Act of Recognition Passes

After the failure of the proposal to hold a referendum to add Indigenous recognition to our Constitution, the Government succeeds in getting an act of recognition passed in the lower House on the fifth anniversity of the apology to the Stolen Generations.  The new Act commits the federal Government to hold the referendum within two years.  As a first step, a Joint Parliamentary Committee is being set up to consider the matter.  But the Act does not set out a process to get to a referendum or propose a Constitutional Convention so that Indigenous peoples – or anyone else – can discuss the questions to be put, criticisms made by WA Greens Senator, Rachel Siewert, when the bill was introduced in November 2012.