Australians generally resist constitutional change – but not in 1967.
On May 27, 1967 90.77 per cent of Australians – the biggest majority ever in a national referendum – voted to amend the 1901 Constitution as it pertained to Aboriginal people.
Put simply, the referendum proposal asked if clauses should be removed from the Constitution which impeded the power of the Commonwealth in Aboriginal affairs, and secondly, if Aboriginal people should be ‘reckoned’ in the census.
The 1967 Referendum might be a ‘highly-charged myth’, invested with more symbolic than practical meaning but to many of the people who were there, it continues to be a defining moment in the history of black-white relations.
That’s how the indigenous arts and issues program Awaye! (Listen up) introduces their program The time was ripe: remembering the 1967 Referendum to be broadcast on Radio National this afternoon at 6pm to be repeated on Monday at 3pm.
The call went out on the Breakfast program on Wednesday for listeners to
to phone in over the next few days and share what they remember of referendum day.
You might remember queuing up to vote or perhaps listening to the result as it was announced on the radio. Or you might not have even been born, but feel strongly about the vote and what it’s done in terms of improving the lives of Aboriginal people.
Similarly the purpose of this thread is to share memories and respectful appreciation of what the referendum means for developing a just and inclusive Australia. I have given some relevant links from ABC programs below, but have not had time to scan the MSM or the ‘sphere. If we can share links in commentary I’ll add them as an update at the end of the post.
Jackie Huggins, the Co-Chair of Reconciliation Australia, was interviewed on AM on Wednesday. Jackie remembers:
I do remember the shrieks of joy after the result was announced, laughter and a mass of tears. Mum told me we would be counted in the census now, along with the sheep and the cattle. She also said we would be free people at last. Free at last. I never quite knew what she meant, only that it was such a big deal.
Jackie Huggins is optimistic:
She says corporations are becoming involved and providing more job opportunities for Indigenous workers.
And she says ordinary Australians are showing a willingness to get involved in reconciliation efforts at a grass roots level, much like the people who voted in favour of constitutional change 40 years ago.
But she says
it [reconciliation] ain’t going to happen if the spiritual side of reconciliation gets neglected. You can have a so-called reconciliation process which includes practical reconciliation, where you give a black fella a house, a job, a car, but if the symbolic is not addressed then we will never achieve reconciliation in this country.
Faith Bandler who led the charge at the time was interviewed on the 7.30 Report. She remembers:
I couldn’t believe it. (Laughs) Couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think that people cared that much about it.
There have been positive changes, she says:
Today we have young people walking in and out of universities like I walk in and out of my kitchen. Well that was unknown not that long ago.
I attended the University of Queensland from 1960 to 1963. I knew people who knew Margaret Valadian. I may even have met her at a party once, but that is a bit hazy. She lived just down the road in Coro Drive near Park Road. She was very much a first and only at the time, a pathfinder, exemplary and respected.
Yesterday Late Night Live replayed a December 1998 program, wherein Phillip Adams conducted an extended interview with Faith Bandler. I didn’t hear it, hope to listen to it this arvo, but it will now be available for audio download for two months. (Come on ABC, you can do better than that!)
Adams often says that he asked Bandler whether the referendum would have been passed if put now. “Now� being when a certain red head, “one of the 100 most influential Australians of all time� was at her zenith. I think it’s perhaps an irrelevant question now.
It is one taken up nevertheless in Adams’ interesting interview with Tim Rowse and Murray Goot last Monday on the basis of their recent book Divided Nation which deals with how public opinion has been used in indigenous affairs.
Rowse and Goot point out that the 1967 Referendum was not a mandate for any particular policies. Following the anthropologist A P Elkin’s conceptualisation of four different types of inclusion – political, social, economic and religious – they say the referendum was a clear case of political rights alone. They believe that there is no reason why a similarly conceived referendum would not succeed now.
Prime Minister Holt , they say, was absolutely astonished that the referendum passed at all, let alone by so much. Thus encouraged, it is said that he was preparing a suite of measures to benefit indigenous peoples, but you will recall that he disappeared, perhaps into the bosom of a Chinese submarine on 17 December that year.
I was a young man in a new job at the time with plenty going on in my life. But I remember the Referendum as a technical political anomaly requiring correction. I don’t recall any opposition or controversy.
Jackie Huggins recalls being told about being counted “along with the sheep and the cattle.�*
Mark Colvin, in introducing a segment on PM on Friday put it bluntly:
If you weren’t around for the 1967 referendum on Aborigines, or you can’t remember why it mattered, think about this.
