Celebrates development of relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians, working towards greater peace in Australia. The day marks the date of the 1967 referendum where 91% of Australians voted in favour of amending the following two sections of the Constitution:

The two provisions that were changed in the 1967 Referendum were Section 51 and Section 127.

51. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:…(xxvi) The people of any race, other than the aboriginal people in any State, for whom it is necessary to make special laws.

127. In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives should not be counted.

The words ‘… other than the aboriginal people in any State…’ were removed from section 51(xxvi), which gave the Federal Government power to make laws for Indigenous Australians, rather than Indigenous people being governed on a state-by-state basis. For example, before the ’67 Referendum, Indigenous people in NSW, Victoria and SA were able to marry freely <http://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2017/04/07/illegal-love-nt-couple-australias-richard-and-mildred-loving> and vote freely (from 1962), but those living in WA and QLD could not.

All of section 127 was removed, which meant that Indigenous people were counted along with the rest of the population in the National Census.