The 1967 Referendum

Frank O'Sullivan was an Aboriginal working on a cattle station in 1899. He was allowed to vote at a state level because the Northern Territory was administered by South Australia, a state which had given Aboriginals the vote. But Frank didn't vote because he didn't know he could.

Once the Constitution came into effect in 1901 he was also allowed to vote at a federal level because he was entitled to vote at a state level. But none of this really mattered, because he didn't know.

He did find out in 1902 that he had been entitled to vote but by then it was too late, because a new law said Aboriginals could not vote at a federal level unless they had already registered.

In 1949 he heard that Aboriginals were now allowed to enrol to vote at a federal level if they were entitled to enrol to vote at a state level - or if they had served in the Defence Forces. He had kept working on the cattle station during the war because he was in an essential industry, so he couldn't use the Defence Forces angle, but he thought the state vote angle was okay. He went along to enrol and was told he could no longer enrol for South Australia as the Northern Territory was now administered by the federal government, and he dipped out again.

By 1967 he was getting a bit long in the tooth, but was pleased there might be a referendum to change the constitution to give Aboriginals the right to vote. He could have voted in the referendum but he didn't know Aboriginals had been allowed to vote at a federal level since 1962 whether they could vote at a state level or not.

I reckon if he had lived until 1983 and learned that voting was now compulsory for Aboriginals - as it had been for whitefellas since 1924 - he might have laughed. In fact, now that the government was activelyasking Aboriginals to enrol, he might wish he was still here so he could say something...