Timeframe: Australia's 1967 Referendum

FAITH BANDLER: You see, before the referendum if you were a person of Aboriginal descent you lived under six laws. There was a law in each state and each one differed. And you didn't know what the rules were when you moved from one state to another. You could land in jail, as many did, as many did. There was never… When we begged for new houses they'd say, 'There's no money. We're dependant on the Commonwealth'. And it was vitally important to have that referendum to force the commonwealth government to be responsible for the Aboriginal people because only the commonwealth had the necessary resources for education, for housing, for health. Well, here is the draft petition written in Jessie Street's own handwriting. Now I see in this petition the beginning of a great change for the Aboriginal people. And Jessie was one who believed in changing laws when anything had to do with human rights. And so she drafted this petition. She'd examined the Federal Constitution and she had picked up the two sections that discriminated against the Aboriginal people. And as Jessie always said, it had nothing to do with voting. It had to do with getting federal resources available to lift the people out of their misery. And she said, 'Well, you go off and get that referendum now'. (Laughs) I shall always remember that. I came into this chamber on quite a number of occasions. Many occasions. I would come down to Canberra from Sydney to do some work in Gordon Bryant's office. And he would let me use his telephone. And it was cheaper for me to get the plane and come down here and ring around Australia and rally the forces from Gordon's office than it would be for me to use my own phone at home. So for ten years this went on. We only had to get 100,000 signatures, but we got ten times that over. And we kept getting the federal members to present our petition, to present it, to keep it going. You see, the presentation of the petition was highly organised and we had experts working on it. And the idea was that, as the petitions came in, we had to make sure that one member presented a petition every day while the house was sitting. And so this went on, you know, for a few years. They'd open with a prayer and the speaker would call and say, 'Are there any petitions?' and up would pop our petition from someone, some member. And he said to me, 'Your petition now has taken the place of our prayer'. (Laughs happily) It was hard work.

AMERICAN REPORTER: This is Bowraville, 360 miles north of Sydney, population about 1,000 people.

MAN: Well, they get a better bloody deal than we're getting, see? They can go up to the post office or the police station, they can get a handout where we can't and we've got to work hard.

WOMAN: They definitely should have their rights.

REPORTER: Do you think the Aboriginal behave well out here?

WOMAN 2: I do think the Aboriginals behave well. I think they have the right to have an education, the same as any other Australian. After all, they are Australians and we are supposed to have education and all the facilities in Australia and I think they should have it.

REPORTER: And are Aboriginals allowed to go into the theatre?

GIRL: Yes, they go in via that door over there.

REPORTER: And sit in a separate section?

GIRL: Yes.

FAITH BANDLER: The referendum is on Saturday and it's important that we should have the maximum vote because the eyes of the world are on Australia. They're waiting to see whether or not the white Australian will take with him as one people the dark Australian. It seems to us that the time is long overdue and we hope that the Australian people will by all means rally on Saturday and do their job.

FAITH BANDLER: It was such a wonderful thing. You know, in the end, this tiny little handful of people, practically penniless, achieved in getting 90.2% of the voting population of Australia to vote in favour of the change we required. So we went mad with excitement, I cannot tell you.