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Australia and the Popes

Significant events in Australia's history
during the reign of Pope Paul VI, 1963-1978

Flowering of Australian culture brought major changes:

The late 1960s and early 1970s are often associated, at least in the mind of many Australians who were young adults at that time, with a flowering of Australian culture. Indigenous Australians achieved greater rights, immigration restrictions and censorship laws were swept aside, theatre and opera companies were established across the country, and Australian rock music began to mention explicitly Australian themes.

From the 1950s onwards, Australians began to rethink their attitudes towards racial issues. An Aboriginal rights movement, supported by many liberal white Australians and the Christian churches, was founded, and a campaign against the White Australia policy was also launched. In 1967 a referendum was held and overwhelmingly approved to amend the Constitution, removing discriminatory references and giving the national parliament the power to legislate specifically for Indigenous Australians. Contrary to frequently repeated mythology, this referendum did not confer citizenship on Aboriginal people, nor did it give them the vote: they already had both. However, transferring this power away from the State parliaments did bring an end to the system of Indigenous Australian reserves which existed in each state, which allowed Indigenous people to move more freely, and exercise many of their citizenship rights for the first time. From the late 1960s a movement for Indigenous land rights also developed.

In 1972 Gough Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party back into power for the first time in over a quarter of a century in the celebrated "It's Time" political campaign.

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The textual material on these pages was sourced from a large number of places all of which can be found through the links on each page. The material was researched, assembled and produced by Brian Coyne for Catholic Australia. The images used in the Flash animations are in the public domain. Other images used are in the public domain or sourced from the webpages to which they are linked.