Coming to my Census

The Australian Census is being collected this week and it prompts me to share something my mother told me earlier this year

We had been remembering an old family friend named Hector Kinloch, who had a role in the 1967 Referendum through his work at the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

There is a widespread idea in the contemporary Australian population that notable referendum was historic for addressing racism toward the First Nations populations, and it's idea I heard more than once during the recent referendum for the Voice in 2023.

The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies website notes that "many people think that the [1967] Referendum gave Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples the right to vote, this wasn’t the case."

On 27 May 1967, Australians voted to change the Constitution so that like all other Australians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would be counted as part of the population and the Commonwealth would be able to make laws for them. A resounding 90.77 per cent said ‘Yes’ and every single state had a majority result for the ‘Yes’ vote.  It was one of the most successful national campaigns in Australia’s history.

The Wikipedia entry gives a little more detail in identifying that "Voters were asked whether to give the Commonwealth Parliament the power to make special laws for Indigenous Australians, and whether Indigenous Australians should be included in official population counts for constitutional purposes."

 

My mother told me how she heard directly from Hector how he'd asked at an ABS meeting whether the next Census would count Aboriginals and it was this decision that had prompted a referendum to include them in the Australian Constitution. 

 

This seems like one of those moments where a small decision takes on a much bigger result.

 

However, I can see that it isn't how the event is generally known. 

 

Look how a significant institution like the National Museum of Australia frames the 1967 Referendum as an outcome responding to pressure from protests:

In May 1967, after 10 years of campaigning, a referendum on the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Australian Constitution was held. The vote focused public attention on the fact that First Nations people were treated as second-class citizens. Nearly 91 per cent of Australians voted to amend the Constitution. This change meant that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would be counted as part of the population and acknowledged as equal citizens, and that the Commonwealth would be able to make laws on their behalf. 

Seeing the way facts are shaped into a narrative is one of the interesting aspects of history, but I expect there's probably a number of factors and even more characters claiming an influence. 

 

It'd be interesting to compare the questions in a Census, because I remember that in previous years there was data collected about how people use their free time. 

 

The Australia Council, I think, used that information to show more people were involved in cultural activities (as simple as reading a book) than in sporting ones (presumably going to watch a match). 

 

Something else to ponder is how the referendum of 2023 for a First Nations "voice" in Federal Parliament and the same-sex marriage plebiscite were both a result of decisions made by Prime Minister John Howard.

Under his government the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission was dissolved, which had occupied a role like that of the "voice," and the Marriage Act was amended to explicitly define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. 

 

As for Hector, I often remember him at the Friends Meeting House in Canberra as well as being elected in the first ACT Assembly elections. 

 

He was:

...a founding member (and briefly deputy leader) of the Residents Rally for Canberra, a coalition contesting the first election to the Australian Capital Territory’s Legislative Assembly in May 1989. Gaining a seat, he served in the Liberal Party-led coalition government as executive deputy to the minister for education and the arts. Budget-driven school closures prompted his resignation from this position in 1990; the government’s decision in April 1991 to proceed with a casino led to his withdrawal from the coalition.

While I can't find anything online to support Kinloch's role in the 1967 Referendum, I have no reason to doubt my mother's recollection of how he explained events and find myself more interested in learning about Hector's life.