Before that vote, Aboriginal people weren’t counted as people, they came under the Flora and Fauna Act.
The segment includes an interview with Shirley Peisley (Watson) and academic Greg McCarthy, who says:
the referendum was one of the most pivotal events last century for Aboriginal rights.
Pivotal, yes. Just imagine where we’d be now if we’d followed the usual Australian practice and voted the referendum down.
The comments thread is open, but as I said let’s share memories, respectful appreciation and links please.
* I had to change this sentence slightly after posting as my wife pointed out an error. Rowse and Goot said that Aborigines were counted as far back as 1828, but not as part of the population.
For mine, I think Paul Kelly in the Oz is pretty much on the money.
I’ve made a change since posting in the fifth last para, beginning “Jackie Huggins recalls…” to correct a mistake. And have added a note about counting Aborigines in earlier times.
Guess my comment went into the spaminator again.
The referendum maybe important historically,but I think all the references to the ABC are ,in reading at least, to me unacceptable.I find it very difficult to adjust to the stylising by ABC staff about most issues including matters Aboriginal.I have heard the general ABC promos ,once too often ,and find deep flaws.The Away program has occasionally disillusioned me as the prospect of hearing Aboriginals expressing opinions that are terrible generalities,that,for their sake, must be described as blind cul-de-sacs.It is a problem at the ABC generally when to correct what in other circumstances are profound nonsenses. Being confident in what one says is fine,being able to describe reality as it seems… is difficult enough.What reality maybe,however,requires a determination outside of confidence and what is easy as anecdote,analogy, or even scientific description attempts. Interviewers,who know their stuff,will never leave someone sounding embarassingly deficient..it just maybe a problem of confidence …. over-reaching necessity in speaking.Some joy there may well be in being on the ABC. I dont want to destroy that. I think however, that, lifting the game means the discipline of being honest, rather than offering opinions and views that are later full of holes because of what others have to say,on same subjects. Wether questions and answering them is outside of the real historical culture of Aborigines sits uneasy…. with the needs of survival today. Wether there is a Aboriginal sense of humour or not,seems to have many interpreters and unthought out bold statements..across age groups and obvious linguistic skills. Humour and question and answer statements have made me consider … that there is a lack of discipline at the ABC to improve, without denaturing, Aboriginal guests. I think Aboriginal people,like everyone else ,are quite capable at seeing themselves clearly,after such events ,and ,put themselves to the test of a more admirable trait that endures..you could of thought a bit deeper before speaking,and,been more precise!? Thats an art, and the general staff at the ABC arent always that good. I await the return of the sharp witted intelligent every person ….Aboriginal. This isnt criticism it can be noted, however, as observation……..not being correct ,but what can be enabled rather than always expressed. Someone who doesnt know their way around English as a spoken language ,doesnt lose out, if everything they say resonates with the understandings and confidence of knowing how limited they may well be. I find that last sentence of mine here,perhaps not as clear as it could be,but,to avoid wasting other peoples time I will leave as is. Am I being pretentious..not in a overwhelming sense, I hope.
No doubt, many people of good will were very happy with the result of the 1967 referendum.
However, it is important to be very clear about what the constitutional change actually means.
Annulment of the section relating to Aborigines means that Aborigines are now equally subject with members of all other “races” to the “race powers” in the Constitution. In other words, racist legislation is now constitutional for all “races”.
And this fact has not been missed by the Tories. In the early months of the first Howard Government, Senator Mellon, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, mused out loud in Parliament over whether it might be politic to pass special legislation under the “race powers” provision to annul certain unwelcome aspects of Native Title.
It didn’t happen, of course. It was unnecessary. The Howard Government lacked the motive but not the opportunity to find a new use for the still existant “race-powers” provision of the Australian constitution.
This possibility continues to exist while the “race powers” provision of the Constitution remains.
Katz. I think that should read ‘Sen Herron’ as the Minister in the Howard cabinet. Daryl Mellon was the opposition spokesman around that time.
It is interesting how the referendum question was interpreted by many. For Jackie Huggins it was a case of finally being included in the human population as distinct from a census of sheep and cattle. A rough national tally of the latter is available but it is strictly a colourful interpretation of whatever the ‘Flora and Fauna Act’ entailed. I’m not aware of such a statute.
While we’re likely to be overwelmed by nostalgic reminiscences of the 1967 referendum in coming days, strange and troubling contradictions will keep surfacing in black-white relations.
