of culture but we are committed to focussing on conserving what we have left, reviving our languages, traditional practices and beliefs for our future generations
All my early childhood memories are of watching my family and extended families work on farms and clearing land, as I got older I started work with them. To me reconciliation is about acceptance, recognition and righting wrongs, I would hope the State recognise the Aboriginal people who worked and played an important role in the State economic development and growth. Aboriginal people helped to build this economy with hard labour. The people of Western Australia need to be taught our history in schools, the truth of Wadjemups's past needs to be made available or accessible to tourists or visitors in a genuine or meaningful way. The Aboriginal burial ground remains unrecognised for more than 100 years since the QUOD ceased operating in 1903.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of a Federal referendum held on the 27 May 1967. The outcome was the removal of two references in the Australian Constitution, which discriminated against Aboriginal people, should be removed. I wish to share the following:
The sections of the Australian Constitution under scrutiny were:
51. 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 people in any State, for whom it is necessary to make special laws.
127. In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives should not be counted.
The removal of the words `… other than the aboriginal people in any State…´ in section 51(xxvi) and the whole of section 127 were considered by many to be representative of the prevailing movement for political change within Indigenous affairs. As a result of the political climate, this referendum saw the highest YES vote ever recorded in a Federal referendum, with 90.77 per cent voting for change.
The 1967 referendum did not give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples the right to vote. This right for Aboriginal people to vote had been legislated for Commonwealth elections in 1962, with the last State to provide Indigenous voting enfranchisement being Queensland in 1965.
As a result of the referendum the Commonwealth could make laws for Aboriginal people and we were finally counted in the Australian census. I believe there is still a way to go for reconciliation and that if the goodwill shown by politicians in 1967 could be replicated in terms of the rejection of proposed amendments to Native Title, the recognition of past injustices and to work with Indigenous people on programs to Closing the Gap measures we can move forward.
Finally, I thank you for this opportunity to speak today
