The amendments to the Constitution of Australia will allow the Aboriginal peoples to establish their own advisory committee in the Parliament with a special right to vote. This committee would advise parliamentarians on indigenous issues.
But it is reported that the committee's recommendations will not be binding.
The issue is only about establishing
a parliamentary committee for Aboriginal Australians with a special right to vote. It does not require a national referendum. Reading news headlines, I wrongly assumed that Aboriginal Australians still cannot vote in Australia. But they were enfranchised in the 1960s, influenced by the civil rights movement in the United States.
In the 1960s, influenced by the strong civil rights movements in the United States and South Africa, many changes in Aboriginal peoples' rights and treatment followed, including removal of restrictions on voting rights. In 1962, the Menzies government amended the Commonwealth Electoral Act to give Indigenous people the right to enrol and vote in Commonwealth elections irrespective of their voting rights at the state level. If they were enrolled, it was compulsory for them to vote as per non-Indigenous citizens. However, enrolment itself was not compulsory. Western Australia gave Indigenous citizens the vote in the State in the same year, and Queensland followed in 1965.
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