50 years since referendum

Cherbourg elders reflect on how life has changed for indigenous Australia since 1967

LOOKING BACK: A campaign poster for the 1967 referendum. Picture: National Museum of Australia

IT'S been 50 years since Australia voted to change the Australian Constitution and the nation still has a way to go with closing the gap.

Zona Hussey-Smith, Cherbourg resident and Reconciliation Fun Run organiser, was 18 in 1967.

She said although she couldn't vote at the time, she remembers an exciting feeling across Australia.

"I think generally across Australia it was very exciting. (The Australian Constitution) was shockingly worded,” she said.

"More than 90% of the country voted to be brought up on even footing and that in itself says so much.

"There were so many people around the country, indigenous and non-indigenous, who were really excited about the referendum and what it meant for our people and the First Nations people being recognised as an important part of our society, nation and culture.”

Aunty Lillian Gray was 20 at the time but didn't think much about the referendum.

"I didn't really think about it much,” she said.

She is focused on what still needs to happen for equality of all Australians.

"I would like to see more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Parliament,” she said.

"We still have an alcohol ban in our community and I'd like to see that changed.”

Aunty Lillian said there had been noticeable changes in her home town in the past 50 years.

"There's a great change in Cherbourg, it's a wonderful place to live,” she said.

"I've lived back here for 21 years, I don't think I'd live anyone else. We've got the TAFE, school, hospital and it's a lovely place to go and play football.”

According to Cherbourg Memory, in the 1960s Cherbourg was surrounded by towns and country where paternalism and often racism was the order of the day.

The 1967 referendum was the symbol of a new era for Aboriginal people.

After the referendum passed, integration took many forms.

Some people could leave the settlement to live in housing commission estates elsewhere.

The government still controlled people's wages, the dormitory system was still in place and housing and services were still inferior to the rest of Queensland.

Education was still a path to a life of service.

The first Cherbourg Community Council was appointed in 1966 and was appointed by the State Government.

A cash economy was introduced and in 1968 rations stopped.

It was still decades before the people of Cherbourg would be in control of their lives.

A renewed call for the Constitution to be changed to recognise indigenous Australians was started in 2011.

For more information go to www.recognise.com.au.

What changed in the referendum

ON MAY 27, 1967, a federal referendum was held to decide whether two references in the Australian Constitution which discriminated against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders should be removed.

The sections of the constitution 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...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 aboriginal people in any state' in section 51 and the whole of section 127 were removed with a 'yes' vote of 90.77% voting for change.

This meant that indigenous Australians would now be counted in the census and gave the Australian Government the power to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Before 1967 indigenous Australians did not have the right to vote in state elections, marry whomever they chose, move anywhere and own property, be the legal guardian of their own children, receive the same pay for the same work or drink alcohol.