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Franchise Act
The 1902 Franchise Act gave women a Commonwealth vote but Aborigines and other 'coloured' people were excluded unless entitled under section 41 of the Constitution. -
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Voting in Australia
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Interpreting the Commonwealth rights
The first Solicitor-General, Sir Robert Garran, interpreted it to give Commonwealth rights only to people who were already State voters in 1902. -
Interpretation of Section 41
Garran's interpretation of section 41 was first challenged in 1924, not by an Aborigine but by an Indian who had recently been accepted to vote by Victoria but rejected by the Commonwealth. He went to court and won. -
Commonwealth officials
Some of the Commonwealth officials got even tougher. They came to believe that no Aborigines had Commonwealth voting rights. -
Act passed
In 1949 the Chifley Labor government passed an Act to confirm that all those who could vote in their States could vote for the Commonwealth. -
Voting for Aboriginals
But not much was done to publicise the change and most Aborigines, told for so long that they couldn't vote, continued to believe it. -
Australia looks at their own behaviour
In the 1960s moral outrage at the way countries like South Africa and the United States treated their black populations stirred Australians to look at their own behaviour. -
Aboriginal equal rights
Western Australia gave them State votes in the same year. Queensland followed in 1965. With that, all Aborigines had full and equal rights. -
Neville Bonner
In 1971 the Liberal Party nominated Neville Bonner to fill a vacant seat in the Senate. He was the first Aborigine to sit in any Australian Parliament.