Looking Forward, Looking Back

Freedom Ride and the ‘67 Referendum

Kate Galloway

A question of perspective

Discovery Exploration Pastoralism Federation

Invasion Dispossession Genocide Protectionis

m

ANZAC Post-war boom

Counter culture

Equality?

Assimilation Welfare

Reconciliation?

Discrimination?

Law can oppress

Sovereignty [terra nullius]

Land title [Cooper v Stuart 1889]

Aboriginal Protection…Act

1897 (Qld) [protectionism]

Election Act 1885 (Qld)

[disenfranchisement]

Aboriginal and Torres Strait

Islander Affairs Act 1965 (Qld)

[assimilation]

Law affects people

Stolen land

Stolen generation

s

Stolen wages

Genocide

Australia in the 1960s

Children seen and not heard

Women in the home

Idealised Aboriginal people

White Australia

God Save the

Queen

Other visions of the ‘60s

Missions, reserves

Albert Namatjira (1902-1959)

Burning Old Mapoon

Things were changing too…

Women’s liberation

Vietnam War

Wave Hill Walk Off

Youth culture

Sexual revolutio

n

FREEDOM RIDETime for change

An emblem

‘Barred from the baths’ | Robert Campbell Jnrhttp://treatyrepublic.net/content/freedom-riders-art-and-activism-exhibition-sydney

Freedom riders – ‘front runners’

Charlie Perkins

Jim Spigelma

n

Ann Curthoys

29 students12-26 Feb 1965

Strategies

• Fact finding• Call out racism• Media – film, reporting• Education about racism• Government could not ignore

• Foundation for campaigns to eradicate racism

We weren't all front runners like Charlie, but we needed people like that…Growing up, there were no bolts and chains on the mission or in town but there was an invisible gate that you couldn't get through and I would always think 'What did we do wrong to deserve this treatment?' The fighters like Charlie Perkins, they're the ones [who] opened the doors for us.

Elaine Russell born in Tingha near Moree

‘The news coverage punctured Australian smugness, borne of ignorance, that racism did not exist in Australia.’

National Museum Australiahttp://indigenousrights.net.au/civil_rights/freedom_ride,_1965

Capturing the imagination of the city

http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/australian-1967-referendum

THE ‘67 REFERENDUMThe next step

Momentum building…

Decades of advocacy

The 60’s vibe

Wave Hill Walk Off

Freedom Ride

The constitutional issues

• To make laws for Aboriginal people

• S51(xxvi)No cth power

• To determine representation in federal parliament

• s127

Excluded in count

for Lawyers

1. The referendum was not about citizenship2. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

Australians were not part of a ‘Flora and Fauna Act’…

Davis & Williams, Everything You Need to Know about the Referendum to Recognise Indigenous Australians (2015), 35

Myth

Busters

Two proposals

• The people of any race, other than the aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws.

Power to make laws

s51(xxvi)• Aboriginal people can be counted

to determine electorates• Census, other govt figures can

now include Aboriginal people• Re-weighted value of Aboriginal

votes

Repeal s127

Advancing the ‘yes’ case

‘A simple matter of humanity’ The Age

‘Towards equal citizenship for Aborigines’

To pass a referendum

Majority

voters

Majority

statesYES

And the winner is…

But…

Pros Cons

Success is overstated

We think we’ve ‘made it’

Misconceptions about change

Exercise existing rights

Pride

Impetus for more change

THE ROAD IS LONGLooking forward

Using the race power

Land rights

50 years after the Freedom Ride

stillStolen

generations

Still waiting for

Land rights

Still no Treaty

Still needSubstantiv

e constitutional change

Slide Image reference

5 • http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-30/boys-rented-out-for-abuse-at-salvos-boys-home/5227854

• http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/hindsight/tourism-poster-using-a-version-of-jimmy/2974292

• http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/764101/negative-state-electricity-commission-victoria-australia-circa-1920s-1960s

• http://cub.com.au/history/1960s/• http://happyandgloriousblog.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/ro

yal-images-her-majestys-australian.html

6 • https://www.library.uq.edu.au/fryer/1967_referendum/postwar2.html

• http://www.nirs.org.au/NEWS/Burning-of-Mapoon-history-preserved-in-new-centre

• http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs145.aspx

Slide Source

7 • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_Australian_Women• https://www.library.uq.edu.au/fryer/1967_referendum/labour.html• http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/objectsthroug

htime/1965-anti-vietnam-war-pendant/ photo David Mist

• http://rebloggy.com/post/lol-black-and-white-australia-fashion-music-vintage-the-beatles-landscape-histor/40638360894

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_%28musical%29

10 • http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/collections/exhibitions/freedomride/start.html Photo Wendy Watson-Ekstein

11 • http://www.abc.net.au/archives/80days/stories/2012/01/19/3414788.htm

• http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/lawyers-court-out-on-polite-justice/story-e6freuzi-1225975174282 | Jon Reid, Fairfax

• http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/ann-curthoys/2934334 |Lynne Malcolm12 • http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/collections/exhibitions/freedomride/images/map_a.jpg

Slide Source

14 http://treatyrepublic.net/content/freedom-riders-art-and-activism-exhibition-sydney

29 http://www.alc.org.au/about-nswalc/our-history.aspx | Elaine Pelot-Syron