2. Life around the time of Federation
Aim: For students to understand what life was like for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander peoples before Federation
Key Question: Why were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people not recognised in the
Australian Constitution?
For Teachers:
The following link provides detailed information from pre-contact to 2006 about life for Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people.
www.aec.gov.au
Select Education
Select Publications
Select History of the Indigenous Vote
Key Sections on which to focus:
In the Beginning – Page 2
New People & New Laws Come to Australia – Page 3 & 4
In theory, anyone on the electoral roll before 1901 could vote in the Commonwealth elections. Hence
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women from South Australia could vote (Laura Harris page 5)
but only if they were enrolled to vote prior to 1901.
Indigenous Australians and the vote
http://www.aec.gov.au/voting/indigenous_vote/aborigin.htm
Updated: 22 December 2010
Ask Australians when Aborigines got the vote and most of them will say 1967. The referendum in that
year is remembered as marking a turning point in attitudes to Aboriginal rights. In one of the few 'yes'
votes since federation, 90.77 per cent of Australians voted to change the Constitution to allow the
Commonwealth to make laws for Aborigines and to include them in the census.
But the referendum didn't give Aborigines the right to vote. They already had it. Legally their rights go
back to colonial times. When Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia framed their
constitutions in the 1850s they gave voting rights to all male British subjects over 21, which of course
included Aboriginal men. And in 1895 when South Australia gave women the right to vote and sit in
Parliament, Aboriginal women shared the right. Only Queensland and Western Australia barred
Aborigines from voting.
Very few Aborigines knew their rights so very few voted. But some eventually did. Point McLeay, a
mission station near the mouth of the Murray, got a polling station in the 1890s. Aboriginal men and
women voted there in South Australian elections and voted for the first Commonwealth Parliament in
1901.
That first Commonwealth Parliament was elected by State voters but when it met it had to decide who
should be entitled to vote for it in future. Three groups attracted debate. Women had votes in some
States but not in others, so had Aborigines. And there were some Chinese, Indian and other non-white
people who had become permanent residents before the introduction of the White Australia immigration
policy.
The debates reflected the racist temper of the times with references to savages, slaves, cannibals,
idolaters and Aboriginal 'lubras' and 'gins'. The Senate voted to let Aborigines vote but the House of
Representatives defeated them. 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.
Section 41 said that anyone with a State vote must be allowed a Commonwealth vote. South Australia
got that clause into the Constitution to ensure that South Australian women would have Commonwealth
votes whether or not the Commonwealth Parliament decided to enfranchise all Australian women. The
Commonwealth did enfranchise all women so they did not need section 41. But that section did seem to
guarantee that, except in Queensland and Western Australia, Aborigines would be able to vote for the
Commonwealth because of their State rights.
But did it mean that? The first Solicitor-General, Sir Robert Garran, interpreted it to give Commonwealth
rights only to people who were already State voters in 1902. So no new Aboriginal voters could ever be
enrolled and, in due course, the existing ones would die out. The joint Commonwealth/State electoral
rolls adopted in the 1920s give some idea of the number of Aborigines who voted for their State
parliaments but were barred by the Commonwealth. The symbol 'o' by a name meant 'not entitled to vote
for the Commonwealth' and almost always indicated an Aborigine.
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. The magistrate ruled that section 41 meant that people who acquired State votes at any date
were entitled to a Commonwealth vote. Instead of obeying that ruling the Commonwealth passed an Act
giving all Indians the vote (there were only 2 300 of them and the immigration policy would see there
were no more) but continued to reject Aborigines and other 'coloured' applicants under its own
interpretation of section 41.
Some of the Commonwealth officials got even tougher. They came to believe that no Aborigines had
Commonwealth voting rights. Besides refusing new enrolments they began, illegally, to take away the
rights of people who had been enrolled since the first election in 1901.
It was not until the 1940s that anyone began to battle for Aborigines' political rights. Various lobby
groups took up their cause and 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. The symbol 'o' disappeared from
the electoral rolls. 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.
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. Many changes in Aborigines' rights
and treatment followed, including at long last full voting rights. The Menzies Liberal and Country Party
government gave the Commonwealth vote to all Aborigines in 1962. Western Australia gave them State
votes in the same year. Queensland followed in 1965. With that, all Aborigines had full and equal rights.
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.
There is a happy ending to this story of discrimination and neglect. The Australian Electoral Commission
is now making up for the sins of earlier generations. For a time, through its Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Electoral Information Service, it sent field workers all over Australia, especially to remote areas,
to tell people about voting and encourage them to enrol. But funding cuts have since ended that service.
At election time it cooperates with Imparja, the Aboriginal television station at Alice Springs, to broadcast
information about State and Commonwealth elections to the outback of Queensland, the Northern
Territory, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia. A mobile polling program uses
aircraft to enable remote people, black and white, to vote where they live rather than travel long
distances to polling stations in town.
There's an irony there. Some of the strongest opposition to Aboriginal rights came from the outback. But
equality with the Aborigines has brought its white settlers better electoral services than they ever
achieved on their own.
Pat Stretton is a Research Officer with the State History Centre in South Australia.
