This yr’s referendum will not be the primary time constitutional provisions for First Nations peoples have been proposed. What classes will be learnt from 1967?
The 2023 Voice referendum will mark the third try to change constitutional provisions for First Nations peoples. The primary try, in 1944, was a part of a proposed sweeping extension of Commonwealth powers and failed.
The second, in 1967, proposed two modifications:
- to repeal Part 127, which excluded “aboriginal natives” from the “reckoning the numbers of the folks of the Commonwealth”;
- to alter Part 51 (xxvi), the ability to make “particular legal guidelines” for “the folks of any race, apart from the aboriginal race”, by eradicating the exclusion of “aboriginal race”.
These two provisions had been included within the structure, drafted within the Eighteen Nineties, as a result of it was assumed that Aboriginal folks would “die out” and therefore could be of no curiosity to the nationwide Parliament. A race energy was required solely to manage the non-European “races” who had gained residence previous to Federation.
Learn extra about historic approaches to First Nations rights…
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