Civil rights for all Australians

Indigenous people

The 1960s was a key decade for indigenous rights. In 1962, the Menzies Government's Commonwealth Electoral Act provided that all Indigenous people should have the right to enrol and vote at federal elections (prior to this, indigenous people in Queensland, Western Australia and "wards of the state" in the Northern Territory had been excluded from voting unless they were ex-servicemen). In 1965, Queensland became the last state to confer state voting rights on Aboriginal people.[384][385]

A 1967 Referendum called by the Holt Government saw Australians vote by a 90 per cent majority to change the Australian constitution to include all Aborigines in the national census and allow the Federal parliament to legislate on their behalf.[386] A Council for Aboriginal Affairs was established.[387]

Indigenous Australians began to take up representation in Australian parliaments. In 1971, the Liberal Neville Bonner was appointed to the Senate, becoming the first Aborigine in Federal Parliament. Bonner remained in the Senate until 1983.[67] Hyacinth Tungutalum of the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory and Eric Deeral of the National Party of Queensland, became the first Indigenous people elected to territory and state legislatures in 1974. In 1976, Sir Douglas Nicholls was appointed Governor of South Australia, becoming the first Aborigine to hold vice-regal office in Australia. No indigenous person was elected to the House of Representatives, until West Australian Liberal Ken Wyatt, in August 2010.[67]

Various groups and individuals were active in the pursuit of indigenous rights from the 1960s. One of the earliest Aboriginal graduates from the University of Sydney, Charles Perkins, helped organise freedom rides into parts of Australia to expose discrimination and inequality. In 1966, the Gurindji people of Wave Hill station commenced the Gurindji strike in a quest for equal pay and recognition of land rights.[388]

One of the first acts of the Whitlam Government was to establish a Royal Commission into land rights in the Northern Territory under Justice Woodward.[389] Legislation based on its findings was passed into law by the Fraser Government in 1976, as the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976.

In 1992, the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in the Mabo Case, overturning the legal concept of terra nullius. That same year, Prime Minister Paul Keating said in his Redfern Park Speech that European settlers were responsible for the difficulties Australian Aboriginal communities continued to face: 'We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practiced discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice'. In 1999 Parliament passed a Motion of Reconciliation drafted by Prime Minister John Howard and Aboriginal Senator Aden Ridgeway naming mistreatment of Indigenous Australians as the most "blemished chapter in our national history".[390] In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a public apology to members of the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Australian Government.

Australia administered Papua New Guinea and Nauru for much of the 20th century. Papua and New Guinea adopted self-government in 1972 and on 15 September 1975, the Territory became the independent nation of Papua New Guinea.[391][392] Australia had captured the island of Nauru from the German Empire in 1914. After Japanese occupation during World War II, it became a UN Trust Territory under Australia and remained so until achieving independence in 1968.[393]

WomenIn 1974, the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration granted women the full adult wage. However, resistance to women being employed in certain industries remained until well into the 1970s. Because of obstruction from elements of the Unions movement, it would take until 1975 for women to be admitted as drivers on Melbourne's trams, and Sir Reginald Ansett refused to allow women to train as pilots as late as 1979.[394]

Australia had led the world in bringing women's suffrage rights during the late 19th century, and Edith Cowan was elected to the West Australian Legislative Assembly in 1921. Dame Enid Lyons, was the first woman to hold a Cabinet post in the 1949 ministry of Robert Menzies and finally, Rosemary Follett was elected Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory in 1989, becoming the first woman elected to lead a state or territory. By 2010, the people of Australia's oldest city, Sydney had female leaders occupying every major political office above them, with Clover Moore as Lord Mayor, Kristina Keneally as Premier of New South Wales, Marie Bashir as Governor of New South Wales, Julia Gillard as Prime Minister, Quentin Bryce as Governor-General of Australia and Elizabeth II as Queen of Australia.[395]

