The Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act
When John Howard's Coalition Government of Australia came to power in 1996, it legislated to allow the bridge to proceed (see Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act 1996). The Ngarrindjeri challenged the legislation in the High Court on the basis that it was discriminatory to declare that the Heritage Protection Act applied to sites everywhere but on Hindmarsh Island, and that such discrimination – essentially on the basis of race – had been disallowed since the Commonwealth was granted the power to make laws with respect to the "Aboriginal race" as a result of the 1967 Referendum. The High Court decided, controversially, that the amended s.51(xxvi) of the Constitution did not restrict the Commonwealth parliament to making laws for the benefit of the "Aboriginal race", and could in fact enact laws to the detriment of any particular race. This decision effectively meant that those people who had believed that they were casting a vote against the discrimination of Indigenous people in 1967 had in fact merely allowed the Commonwealth to participate in the discrimination against Indigenous people which had been practiced by the States throughout their history. Racial discrimination has been outlawed by the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth), but the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act of 1996 expressly removed the Hindmarsh Island area from the purview of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Read more about this topic: Hindmarsh Island Bridge Controversy
Famous quotes containing the words island, bridge and/or act:
“I suggested to them also the great desirability of a general knowledge on the Island of the English language. They are under an English speaking government and are a part of the territory of an English speaking nation.... While I appreciated the desirability of maintaining their grasp on the Spanish language, the beauty of that language and the richness of its literature, that as a practical matter for them it was quite necessary to have a good comprehension of English.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.”
—Audre Lorde (1934–1992)
“I look on trade and every mechanical craft as education also. But let me discriminate what is precious herein. There is in each of these works an act of invention, an intellectual step, or short series of steps taken; that act or step is the spiritual act; all the rest is mere repetition of the same a thousand times.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)