This must be some kind of joke - it took until 1967 to give Australian Aborigines the Constitutional right Vote?
WTF?
Appalling.
No wonder it is the only referendum question ever to get such a huge level of approval at 90.7%, to very comfortably carry all the States.
It forever changed the "race card" in the Constitution, which still allows Canberra to make special laws for any race it deems fit.
Voter turn out at 93% was about standard under a compulsory voting system.
However, with the long history of the "White Australia Policy" and the inherent racism [present among all races] in Australia, there are two chances of EVER getting rid s.51(xxvi)of the Constitution - none, and Buckley's.
It will never happen.
Even getting a simple majority of the electorate is problematical, let alone carrying all the States.
By repealing s.127, it allowed Aboriginal people to be counted in the census for the purposes of drawing up electoral boundaries, effectively enshrining in the Constitution the 1962 Electoral Act that gave Aboriginies the right to vote, although Aboriginal people were not covered by the compulsory voting system until 1983!
So, for 20 years between suffrage and compulsion, no one cared if Aboriginies voted or not, despite the sterling efforts of the Labor party to bring out the "black vote" at the polls.
The other question, now forgotten, on whether to increase the number of members of the House of Representative, without increasing the number of Senators from each State, was sensibly, roundly defeated by the electorate.
More politicians? NO!
If it's not broke, don't fix it seems to be the over-arching Australian attitude.
Blundering on regardless.
And 50 years later - a goddamn half a century - the trouble continues.
TREATY, yeah.
TREATY, now.
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