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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 7 Hansard (4 June) . . Page.. 1856 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

refer to in a moment could be said to have dangerously racist undertones and was preventative of any measures to encourage participation and education of indigenous people in their right to vote.

The provision I refer to is a provision in the 1962 act which made it both voluntary for Aboriginal people to vote if they wished to but also illegal for a person to encourage an Aboriginal person to enrol to vote. Encouragement to do so, be it by an advertising campaign or running around and saying to people, "Why don't you register to vote?" would have been considered illegal and would have made people subject to prosecution. Whatever rights were being extended at that time were being extended rather cautiously and subject to rather severe restrictions that today we would find completely unacceptable.

Two years after Queensland granted indigenous people the right to vote was the very celebrated constitutional referendum to which Ms Gallagher referred, a referendum which was overwhelmingly supported by the Australian people, which gave indigenous Australians the right to be included in the census and removed restrictions on the Commonwealth from legislating specifically for the interests of this community. Section 51 of the Constitution previously read:

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to ...

(xxvi.) The people of any race, other than the aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws.

The effect of the 1967 referendum was to strike out the words "other than the aboriginal race in any State". It then meant the Commonwealth had the power to legislate with respect to Aboriginal people.

I do not think the Commonwealth has exercised the power-at least not in recent years-to legislate for any other race. The idea of legislating for particular races is an idea which I suspect today would be abhorrent. But the power to legislate for Aboriginal people is a power which has been taken up and used many times by the Commonwealth, including in recent years to legislate with respect to native title.

The 1967 referendum was perhaps the most significant measure taken in the last 40 years to enhance the social position and the political rights of Aboriginal people, and much of the progress made in addressing the needs of Aboriginal people in the last 30 years or so has been a flow-on from the recognition the Australian community gave in 1967 with that very significant referendum result.

Mr Speaker, I had a search done of the ATSIC website to see what indication there was of celebrations of the 1962 anniversary. Although it provided details of the 30th anniversary celebration of the 1967 referendum, there was no mention of the 1962 vote, which is perhaps a matter ATSIC needs to look at, since it is a matter of great significance that perhaps they have overlooked.

It was not until some years later that provision was made for it to be compulsory for Aboriginal people, as for every other Australians, to vote in federal elections. It was not until 1984 that compulsory voting was finally introduced in respect of all Australians.

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