Referendum in 1967 did two things — but Indigenous recognition wasn’t one of them

What was claimed

Indigenous peoples have been recognised in the Australian constitution since 1967.

Our verdict

False. Indigenous peoples are not mentioned in the constitution at all.

Facebook users are urging people to vote against the proposed Voice to Parliament because Indigenous peoples have been recognised in the Australian constitution since 1967. This is false. Experts told AAP FactCheck that Indigenous peoples have not been mentioned in the constitution since the referendum in 1967, and that specifically recognising them as the First Peoples of Australia in the document is unprecedented.

This Facebook post (archived here) and other posts here, here, here, here, here and here make the claim and cite it as a reason to vote No in the upcoming referendum.

“I call bulldust on the entire ad because indigenous people have been recognised in the constitution since 1967,” the first post says.

It’s unclear where the claim originates, but experts say the Australian constitution has not mentioned Indigenous Australians since 1967. That year, more than 90% of voters approved the removal of two sections of the constitution that prevented the federal government from making laws for Indigenous peoples and barred Indigenous peoples from being counted as part of the nation’s general population.

Constitutional law expert at the University of New South Wales Professor George Williams says the changes removed “negative forms of recognition” of Aboriginal peoples — which permitted adverse, differential treatment — that had existed in the constitution since 1901.

Dr Jon Piccini, a historian at the Australian Catholic University, tells AAP FactCheck in an email that 1967 was not a collective act of recognition of Indigenous peoples by voters: “But [was] in fact one of removal. It expunged all mention of First Nations peoples from the constitution.”

Professor emeritus Tim Rowse, a researcher of Australian history at Western Sydney University, says the 1967 vote wasn’t about recognising Indigenous people as the first peoples of Australia in the constitution. The removal of the mentions did result in them being “recognised” as a group for whom the federal government could make laws and as part of the national population in censuses, Rowse explains.

“Both references to Aboriginal peoples were deleted by the 1967 referendum. These negative forms of recognition were replaced with silence, meaning that there has been no recognition of any kind of Australia’s first peoples in the constitution since 1967,” he tells AAP FactCheck in an email.

But if that was the case, he says, one could argue Indigenous peoples have been either “recognised” or mentioned directly in the Australian constitution since 1901.

“There is a lot of careless talk about the constitution at the moment — some mischievous, some innocently ignorant, some making use of slippery terms like ‘recognise’,” Rowse says. “It’s a schemozzle, and the boundary between fact and bullshit is often unclear, so that removes certainty from some fact-checking, as in this case.”

However, Rowse says if the Yes vote succeeds in the referendum it would be the first time Indigenous peoples would be recognised as the “First Peoples of Australia”: “So this specific recognition (recognition as…) has no precedent, and the term ‘First Nations’ was undreamt of in 1967.”

The verdict

The claim that Indigenous peoples have been recognised in the Australian constitution since 1967 is false. Experts tell AAP FactCheck that the only two mentions of Indigenous peoples were removed after the 1967 referendum. The vote did result in Indigenous peoples being “recognised” in certain ways, but not as Australia’s First Peoples in the constitution.

False — the claim is inaccurate.

AAP FactCheck is an accredited member of the International Fact-Checking Network. To keep up with our latest fact checks, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.