Australia Paves Way for Indigenous Rights Referendum

Sydney – Australia's parliament on Monday inaugurated and paved the way for a historic referendum on Aboriginal rights, with voters set to decide if the Indigenous population gets a dedicated voice in national policymaking. 

The Senate passed referendum legislation 52-19, allowing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to set a date for a vote, which is now expected by year's end. 

The referendum will ask Australians whether they support changing the constitution to include a "Vote for Parliament", a committee that can advise parliament on matters affecting Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

"Parliament passed this law, but it was the people who made history," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said during the press conference after the bill was passed. 

The referendum is expected to take place before the end of the year, although Aboriginal people have yet to set a date, "This is your time, your chance, your opportunity to be part of making history," he said.

Aboriginal Australians represent about 3 percent of Australia's population of nearly 26 million people, but make up more than a quarter of the incarcerated population, according to official data. Many are jailed for minor crimes.

About a third of indigenous Australians, thousands of whom were killed after the British arrived in Australia, and own land under the concept of terra nullius, the Latin legal term for "land owned by no one", live below the poverty line. 

If the referendum is passed, Aboriginal people, whose ancestors have lived on this continent for at least 60,000 years, will be recognized in the constitution for the first time.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will also have the constitutionally guaranteed right to consult the government on laws affecting their communities. 

"This is about who we are as a nation," Albanians (as Aboriginal people are known) said. 

"Now, Australians will have the opportunity to say 'yes' to reconciliation, and 'yes' to constitutional recognition of First Nation peoples." 

Opinion polls showed majority support for the so-called "Vote for Parliament" but support slipped as the debate became increasingly acrimonious. Senators who supported the bill applauded and cheered as the final numbers were read out in the chamber. 

"This is a very simple request, for us to be recognized in the constitution," Malarndirri McCarthy, an Indigenous woman and senator from the ruling Labor Party said. 

"The majority of Indigenous people want this to happen,"

Opposition leader Peter Dutton, who is from the Liberal Party, called on people to vote "no" on the referendum, saying a "yes" vote would divide the country along racial lines. 

"It will have an Orwellian effect where all Australians are equal, but some Australians are 'more equal' than others," he said earlier this year.