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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 7 Hansard (4 June) . . Page.. 1854 ..

MS GALLAGHER (continuing):

This incident in Australia's history is not well known, yet it is part of an overtly racist legacy that we have only recently begun to deal with. If we are ever to truly move on from this attitude and create a new history of equality for the coming generations, we as a nation and a community must accept that these disappointing and petty points in history are part of our common story.

We cannot celebrate 101 years of federation without also acknowledging that for some in our community that history was one of denial and struggle. So while we celebrate 40 years of indigenous suffrage, we must also remember the struggle that led up to it and how relatively recently it was.

Clearly, the attitudes of the 1902 government did not prevail, and the 1940s saw a shift in the attitudes of white Australians towards indigenous Australians, with various lobby groups taking up the cause of indigenous suffrage. In fact, under the lobbying of William Cooper, a prominent indigenous activist and founder of the Australian Aborigines League, together with the National Missionary Council of Australia, the Sunday before Australia Day in January 1940 became the first day of mourning, Aboriginal Sunday.

In 1949 the Chifley Labor government amended the Commonwealth Electoral Act to specifically extend the vote to Aboriginal people who were entitled to a state vote or who had served in the armed forces. While this was a major improvement, it did not extend the vote to all indigenous people, especially those in Queensland and Western Australia.

The 1960s saw even more vocal opposition to racial inequality. And as race issues in the United States and South Africa received more attention, Australia could not ignore the appalling treatment of indigenous people in their own country.

So in 1962 the Commonwealth Electoral Act was amended to grant universal suffrage to indigenous Australians, and the new act commenced on 18 June 1962. We may all breathe a collective sigh of relief that we were able to finally deliver to indigenous Australians the rights that had been denied to them, but there were still many necessary changes to come. The 1962 amendment made it illegal to encourage indigenous Australians to vote, so many in remote communities did not exercise their right. It was not until December that year that the first vote granted under the act was actually cast.

We must also remember that it took Queensland another three years to extend the right to vote in state elections to indigenous people. And it was two years after that, in 1967, that indigenous Australians were finally included on the census, after the biggest yes vote in any Australian referendum struck out section 127 of the Constitution.

It was not until 1984, less than 20 years ago, that enrolment and voting became compulsory for indigenous Australians, 60 years after voting was made compulsory for white Australians.

It took nine years after the 1962 amendment before an indigenous Australian sat in federal parliament and over 28 years after that before a second indigenous person was elected to the Senate. We have yet to see an indigenous member of the House of Representatives or a female indigenous federal politician, although the last Western Australian election saw Carol Martin from the Labor Party elected as the first female

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