What was the 1967 Aboriginal referendum?

The 1967 Aboriginal referendum was a national vote held on 27 May 1967 on two proposed amendments to the Australian Constitution that specifically affected Aboriginal Australians. The referendum was carried with 90.77 per cent Yes, the highest Yes vote of any Australian referendum, and was approved in all six states.

The proposed amendments were narrow but symbolically significant. The first amendment removed words from section 51(xxvi) of the Constitution that had excluded Aboriginal people from the federal Parliament's power to make laws for 'the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws'. After the amendment, the federal Parliament could make laws specifically for Aboriginal people, a power that had previously been reserved to the states. The second amendment removed section 127 of the Constitution, which had 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'. After the amendment, Aboriginal people were counted in the census on the same basis as other Australians.

The Yes campaign was led by the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), with Faith Bandler, Jessie Street, Pearl Gibbs, Joe McGinness, and many others playing leading roles. The campaign was supported by both major political parties (the Holt Coalition government had called the referendum and the Labor opposition supported it), by trade unions, by churches, by academics, and by a broad cross-section of Australian society. The Yes case argued for symbolic recognition of Aboriginal people as full citizens. There was no organised No campaign of any substantial scale.

The 1967 referendum is widely misunderstood. It did not specifically give Aboriginal people the federal vote (which had been granted progressively between 1949 and 1962). It did not specifically give Aboriginal people citizenship (which had operated under various state and federal arrangements before 1967). What it did was remove the two specific exclusions from the Constitution and give the federal Parliament the power to make laws for Aboriginal people specifically. The symbolic importance was substantial: Aboriginal people were no longer constitutionally excluded from the Australian people. Practical consequences flowed from federal action under the new section 51(xxvi) power, including the establishment of the Council for Aboriginal Affairs in 1968, the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984. The 27 May 1967 anniversary now marks the start of National Reconciliation Week each year.