On 27 May in 1967, the Federal Government held a referendum asking Australians if parts of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia that discriminated against the country’s First Peoples should be removed. The outcome resulted in two amendments to the Constitution.
Regarding the federal government’s power to make laws, the Constitution previously read:
“The people of any race, other than the Aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws” (Commonwealth Constitution Section 51, paragraph xxvi)
The clause “Other than the Aboriginal race in any State” was removed, giving the government the ability to make laws for Indigenous Australians.
A provision was removed in the Constitution that stated that Indigenous people would not be included in the country’s census:
"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", was removed (Section 127).
The two changes were seen as one of the first steps to break down barriers between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians.
Australia’s Freedom Rides holds an important legacy within the country’s modern history. It is recognised to have built the momentum towards the 1967 Referendum.
A group of students from the University of Sydney, inspired by the United States 1961 Freedom Rides, got on a bus on 12 February 1965 and toured through regional towns in NSW such as Walgett, Gulargambone, Kempsey, Bowraville and Moree.
Some of the Freedom Riders included Charlie Perkins, an Arrernte man who became a leader at the national level, the Hon. Jim Spigelman, now the Australian Broadcasting Corporation chairperson, and Professor Ann Curthoys. She is now a professor who focuses on Australian history.
They wanted to show wider Australia the experience inequality and racism that Aboriginal Australians suffered around the country.
National Reconciliation Week ends on another important day in Australia’s history. On 3rd June, The High Court of Australia handed down its decision on what is popularly known as the Mabo case.
This decision legally recognised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as having a continuous and special relationship with the land, which led to providing them with land rights known as “Native Title”.
