciﬁc assistance
programs for them. It was another ﬁve years before successive federal governments
began to implement change in these areas. Integration policy had little practical
beneﬁt for Indigenous people.
The fact that the highest percentages of ‘no’ votes came from the areas with the
largest Aboriginal populations indicated that racial prejudice remained a signiﬁcant
barrier to the equality that Aborigines expected the vote to deliver them.
ACTIVITIES
Assess means make a
judgement about the value
of something.
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Retroactive 2
CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
1 Identify the issue affecting Indigenous people in the 1967 referendum and its result.
2 Explain how Australia’s Constitution disadvantaged Indigenous people up to that time.
3 How are people’s rights given legal recognition within Australia?
4 Identify two organisations and two individuals who campaigned for the Commonwealth
Government to hold what became the 1967 referendum.
5 Outline the methods supporters used to convince people of the importance of a referendum.
6 What was the role of the Commonwealth Government in relation to this issue?
7 Assess the extent to which the 1967 referendum beneﬁted Australia’s Indigenous
peoples. Your answer should be 10–15 lines in length.
RESEARCH AND COMMUNICATE
8 Create a one-page Fact Sheet on one of the following people or organisations:
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UÊ ÕVÊvÀÊLÀ}>Ê,iVV>ÌÊ
,®
UÊ À`ÊÀÞ>ÌÊ
UÊ i`iÀ>Ê
ÕVÊvÀÊÌiÊ`Û>ViiÌÊvÊLÀ}>
UÊ William Grayden
and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI)
UÊ Jessie Street
Your Fact Sheet should contain the key facts about the role that the individual or
organisation played in the campaign for the referendum and the ‘yes’ vote in 1967.
Find one image to illustrate what you have written.