THIS Saturday will mark 50 years since Australians overwhelming voted to officially recognise Aboriginal people.
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On May 27, 1967 a federal referendum asked two questions – the first was about the balance of numbers in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The second asked whether two references in the Australian Constitution, which discriminated against Aboriginal people, should be removed.
At that time Australian and Torres Strait Islander people were not counted as citizens, not allowed to vote and not counted in the Census.
Many myths surround the 1967 referendum, among them are that indigenous people were given the right to vote and citizenship.
The referendum did neither of these.
The changes that occurred meant indigenous people would now be included in the census and also that the Australian Government now had the power to make laws for them.
Overwhelming Australia voted in favour of the constitutional changes with 90.77 per cent saying yes.
June 3 will also mark 25 years since the Mabo decision.
This is when six of the seven High Court judges upheld a claim by Eddie Mabo and the Meriam people that the lands of this continent were not terra nullius or ‘land belonging to no-one’ when European settlement occurred, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies says.
Also, that the Meriam people were ‘entitled as against the whole world to possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of (most of) the lands of the Murray Islands’.