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As a New Zealander, it pains me to see how Aboriginal Australians were (and still are) treated. In NZ, we're not perfect, but holy moly Australia is 50 years be

As a New Zealander, it pains me to see how Aboriginal Australians were (and still are) treated. In NZ, we're not perfect, but holy moly Australia is 50 years behind us.

foobar1962 5y ago
Aussie here (white). One of the few things I am proud of is the 1967 census when Aboriginals were given the right to vote. (I was a young child at the time and don’t remember it.) One of the challenges is that almost everything white people do to help ends up making things worse in some way.
- roenxi 5y ago
  > ... everything white people do to help ... Achieving success is a very complicated dance, where success is partly given and partly taken. Part of the problem is active malice where some parts of mainstream Australia, but another part of it is a passive malice where the people who are willing to help have cripplingly low expectations and just don't differentiate between people who are and aren't willing to help themselves. A thriving Aboriginal community isn't something that should be "achieved" by white people via their policies. The Aboriginals need to do most of the grunt work on that front.
- yesenadam 5y ago
  > the 1967 census when Aboriginals were given the right to vote I've just been reading about this—it seems that's not what it was at all. The referendum question was this: "Do you approve the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled— "An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to the People of the Aboriginal Race in any State and so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the Population"?" "Voters were asked to approve, together, changes to two provisions in the Constitution section". One was to delete the phrase in italics from the constitution: "The people of any race, other than the aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws" From Nicholls's wiki page: "The movement took 30 years to coalesce and achieve anything like its stated goal, but it soon made its focus the Constitution of Australia which, in its original form, prevented the Commonwealth from making any law that would benefit the Aboriginal people." Unbelievable! The other was to delete from the constitution the sentence "In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Australian_referendum_(Aboriginals) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Australian_referendum_(Ab...
  - foobar1962 5y ago
    A consequence of the referendum (I used the word "census in my earlier post, incorrectly) was the that the aboriginal people gained the right to vote, among other significant rights (welfare, etc). Until then they were not considered "Australians" at all.
    - yesenadam 5y ago
      "It is frequently stated that the 1967 referendum gave Aboriginal people Australian citizenship and that it gave them the right to vote in federal elections; however this is not the case."[0] "It was some five years before any real change occurred as a result of the referendum"—change thanks to Whitlam in 1972, I suppose. It seems aborigines had the right to vote since at least 1962: "The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962 received assent on 21 May 1962. It granted all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the option to enrol and vote in federal elections."[1] But the history goes much further back: "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 electorate in the world to give equal political rights to both women and men. Aboriginal women shared these rights. However, laws specifically intended to deny the vote to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were enacted by Queensland (1885), Western Australia (1893) and the Northern Territory (1922). The first federal electoral Act, the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902, 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. ... In March 1949 Prime Minister Ben Chifley introduced an amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. This extended the right to vote in federal elections to any Indigenous person who had been a member of the defence forces."[1] [0] What the referendum did not do: Give voting rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Australian_referendum_(Aboriginals)#Give_voting_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Australian_referendum_(Ab... [1] https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/indigenous-australians-right-to-vote https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/indigenous...
robbiep 5y ago
As a white Australian who grew up in a country area (close to Moree, which was the first stop of the Australian ‘Freedom Rides’) and having spent a lot of time in NZ in the last decade, it really pains me that we are so far from the level of race relations that NZ has. It truly is a blight on what is otherwise a really good country
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

As a New Zealander, it pains me to see how Aboriginal Australians were (and still are) treated. In NZ, we're not perfect, but holy moly Australia is 50 years behind us.

foobar1962 5y ago

Aussie here (white). One of the few things I am proud of is the 1967 census when Aboriginals were given the right to vote. (I was a young child at the time and don’t remember it.) One of the challenges is that almost everything white people do to help ends up making things worse in some way.

roenxi 5y ago
> ... everything white people do to help ... Achieving success is a very complicated dance, where success is partly given and partly taken. Part of the problem is active malice where some parts of mainstream Australia, but another part of it is a passive malice where the people who are willing to help have cripplingly low expectations and just don't differentiate between people who are and aren't willing to help themselves. A thriving Aboriginal community isn't something that should be "achieved" by white people via their policies. The Aboriginals need to do most of the grunt work on that front.
yesenadam 5y ago
> the 1967 census when Aboriginals were given the right to vote I've just been reading about this—it seems that's not what it was at all. The referendum question was this: "Do you approve the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled— "An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to the People of the Aboriginal Race in any State and so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the Population"?" "Voters were asked to approve, together, changes to two provisions in the Constitution section". One was to delete the phrase in italics from the constitution: "The people of any race, other than the aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws" From Nicholls's wiki page: "The movement took 30 years to coalesce and achieve anything like its stated goal, but it soon made its focus the Constitution of Australia which, in its original form, prevented the Commonwealth from making any law that would benefit the Aboriginal people." Unbelievable! The other was to delete from the constitution the sentence "In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Australian_referendum_(Aboriginals) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Australian_referendum_(Ab...
- foobar1962 5y ago
  A consequence of the referendum (I used the word "census in my earlier post, incorrectly) was the that the aboriginal people gained the right to vote, among other significant rights (welfare, etc). Until then they were not considered "Australians" at all.
  - yesenadam 5y ago
    "It is frequently stated that the 1967 referendum gave Aboriginal people Australian citizenship and that it gave them the right to vote in federal elections; however this is not the case."[0] "It was some five years before any real change occurred as a result of the referendum"—change thanks to Whitlam in 1972, I suppose. It seems aborigines had the right to vote since at least 1962: "The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962 received assent on 21 May 1962. It granted all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the option to enrol and vote in federal elections."[1] But the history goes much further back: "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 electorate in the world to give equal political rights to both women and men. Aboriginal women shared these rights. However, laws specifically intended to deny the vote to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were enacted by Queensland (1885), Western Australia (1893) and the Northern Territory (1922). The first federal electoral Act, the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902, 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. ... In March 1949 Prime Minister Ben Chifley introduced an amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. This extended the right to vote in federal elections to any Indigenous person who had been a member of the defence forces."[1] [0] What the referendum did not do: Give voting rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Australian_referendum_(Aboriginals)#Give_voting_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Australian_referendum_(Ab... [1] https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/indigenous-australians-right-to-vote https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/indigenous...

robbiep 5y ago

As a white Australian who grew up in a country area (close to Moree, which was the first stop of the Australian ‘Freedom Rides’) and having spent a lot of time in NZ in the last decade, it really pains me that we are so far from the level of race relations that NZ has. It truly is a blight on what is otherwise a really good country

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]