On the 27th of May 1967 a referendum was held on removing provisions of the Australian constitution that discriminated against Aboriginal people. Section 51 (xxvi) of the constitution enabled the Commonwealth to make laws 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.’ Australians voted on removing the reference to Aboriginal people, and on deleting section 127, which read, ‘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 deletion of section 127 ensured Aboriginal people could vote. Um, no. Aboriginal people could vote in all Australian elections by 1965. Okay, it ensured Aboriginal people were no longer excluded from the census. Aboriginal people were counted, although separately, in all Australian censuses. Australia was unashamedly racist when our constitution was developed and Britain’s six Australian colonies federated in 1901. But don’t just take my word for it, take it from our first Prime Minister, Edmund Barton. ‘There is basic inequality. I think no one wants convincing of this fact.’ In 1869, Victoria established the Board for the Protection of Aborigines, which could force Aboriginal people to relocate to designated reserves. ‘Don’t worry, it’s for your own protection.’ And control Aboriginal work and wages. ‘You work, and I’ll keep your wages.’ Protection boards were rolled out across Australia, controlling the daily lives of many Aboriginal people and restricting freedom of movement, association and marriage. And they removed Aboriginal children from their families. Today we know those children as the Stolen Generations. At Federation, it was believed Aboriginal people of mixed heritage would be assimilated into the broader population, while so called full-bloods would die out. So, little consideration was given to Aboriginal people in finalising our constitution. Section 51 (xxvi) left Aboriginal policy to the states, while section 127 was designed to prevent Queensland and Western Australia, with large Aboriginal populations, from securing more revenue and parliamentary seats. But not counting Aboriginal people under section 127 made it easier to say they didn’t count in other ways. Aboriginal people could vote in all states, except Queensland and Western Australia, but the 1902 Franchise Act denied them the federal vote. They were later excluded from receiving pensions and maternity allowances, and from officially enlisting in Australia’s armed forces. And they were commonly refused service by swimming pools, hairdressers, theatres, shops, pubs, and even churches and schools. On the 26th January 1938, Aboriginal activists held a Day of Mourning on the 150th anniversary of colonisation, and passed a resolution ‘to raise our people to full citizen status and equality within the community’. In 1956, Pearl Gibbs and Faith Bandler established the Aboriginal-Australia Fellowship. Jessie Street, a leading women’s rights and peace activist, rang Bandler one night. ‘You can’t get anywhere without a change in the constitution, and you can’t get that without a referendum. You’ll need a petition with 100,000 signatures.’ Bandler and Gibbs got moving. In 1963, the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement, provided the government with over 100,000 signatures for constitutional change. Public support for Aboriginal civil rights had been growing since 1956, when a group of Yarnangu people were found sick and malnourished, after being forced off their lands by British nuclear testing. Aboriginal Protection had been dismantled by the mid-1960s, except in Queensland, and Aboriginal people had secured federal, Northern Territory and Western Australian voting rights in 1962, and the Queensland vote in 1965. The constitutional changes put forward by Prime Minister Harold Holt in the 1967 referendum had bipartisan support. Kungarakan man Joe McGinness and Faith Bandler helped lead a Yes campaign that resulted in 90.77% of Australians voting to remove the discriminatory provisions, the largest Yes vote in Australian history, and the first time the nation came together to show overwhelming support for Indigenous people. But the way our constitution addresses Indigenous needs remains a live issue today. On the 26th of May 2017, the First Nations Constitutional Convention’s Uluru Statement from the Heart called for a First Nations voice to parliament to be enshrined in the constitution.