The referendum of 27 May 1967 allowed my people to be counted as citizens of our own country. Prior to that we were listed as 'fauna', as 'vermin' to be dealt with. In global terms the event, it is said, that people most remember is what they were doing when JFK was assasinated. For my people it is our response to the results of that referendum. I remember my Elders crying and crying and myself with them. We did not think the Australian people cared. I remember, and I was a very young woman then who did not know much, that I was so happy because I KNEW that whatever my children, born and unborn, had to go through, it would never be as bad as what my Grandmother, Mother and myself had grown up with. There is nothing worse than living in the shadow at the edge of human as rats in the drain. Tomorrow it will be 40 years since that referendum was passed. So.......can you raise your glasses with me? And here's to 40 years on, when there are other fights and other horrors but none as bad as that.

This referendum approved two amendments to the Australian constitution relating to Indigenous Australians. Technically it was a vote on the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginals) 1967, which after being approved in the referendum became law on the 10th August of the same year.
The amendment was overwhelmingly endorsed, winning over 90 per cent of voters and carrying all six states. It was put to the electorate on the same day as a referendum on the composition of parliament, which was rejected.
The referendum removed two sections from the Constitution.
The first was a phrase in Section 51 (xxvi) which stated that the Federal Government had the power to make laws with respect to "the people of any race, other than the Aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws." (This is known as the "race power.") The referendum removed the phrase "other than the Aboriginal race in any State," giving the Commonwealth the power to make laws specifically to benefit Aboriginal people.
The second was Section 127, which said: "In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, Aboriginal natives shall not be counted." The referendum deleted this section from the Constitution. This section should be read in conjunction with Section 24 and Section 51(xi). The section related to calculating the population of the states and territories for the purpose of allocating seats in Parliament and per capita Commonwealth grants. The context of its introduction was prevent Queensland and Western Australia using their large Aboriginal populations to gain extra seats or extra funds. The 'statistics' power in Section 51(xi) allowed the Commonwealth to collect information on Aboriginal people.