AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES

Press, Volume C, Issue 29651, 23 October 1961, Page 18

AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES

Voting Rights Recommended (NZPA-Reuler-CopvAphtl CANBERRA. Oct 20. An all-party committee of the Federal Parliament has urged that Australian aborigines be given the right to vote at Federal elections. The committee, tn a report to Parliament, Mid it found that about 30.000 aborigines or part aborigines were not permitted to vote at present. The vote should be extended to “all Australian aborigines and Torres Strait islanders of voting age. who are subjects of the Queen, living permanently within the limits of the Commonwealth," the committee commendedThe all-party committee recently toured many parts of Australia investigating aborigines’ problems. It urged that, for the present, enrolment be voluntary, but when enrolment is granted, compulsory voting be enforced, as for the rest of the Australian, electorate. It adopted its recommendations “because any other basis of franchise would either discriminate on the ground of race, or penalise for lack of opportunity,” the committee Mid. • Australia’s aborigines supply a great part of the labour on outback cattle and sheep stations, but many of them still follow a hunting or semihun ting existence.