Week 8: Constitutional Recognition

"Our Constitution was written more than a century ago. By then, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples had lived in this land for more than 40,000 years, keeping alive the world’s oldest continuous cultures. But Australia’s founding document did not recognise the first chapter of our national story.

It mentioned Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples only to discriminate. For the first six decades of our democracy, Indigenous Australians could not vote, and were excluded from being counted as citizens until 1967.

Today Australia prides itself on being a place of fairness. But our Constitution still does not recognise the first Australians. And it still lets the States ban people from voting based on their race.

We need to fix this, and bring the country together after so many chapters apart. It is the next step in reconciling our past. And it’s the right thing to do."

[Source: Recognise Why Page]

At our AIME mentoring session last week, we examined the Australian Constitution and the kids wrote their own constitutions based on personal values. Through this we were introduced to the Recognise campaign which is an organisation working for recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the constitution. Though I was vaguely aware that there are inadequacies and discrepancies in the Australian Constitution, it was great to finally realise exactly what it says and why this should be changed. The proposals made by Recognise are as follows:

• Remove Section 25 – which says the States can ban people from voting based on their race;
• Remove section 51(xxvi) – which can be used to pass laws that discriminate against people based on their race;
• Insert a new section 51A - to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and to preserve the Australian Government’s ability to pass laws for the benefit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
• Insert a new section 116A, banning racial discrimination by government; and
• Insert a new section 127A, recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages were this country’s first tongues, while confirming that English is Australia’s national language.

[Source: Recognise What Is Proposed Page]

I see no problem whatsoever with making these changes to the Constitution and I think they are a high priority for the agenda of the Australian government. It extremely irritates me that our national anthem purports we are a welcoming, fair and just nation, and yet our most official and important document in the country fails to properly acknowledge the custodianship of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders AND still allows the discrimination of people from voting based on race. These proposals were made in January 2012, so the time delays are equally frustrating.