A census question relating to each person's 'origin' has been included in every Australian census since Federation, although the wording and format of this question have varied substantially since 1911 (Ross 1999). Before 1971, the origin question was structured in such a way as to ascertain each person's racial 'mix'. One reason for this was to exclude Aboriginal people (defined as those of greater than half Aboriginal descent) from the final count, as required by s. 127 of the Constitution.
- 5 -The repeal of s. 127 of the Constitution following the referendum of 1967 was pivotal in the subsequent history of census taking. It was no longer necessary, for the constitutional purposes of reckoning the 'numbers of people of the Commonwealth', to identify and exclude Aborigines. However, as the 1967 referendum also had the effect of bestowing responsibility on the Commonwealth for (in Constitutional terminology) the 'good government' of Indigenous people nationally, it also provided a basis, or a demand, for the establishment of systems to gather statistics on the Indigenous population in an inclusive, comprehensive and consistent manner. Thus, the Commonwealth Statistician reported in 1973 that:
For general interest, and in particular to meet the statistical requirements of Commonwealth and State authorities responsible for Aboriginal Affairs, it was decided that in the 1971 Census an attempt should be made to ascertain the race with which a person identifies himself (Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics 1973: xiii).