Whitlam and Fraser
Malcolm Fraser and US President Jimmy Carter (1977).Elected in December 1972 after 23 years in opposition, Labor won office under Gough Whitlam, introducing a significant program of social change and reform and dramatically expanding the Federal budget. Within a few weeks the last military advisors in Vietnam were recalled, and national service ended. The People's Republic of China was recognised (Whitlam had visited China while Opposition Leader in 1971) and the embassy in Taiwan closed.[396][397] Over the next few years, university fees were abolished and a national health care scheme established. Significant changes were made to school funding.[398]

The Whitlam government's agenda endeared it to some Australians, but not all. Some of the state governments were openly hostile to it, and as it did not control the senate, much of its legislation was rejected or amended. The Queensland Country Party government of Joh Bjelke-Petersen had particularly bad relations with the Federal government. Even after it was re-elected at elections in May 1974, the Senate remained an obstacle to its political agenda. At the only joint sitting of parliament, in August 1974, six keys pieces of legislation were passed.

In 1974, Whitlam selected John Kerr, a former member of the Labor Party and presiding Chief Justice of New South Wales to serve as Governor-General. The Whitlam Government was re-elected with a decreased majority in the lower house in the 1974 Election. In 1974–75 the government thought about borrowing US$4 billion in foreign loans. Minister Rex Connor conducted secret discussions with a loan broker from Pakistan, and the Treasurer, Jim Cairns, misled parliament over the issue.[399] Arguing the government was incompetent following the Loans Affair, the opposition Liberal-Country Party Coalition delayed passage of the government's money bills in the Senate, until the government would promise a new election. Whitlam refused, Malcolm Fraser, leader of the Opposition insisted. The deadlock ended when the Whitlam government was dismissed by the Governor-General, John Kerr on 11 November 1975 and Fraser was installed as caretaker Prime Minister, pending an election. The "reserve powers" granted to the Governor-General by the Australian Constitution, had allowed an elected government to be dismissed without warning by a representative of the Monarch.[400]

At elections held in late 1975, Malcolm Fraser and the Coalition were elected in a landslide victory.

The Fraser Government won two subsequent elections. Fraser maintained some of the social reforms of the Whitlam era, while seeking increased fiscal restraint. His government included the first Aboriginal federal parliamentarian, Neville Bonner, and in 1976, Parliament passed the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976, which, while limited to the Northern Territory, affirmed "inalienable" freehold title to some traditional lands. Fraser established the multicultural broadcaster SBS, welcomed Vietnamese boat people refugees, opposed minority white rule in Apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia and opposed Soviet expansionism. A significant program of economic reform however was not pursued and, by 1983, the Australian economy was in recession, amidst the effects of a severe drought. Fraser had promoted "states' rights" and his government refused to use Commonwealth powers to stop the construction of the Franklin Dam in Tasmania in 1982.[401] A Liberal minister, Don Chipp had split off from the party to form a new social liberal party, the Australian Democrats in 1977 and the Franklin Dam proposal contributed to the emergence of an influential Environmental movement in Australia, with branches including the Australian Greens, a political party which later emerged out of Tasmania to pursue environmentalism as well as left-wing social and economic policies.[402]

Hawke and Keating: 1983–1996
The new Parliament House in Canberra was opened in 1988.Bob Hawke, a less polarising Labor leader than Whitlam, defeated Fraser at the 1983 Election. Hawke retained office until a 1991 Labor Party spill saw him replaced by Paul Keating.

The new government stopped the Franklin Dam project via the High Court of Australia. Hawke, together with treasurer Paul Keating broke with the Keynesian economics that had traditionally been favoured by the Labor party.[403] Instead they sought a more efficient economy and undertook micro-economic and industrial relations reform designed to increase efficiency and competitiveness. Kelly concludes that, "In the 1980s both Labor and non-Labor underwent internal philosophical revolutions to support a new set of ideas—faith in markets, deregulation, a reduced role for government, low protection and the creation of a new cooperative enterprise culture."[404]

The Australian Bicentenary was celebrated in 1988 along with the opening of a new Parliament House in Canberra.

