Technically, the referendum passed the bill titled the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginals) 1967 and it became law on 10 August 1967. The Holt Government held two constitutional referendums on, and amendments relating to Indigenous Australians were carried overwhelmingly with 90.8% of votes cast in favour. Main article: Australian referendum, 1967 (Aboriginals) For example, the Sydney Morning Herald characterised the idea of trying to count the indigenous population as part of the census as both "a mildly entertaining historical oddity" and as "more difficult than rounding up a mob of wild brumbies". In the 1960s in the lead-up to the repeal of section 127, racist attitudes towards Aborigines were openly expressed. Constitutional scholar George Williams has described the race power and section 127 as part of the racism in Australia's constitutional DNA. Actual responsibility for the Aboriginal people was left to the individual states (explaining their exclusion from race power) this contributed to the mistaken belief that Aboriginal Australians were considered as 'flora and fauna' until the 1967 referendum on the status of Aboriginals, which was originally the metaphor of pioneer Aboriginal filmmaker Lester Bostock to describe the status of Indigenous Australians, not a statement of fact. From the arrival of the First Fleet, the Aboriginal peoples were considered British subjects but not citizens, and when Federation occurred, the "Australian governments and the people had no use for the Aborigines." Consideration of the indigenous population was limited to the "problem" of the potential for their number to influence the composition of the House of Representatives, and that was "solved" with section 127. Its purpose was not to deny information to the government but to give effect to a belief that the indigenous peoples of Australia were separate from the colonists joining together to form a nation. The language of section 127 does not include the words statistic or census, and consequently the Commonwealth had the power to collect data on the Aboriginal populace, though what was collected lacked quality and comprehensiveness. Concerns were expressed at the 1897–98 Federation Convention about the distribution of seats and also the possibility of states receiving reduced monies from Commonwealth grants if section 127 were not included.
Including Indigenous people in these calculations would alter the distribution of seats between the states to the benefit of states with larger Aboriginal populations (though not to the benefit of the Aboriginal people). The purpose of section 127 was to prevent the inclusion of Aboriginal people in section 24 determinations, and thus to prevent the Indigenous populace from influencing the determination of electoral boundaries by the Australian Electoral Commission. Section 24 mandates that each state is entitled to members in the House of Representatives based on a population quota determined from the "latest statistics of the Commonwealth." These statistics arise from the census conducted under the auspices of section 51(xi). The interpretation of section 127 depends on the language used in other parts of the Constitution. In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted. Section 127 was included in the Constitution of Australia when it was ratified, and stated that: 2.2 Other constitutional treatment of Aboriginals.
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