audio courtesy of First Nations Media Australia.
Despite a concerted and ongoing effort to allow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians to have a real and significant say about their future and the survival of culture on their own country – the proposed Indigenous voice to parliament still remains in limbo !
The following information is supplied by the Australian Human Rights Commission :
Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian Constitution
The Constitution was drafted at a time when Australia was considered a land that belonged to no one before European settlement and when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were considered a ‘dying race’ not worthy of citizenship or humanity. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were excluded from the discussions about the creation of a new nation to be situated on their Ancestral lands and waters.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are not mentioned in the Constitution. The Constitution still allows racial discrimination – not just against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples but against anyone. In a 1967 referendum, over 90% of Australian voters agreed to change our Constitution to give the federal parliament the power to make laws in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and to allow for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be included in the census. But this referendum did not recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as first peoples.
“Most people have forgotten that the whole discussion at Uluru was really about the sovereign rights of Aboriginal people and how that was going to be expressed……Michaell Mansell.