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127. (repealed by referendum - 1967)
In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted.
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Section 127 warranted an entire post by itself; even though it was repealed more than 50 years ago. The referendum which repealed Section 127 did not do a whole lot in terms of actual legislative change (see below) but the referendum was very much a symbolic demonstration of solidarity, for first peoples who had been made to suffer shamefully by a history full of mistakes and deliberate knavery.
The most generous reading of Section 127 would suggest that the reason why it existed at all, was to do with the physical difficulty posed in conducting the census which was necessary to calculate the entitlements for State representation in the House under Section 24. In this reading, the reason for Section 127's existence is the practical problem of physically counting Aboriginal people across the wide expanses of nothingness, which most of the continent of Australia is. This however is way too simplistic to be sensible.
People like the Attorney-General Sir Samuel Griffith said that "the Aborigines did not count [as citizens], hence they did not need to be counted". Perhaps there was the remote possibility that if Aboriginal people were counted in the census, then they might start demanding the basic rights of citizens, such as the franchise and the right to be heard by the parliament. Given that the states had since the inception of the several Crowns in Australia, been active in the process of dispossession and extermination of Aboriginal people, then the newly minted Crown which held the personhood of the Commonwealth of Australia, was hardly likely to want to extend rights which the states in some cases, did not confer. Other provisions of the Constitution such as Section 109, explicitly state that when there is a difference between State and Federal legislation that Federal legislation overrides State legislation; which means that had those right been conferred and confirmed at Federal Law, then whatever provisions that the States has, would be rendered void. Besides which, the excuse that there would be little benefit in counting people whom the several states has already decided were lesser classes than steerage passengers, was more than enough to keep the rest of the predominantly white population happy.
How you read Section 127 is very dependent on what existed elsewhere in the Constitution. As stated, Section 24 in reckoning the number of members that each state is entitled to in the House of Representatives, needs to take a census of the population. Any statistics which are needed to calculate the numbers of population which exist, are derived from the power in Section 51(xi).
As usual money spoke for money and in the debates in the 1897–98 Federation Convention, particularly delegates from Victoria and New South Wales kicked up a stink about Queensland being entitled to extra seats and possibly extra monies from the Commonwealth purse by way of grants, if a provision like Section 127 was not included. They argued that the states with larger Aboriginal populations would be entitled to benefits and some expression albeit half-heartedly was expressed that those benefits would not flow to Aboriginal peoples.
Section 127's purpose therefore can only be taken to be the prevention of inclusion of Aboriginal people in section 24 determinations, because doing so would prevent any Indigenous populations from having any influence in determining the numbers of members of the House, as decided by the Australian Electoral Commission. The actual language of section 127 is pretty sneaky and doesn't actually include the words "statistics" or "census"; which means that the Commonwealth still retained the power to collect data on the Aboriginal populations. This combined with the specific exclusion clauses from the "race power" Section 51 meant that the actual responsibility for dealing with Aboriginal people was left to the individual states; who either ignored them or saw them as a problem or a pest.
From this side of more than 50 years after Section 127, we may be tempted to think that its repeal conferred rights upon Aboriginal peoples. It did not. It did not confer citizenship, nor the right to vote, nor necessarily an improvement in conditions, nor even any kind of recognition of any original sovereignty which was denied in the first place. Citizenship and the right to vote were largely dealt with in various acts of state parliaments by about the end of 1962. The repeal of Section 127, merely changed the terms upon which other items in the Constitution derived. Symbolically though, it was an important step towards justice; but only one step.
The difference between the repeal of Section 127 and modern attempts to make reconciliation between the Commonwealth and First Peoples, is that the 1967 Referendum encountered very little opposition, even from quarters like the IPA and other conservaterati because the repeal of Section 127 didn't radically alter the power dynamics of the nation. What is yet to come; which might result from referenda for Voice et cetera, will change the power dynamics of the country and to be honest, if First Peoples actually do get a say on what happens to them and their traditional lands, they might very well object to mining and other exploitative practices and the conservaterati certainly can not have that.
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