The voting rights of Indigenous Australians became an issue from the mid-19th century, when responsible government was being granted to Britain's Australian colonies, and suffrage qualifications were being debated. The resolution of universal rights progressed into the mid-20th century.
Indigenous Australians began to acquire voting rights along with other male British adults living in the Australian colonies from the mid-19th century. In South Australia, Indigenous women also acquired the vote from 1895 onward. However, few exercised these rights. Queensland and Western Australia effectively removed voting rights for Indigenous Australians in the late-19th century.
Following Australian Federation in 1901, the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 denied Aboriginal people the right to vote at the federal level unless they were enrolled to vote in a state as at 1 January 1901. State electoral laws continued those of the colonies. From 1949, Aboriginal people could vote at the federal level if they were enfranchised under a State law or were a current or former member of the defence forces. In 1962, the Menzies government amended the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 to enable all Indigenous Australians to enrol to vote in Australian federal elections. In 1966,[1] Queensland became the last state to remove restrictions on Indigenous voting in state elections and, as a consequence, all Indigenous Australians in all states and territories had equal voting rights at all levels of government.[2]
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