How Successfully Have Australian Governments Responded to Indigenous Issues Since the 1967 Referendum?

On May 27, 1967, a Referendum was conducted in Australia under the Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister, Harold Holt. The purpose of the Referendum was to gain approval from the Australian people so that alterations could be made to the constitution. These alterations would allow Aboriginal people to be included in the census, thus giving them citizenship, and to constitute laws in regards to Aboriginal people. Votes in the Referendum were 90.77% in favour of alterations. Since the historic Referendum, there have been multiple Indigenous issues that Australian governments have confronted. Many of these issues exist in contemporary Indigenous communities. Due to word limit constraints, this essay discusses only some major issues to investigate the successes and failures of Australian governments in dealing with them. The issues in discussion include: land rights, education, health and reconciliation.

There have been positive and negative aspects concerning the issue of land rights since the 1967 Referendum. In 1976 the Commonwealth government introduced the Land Rights Act in Northern Territory which transformed pre-existing Aboriginal reserves into free-hold titles. The South Australian government also followed similar legislation in 1981 and 1984. However, the most successful outcome for Aboriginal land rights was decided by the High Court in the 1992 Mabo judgement, when it ruled that Indigenous people in Murray Island are the native title holders of that area since they were able to prove that they had a continuous connection to the land, pre-dating the arrival of the first white settlers. This decision prompted the Keating government to establish the Native Title Act in 1993. This decision meant that pastoral and other leased land could also be subjected to native title claims.

The Howard government which came into power in 1996 attempted to halt the progress made on land rights. Howard passed legislation to allow the development of a project in an area in South Australia where the Ngarrindjeri people have native title claims. Also, Howard passed legislation to make alterations to the Native Title Act. The alterations set restrictions on land rights claims. Howard argued that the alterations were important to economic growth and racial equality. However, these legislations were met with strong opposition from the Labor Party and Aboriginal leaders.

There have been significant reforms in Aboriginal education since the 1967 Referendum. When Gough Whitlam came into office in 1972, major funds were allocated to education initiatives for Aboriginal children. The successive governments since the Whitlam government have focused on improving the education standards of Aborigines. The National Curriculum, which is being currently set up, has given special attention to the study of Aboriginal culture and history. However, despite past, present and proposed reforms to Aboriginal education, the current data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) paint a bleak picture for young Aborigines. An analysis of the ABS data by Long indicated, "Young Indigenous Australians are disadvantaged compared with non-Indigenous Australians across most measures of participation in employment and education attainment"

There have been minimal improvements to the health of the Indigenous people compared with non-Indigenous people in Australia since the late 1960s'. The Aborigines suffer from many