For example, ABC FM radio has been reporting the abrupt cancellation of sponsored concerts in Broome by one of our very best didgereedoo players, William Barton and others, after the plug was pulled by Broome locals. The group had been playing other Kimberley centres but it appears threats to their health were expressed if they performed their modern adaptations in the supposedly cosmopolitan Broome. Barton is an indigenous man originally from Mt Isa, but the reports don’t make it clear whether it is the fact that he was a Queenslander or that he was playing contemporary music with didge or that the didge wasn’t locally accepted or that it wasn’t accompanied by dance. But the threats were enough for Barton and his group to cancel.
This culture clash won’t be remembered in 40 years but to me it is an example of separateness or the gulf that divides and perhaps always will.
pablo, from what I can make of it, Jackie Huggins’ Mum’s comment was colourful but wrong. But it was her excitement of being recognised as part of the population that meant so much.
I think it was Rowse of the Rowse and Goot combination who said that the ABS had been counting Aborigines and that they had been counted in NSW as early as 1828.
Rob, sorry I didn’t check the spaminator earlier. I have no expertise in the area, but I was attracted to Elkin’s four category conceptualisation of inclusion. Rowse and Groot believe that the Australian people in general were more than happy to extend political rights to the indigenous peoples but social inclusion was quite a different matter. They would say that that is where the fault line lies. As far as I can make out there was an expectation that Commonwealth involvement would lead to a better deal, and as such the subsequent years have been disappointing.
It doesn’t mean that anyone saw the referendum as an “end”, however. I think that just slipped off Kelly’s pen.
Kelly always manages to sound a bit pompous, and I think his characterisation of those times as ’simple’ is, well, a bit simplistic.
Katz, I didn’t hear all of the Awaye! program tonight, but there were claims that the race power of the Commonwealth had been used against Aborigines.
pablo, that is sad and disappointing about Barton and Broome. By way of contrast there was a news item on ABC tonight, which I didn’t fully catch, but it involved a group of Aboriginal women and some white jazz players, including at least one male. playing melded music. I gather the the songs were telling traditional Aboriginal stories.
Today is the tenth anniversary of the Stolen Generations Report – Andrew Bartlett has a good post:
http://www.andrewbartlett.com/blog/?p=1499
Terry Sweetman gives his personal perspective in the Sunday Mail today.
Barry Cassidy interviewed Mal Brough on Insiders.
Brough made a distinction between urbanised Aborigines, those on the fringe of population centres in the “long grass’ and remote settlements. In the case of the latter two he is keen in tailored negotiated assistance.
Howard was accused of genocide when he spoke at a function this morning.
Rudd said Labor in government would “say sorry for past atrocities committed by European settlers.”
news.com.au has a roundup of events associated with the anniversary and reports new research on Australian attitudes which
Rudd promised
The Age gives details:
The 1967 Referendum was a monumental act of Reconciliation, welcome and inclusion: Until it was snatched by Nugget Coombs and the tidal-wave of boneheaded narcissitic Leftist baby-boomers who then subjected these poor people to decades of “Noble Savage” delusion.
Will they apologize? Tragically, of course not.
Mark
As a document worthy of serious policy attention the Bringing Home Report should never have been realeased. I am appalled that a social scientist such as yourself, who ordinarily will shout his disgust at sloppy biased methodology can laud this piece of garbage.
There is only one interpretation. You are a racist.
John, if you’re suffering from exam stress, you should seek more socially acceptable means of reducing your stress levels than hurling nasty epithets at people.
Just sayin…
Haha…. The Bringing Them Home report is on a par with the Lancet casualty report for Iraq, haha… it defies belief that people can accept such crap with such a lower standard of evidence.
Perhaps “Fake but accurate”?
All that was posted was a link. Take it round to Andrew Bartlett’s place where there’s substantive discussion of the report if you want to stoush about it.
Thanks, Kim.
New Scientist this week (an English Magazine) had an editorial about the 1967 referendum and angry about the lack of progress on aboriginal health here,, and an interview here. Unfortunately you only get the first few paragraphs of the story unless you are a subscriber, or buy the mag in a newsagent.
A snippet from the editorial
And just how do these pommy know-it-alls suggest aboriginal health be fixed?
It is not possible to throw any more money at aboriginal health.
Yeah? Less money is being spent on the latest initiative than the government’s citizenship test.
There’s a bit of an irony there!
I’m sorry, I’m going to close this thread for now as I really don’t want to get into issues.