Hawke and Keating stressed the positive role Australia could play as an activist and independent "middle power." [405] A supporter of the US alliance, Hawke committed Australian naval forces to the Gulf War, following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. After four successful elections, but amid a deteriorating Australian economy and rising unemployment, the intense rivalry between Hawke and Keating led the Labor Party to replace Hawke as leader and Paul Keating became Prime Minister in 1991.[406]

During his time in office, Keating emphasised links to the Asia Pacific region, co-operating closely with the Indonesian President, Suharto, and campaigned to increase the role of APEC as a major forum for economic co-operation. Keating was active in indigenous affairs and the High Court of Australia's historic Mabo decision in 1992 required a legislative response to recognition of Indigenous title to land, culminating in the Native Title Act 1993 and the Land Fund Act 1994. In 1993, Keating established a Republic Advisory Committee, to examine options for Australia becoming a republic.[407]

The Monarchy in Australia survived the republic debate which was brought to a head at the close of the 20th century, with the successor Howard Government holding a 1998 Constitutional Convention to discuss the change. A subsequent referendum to establish a republic failed to achieve the required dual majorities, with the No case triumphant winning with 54.87 per cent of the popular vote and 6–0 in the state count.

EconomyHawke and Keating abandoned traditional Labor support for tariffs to protect industry and jobs. They moved to deregulate Australia's financial system and 'floated' the Australian dollar.[406] After the initial failure of the Whitlam model and partial dismantling under Fraser, Hawke re-established a new, universal system of health insurance called Medicare.[408]

Unemployment reached 11.4 per cent in 1992—the highest since the Great Depression. The Liberal-National Opposition had proposed an ambitious plan of economic reform to take to the 1993 Election, including the introduction of a Goods and Services Tax. Keating shuffled treasurers, campaigned strongly against the tax, and won the 1993 Election.

With foreign debt, interest rates and unemployment still high, and after a series of ministerial resignations, Keating lost the 1996 Election to the Liberals' John Howard.[407]

Howard government: 1996–2007John Howard with a Liberal–National Party coalition served as Prime Minister from 1996 until 2007, the second-longest prime ministerial term after Menzies. One of the first programs instigated by the Howard government was a nationwide gun control scheme, following a mass shooting at Port Arthur. The government also introduced industrial relations reforms, particularly as regards efficiency on the waterfront. After the 1996 election, Howard and treasurer Peter Costello proposed a Goods and Services Tax (GST) which they successfully took to the electorate in 1998.

Australia hosted the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney to great international acclaim. The Opening Ceremony featured a host of iconic Australian imagery and history and the flame ceremony honoured women athletes, including swimmer Dawn Fraser, with Aboriginal runner Cathy Freeman lighting the Olympic Flame.

Foreign policy
Aboriginal dancers perform at the 2000 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Sydney.In 1999, Australia led a United Nations force into East Timor to help establish democracy and independence for that nation, following political violence.[409] Australia committed to a number of other peacekeeping and stabilisation operations: notably in Bougainville, including Operation Bel Isi (1998–2003); as well as Operation Helpem Fren and the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) in the early 2000s; and the 2006 East Timorese crisis[410]

The Howard government expanded immigration overall but instituted often controversial tough immigration laws to discourage unauthorised arrivals of boat people. While Howard was a strong supporter of traditional links to the Commonwealth and to the United States alliance, trade with Asia, particularly China, continued to increase dramatically, and Australia enjoyed an extended period of prosperity. Howard's term in office coincided with the 2001 11 September Terrorist Attacks. In the aftermath of this event, the government committed troops to the Afghanistan War (with bi-partisan support) and the Iraq War (meeting with the disapproval of other political parties).[409]