Notes

This amendment altered s. 51 (xxvi) of the Constitution and deleted s. 127.

Until 1967 the Constitution specifically denied the Commonwealth the power to enact special legislation for Aboriginal people in the States or to include them in national censuses. For many years, these provisions had been regarded as an affront to Aboriginal people, as well as a barrier to effective policy-making and administration. An attempt to alter this situation had failed with the defeat of the Powers referendum of 1944.

The 1967 alteration sought to remove these barriers from the Constitution. Despite being held at the same time as the controversialand unsuccessfulParliament referendum that dealt with the relationship between the size of the two Houses of Parliament (the nexus), the Aboriginals amendment was carried with the highest YES vote to date, 90.8 per cent. This vote was said to have reflected a general community view that this was 'a chance to make some sort of amends'.(20)

Although the Commonwealth did little in this policy area for the first five years after the amendment was passed, in time the constitutional alteration came to be seen as extremely important for Aboriginal people. Eventually there was a realisation that direct Commonwealth participation in this policy area meant much higher levels of government spending being directed towards Aboriginal affairs, as well as the possibility of overarching national legislation, such as the Native Title Act 1993.(21) A recent judgement is that the referendum was 'vitally necessary to the process of change', especially as it:

bestowed upon the Whitlam and subsequent governments the moral authority required to expand the Commonwealth's role in Aboriginal affairs and implement a major programme of reform.(22)