Indigenous Australians' right to vote and the 1967 constitutional referendum

Neville Bonner was the first Aboriginal member of the Australian Parliament, appointed to the Senate for the Liberal Party to fill a Queensland vacancy, in 1971.

There is a common view that Indigenous Australians’ right to vote is somehow connected with the 1967 constitutional referendum. That’s not correct. The story is far longer and more complex than that. 

In the 1850s under the constitutions of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, Aboriginal men had the same right to vote as other male British subjects aged over 21. 

In 1895 South Australia became the first jurisdiction in the world to give women the vote including Aboriginal women. Then in 1896 Tasmania granted Aboriginal men the franchise.

There were countervailing pressures to these advances. .

In 1885, a law was passed in Queensland to deny Aboriginal people the right to vote. Similar legislation was later enacted by Western Australia (1893) and the Northern Territory (1922). These were the jurisdictions where the frontier was most recent, the Aboriginal proportion of the population highest. 

With Federation, the 1902 Commonwealth Franchise Act granted men and women of all states the right to vote. Indigenous people were excluded from this right unless they already had the right to vote before 1901. This Act effectively institutionalised discrimination at national level so far as the franchise was concerned. 

As had happened during the First World War, a number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders served with the Australian military. In March 1949, the right to vote in federal elections was extended to any Indigenous person who had been a member of the defence forces. 

Within the states and territories, the “Dog Collar Acts” applying in some jurisdictions affected voting. These Acts exempted Indigenous people under strict conditions from the restrictions placed upon them. Effectively, Aboriginal people had to be granted “citizenship” to be able to vote. Again, the restrictions were greatest in WA, Queensland and Northern Territory.

Finally, in 1962 following report by a House of Representatives Select Committee, legislation was passed giving all Aboriginal people the right to enrol and vote in national elections.  Enrolment was not compulsory, but voting was if enrolled.

Following this, legislation, Western Australia and the Northern Territory granted Aboriginal people the right to vote. Then, in 1965, Queensland finally extended the right to vote to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

In 1984, voting at Federal level was made compulsory for all Indigenous Australians, removing the last difference.  

Note to readers: This post was prepared as a column for the on-line edition of the Armidale Express. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020, here 2021