This Day Tonight: The 1967 Referendum

Traditionally Australian people have voted ‘No’ to changes to the Constitution. What made the 1967 Referendum so historically significant is the resounding approval of two amendments intended to benefit Australia’s Indigenous population.
This section of the Referendum was broken up into two parts, the first concerning what was called the ‘race powers’ of the Federal Government, allowing them to create laws to specifically benefit Indigenous people. The second was to delete the part of the constitution that stated that Aboriginal natives should not be counted when tallying the population, more directly affecting representation in parliament and the allocation of Commonwealth grants.
These amendments were passed with an overall ‘Yes’ vote of over 90%.
‘This Day Tonight’ focuses on certain pockets of the community who had overall voted ‘No’ to this part of the Referendum. This provides a glimpse of some of the prevailing attitudes of the time regarding the Indigenous population. The Referendum is set against a background of increased awareness of Aboriginal issues and amid demands by the Indigenous population for equal rights and recognition. The issues regarding improving living conditions for Aboriginal Australians is also discussed and considered.
The second part of the Referendum that was rejected by the Australian people was pertaining to what was called the ‘Nexus’, that would essentially link the number of representatives in each house of the Australian Federal Parliament. In looking at how people voted on the ‘Nexus’ issue, again a range of opinions were covered, providing an insight to attitudes towards politicians as well as why the amendment was rejected.
Also included in this program are the results of a student survey conducted by Swinburne Institute of Technology and some of the highlights of the 14th Annual Sydney Film Festival.