Your Say: the 1967 Referendum
From Gary Pead
It should be remembered in Referendum Week that in 1967 Territorians (ie, citizens of the Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory and Jervis Bay) along with Aboriginal people were also not full citizens. Only after the 1967 Referendum were they also accorded the full right of a citizen to vote in referendums.
The Canberra constitutional elected representative for the people of Canberra was my father Jim Pead MBE (late Gold Coast resident of Broadbeach).
It is embarrassing to those of us who care that that full citizenship recognition for white Australians was fixed so quickly in 1967and yet the non-inclusive constitutional recognition of First Australians remains un-fixed.
Particularly galling is the almost complete ignorance of Indigenous Gold Coast stories which should be the told as an integral part of the developed tourism package. What a pity such inclusive vision is blocked by a high-rise building or a cruise ship.
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3 comments
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John Ward -
Geoff Andrews -
Freethinker
Return to home pageBilly Bat ears McMahon put the referendum question.
I was in the Territory a few years before at the time 1965, Aboriginal reservations were no go areas. No mining exploration no making deal. The aboriginal elders would not give permission to go into the reservatio. Until 1967 R-day, Within weeks PM billy
McMahon was announcing Groote Island was made entirely of Manganese and low and behold a Swiss company had permission
from our great leader to come and dig er up. Parliament Asked so whatzinitferus? The King Billy said Australians will be hired to do some of the diggi’n and refynei’n and therefore be PAYE tax payers , however its all OK since the referendum,now the natives are now citizens they will be required to accept the new rules.
Ever since I have watched Australians kid themselves that we were happy for the natives, when all we had done is expose the poor sods to the Mining ravagers of the world. Until that Eddie Mabo struck back at the Capitalist class and refuse to play fair.
John,
So that means that 90% of everyone over 70 years old now have to bear the guilt of voting “yes”? We thought it was a fair call at the time.
Ah, unintended consequences, eh?
terra nullius and 25 years on after Mabo
No much was published in the media about this apart from this article by Paul Daley.
Mabo 25 years on: let’s look at the vast, absurdist fiction this ruling toppled
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2017/jun/03/mabo-25-years-on-lets-look-at-the-vast-absurdist-fiction-this-ruling-toppled