2017 50c Mabo & 1967 Referendum PNCOver fifty years ago, on 27 May 1967, Australians voted in a landmark federal referendum. The key issue the one for which the referendum is remembered concerned the constitutions inherent racial discrimination. The proposed changes would bring Indigenous Australians under federal rather than state laws and governance, which could be highly inequitable, and would include them in the census. By 1967, the mood for change was ripe and the vote was