The AEC wishes to thank Pat Stretton for permission to reproduce this article on the AEC website.
Activity: In Groups consider any or all of the five images and discuss using the
questions that follow each of the works.
J. W. GILES, lithographer, Britain, 1801 – 1870, after George French ANGAS, Australia, 1822 – 1886,
‘Rapid Bay, encampment of Yankallilla blacks’, plate 39 from South Australia Illustrated, 1846-47,
published by Thomas McLean, London, lithograph, hand coloured with watercolour, on paper, 24.8 x
35.2 cm (image); South Australian Government Grant 1966, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Collection/searchResult.jsp?main=acc&accNo=667G73
South Australia was different to the other colonies in that 1/5th of available land was set aside for
Aboriginal people. In Rapid Bay Angas has given a view of Aboriginal life at the time of early contact. Not
yet displaced, they are depicted living freely as they would have at the time. A shelter, protected by
shrubs, can be seen clearly, and a fire nearby is perhaps cooking recently caught fish. A sense of
serenity is reinforced in the colours and tones used by the artist
Discuss the following questions:
1. This work displays evidence of Aboriginal People at work. What daily activities would they have
needed to undertake in order to survive?
2. List any items used by Aboriginal people that indicate contact with settlers
3. Describe what life in this area may have been like for Aboriginal people
4. Describe the mood of the groups depicted in this work
5. What can you conclude about their relative wealth in relation to the lifestyle depicted here?
S. T. GILL, Australia, 1818 – 1880, ‘Captain Davison's house "Blakiston" near Mount Barker’,1848,
Adelaide watercolour on paper, 21.3 x 33.8 cm; South Australian Government Grant 1979, Art Gallery of
South Australia, Adelaide
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Collection/searchResult.jsp?main=acc&accNo=7910HP56
By 1948, when this painting was created, the colony of South Australia was only 12 years old, but large
areas of land as far away as Mount Barker had been fenced and cultivated by settlers. In this painting we
see a two-storey house and accompanying sheds in the distance. Much of the land has been cleared
with a few gums remaining near the entrance gate and on the hills on the horizon. There are grazing
animals and a farmer ploughing the land while a settler appears to be leaning on a fence and talking with
an Aboriginal family.
Discuss the following questions:
1. Given the information above, what can you conclude about the relationship between the
Aboriginal family and the settler?
2. What is the significance of the fence in this relationship?
3. What might the settler be saying to the family?
4. The painting shows evidence of land-clearing by the early settlers. Discuss some of the
consequences of these practices on the land, native flora and fauna, and the Aboriginal people
Alexander SCHRAMM, Australia, 1813 – 1864, ‘An Aboriginal encampment, near the Adelaide
Foothills’, 1854, Adelaide, oil on canvas, 89.0 x 132.0 cm; South Australian Government Grant 1976,
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Collection/searchResult.jsp?main=acc&accNo=761HP1
Some fourteen years after the creation of the colony of South Australia, Aboriginal people had retreated
to the Adelaide Plains as they had nowhere else to go following the expansion of settlers’ farms and
townships. This large gathering of nearly eighty Aboriginal people possibly includes Aboriginal people
from other areas, all of whom had become displaced people. Groups can be seen in the foreground and
background engaged in various activities
Discuss the following questions:
1. Observe the painting closely. List any items used by the Aboriginal people that indicate contact
with settlers
2. Why do you think so many Aboriginal people were located in this area?
3. Describe what life may have been like for Aboriginal people at this time.
4. Compare it to life depicted in the earlier paintings. How has it changed?
Charles HILL, Australia, 1824 – 1915, ‘The Proclamation of South Australia 1836’, c.1856-76, Adelaide,
oil on canvas, 133.3 x 274.3 cm; Morgan Thomas Bequest Fund 1936, Art Gallery of South Australia,
Adelaide
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Collection/searchResult.jsp?main=acc&accNo=0.893
Charles Hill took twenty years to complete this painting. It shows the proclamation of South Australia by
the Colonial Secretary. Settlers and officials, many from the first boats to arrive on South Australia’s
shores observe the ceremony. Small groups of Kaurna People observe the ceremony form a distance
Interestingly, the artist depicts some of the dignitaries who were not actually present. Colonel William
Light is visible, for example, but we know he was elsewhere at the time
Discuss the following questions:
1. When shown as part of the 2012 South Australia Illustrated Colonial paining in the Land of
Promise exhibition, the ‘key’ to this painting labelled the Kaurna people as ‘Natives’.
2. How have words used to describe the Aboriginal inhabitants of Australia changed since this time?
Charles HILL, Australia, 1824 – 1915, ‘The first lesson’, 1857, Adelaide, oil on canvas, 59.0 x 48.7 cm;
Gift of Mrs I. Rusk 1966, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Collection/searchResult.jsp?main=acc&accNo=0.2097
Here the artist depicts his wife and three of his children at the doorway of their house handing an
Aboriginal woman a piece of bread lathered in dripping in what appears to be an act of human kindness.
Discuss the following questions:
1.
2.
What do you think is occurring in this painting?
What does the title say about the work?