Gunai

From badges to ball gowns: how fashion took centre-stage in the 1967 and 2023 referendums

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, September 5, 2023
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A South Sea Islander/Scottish Indian woman, Bandler played a lead role in the 1967 referendum campaign.

Key Points: 
  • A South Sea Islander/Scottish Indian woman, Bandler played a lead role in the 1967 referendum campaign.
  • She described wearing white day gloves when campaigning and speaking to non-Indigenous audiences:
    I used to wear short white gloves.
  • They were acceptable to the white community I came in contact with when I was campaigning for black women’s rights.
  • It is a far cry from the overt – and often casual – ways fashion is being used in the 2023 referendum campaign.

Subtle style

    • First Nations women, and particularly older women were often the voice of the 1967 referendum, and appearances were important.
    • Older women wore their Sunday best: dresses with hats, skirts with jacket sets or casual pencil skirts with dressy turtlenecks, and small and subtle jewellery.

The iconic badges

    • Jackie Huggins (Bidjara and Birri Gubba Juru) remembers, as an 11-year-old, handing out badges to promote the campaign.
    • In the late 1800s, some First Nations people wore temperance badges as a pledge of abstinence from alcohol.
    • Returned & Services League and Mothers Mourners badges were significant for First Nations people who served or lost family members in war.
    • Other badges worn by the 1960s First Nations rights groups featured boomerang shapes and circular Aboriginal rights designs.

Referendum fashion today

    • Fashion is again playing a role in the 2023 referendum.
    • Today, clothes are brighter and more casual.
    • First Nations designers and artists have shaped textiles and fashion over the decades.
    • The fashions of the 2023 referendum are very different from 1967.

A divided Australia will soon vote on the most significant referendum on Indigenous rights in 50 years

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, August 30, 2023
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Today, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced an October 14 date for a national referendum on whether to amend the Constitution to establish a new advisory body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Key Points: 
  • Today, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced an October 14 date for a national referendum on whether to amend the Constitution to establish a new advisory body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
  • The Voice to Parliament has been toted as a vital step toward redressing Australia’s painful history of discrimination against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
  • This is why a referendum is needed – and why this particular one has been so fiercely debated for years.

Decades of efforts toward equality

    • Only eight out of 44 previous referendums have passed in the country’s history.
    • The last time Australia voted on a referendum dealing with Indigenous affairs was in 1967.
    • But what it can tell us about 2023 is complicated

      The referendum passed by a huge margin.

    • This act prohibits discrimination in employment, housing and access to public facilities, such as swimming pools, cinemas and shops.

The “yes” and “no” campaigns

    • The “yes” campaign has declared it’s time for change, emphasising how governments have consistently failed First Nations communities across the country.
    • They say better policy decisions result from local communities being heard on matters that affect them.
    • Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe, a DjabWurrung, Gunnai and Gunditjmara woman, has argued the Voice is a powerless advisory body.

The significance of the vote

    • Internationally, other countries have attempted to create improved political participation and government accountability for Indigenous peoples.
    • In New Zealand, for example, there is designated Māori representation in the parliament.
    • In Canada, First Nations people have both “first-contact” treaties that were negotiated upon European arrival, as well as modern treaties.