The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (RDA) is a statute passed by the Australian Parliament during the Prime Ministership of Labor Gough Whitlam.
The RDA makes racial discrimination unlawful in Australia and overrides inconsistent States and Territory legislation, making the State or Territory law ineffective to the extent of the inconsistency. The power of the national Parliament to pass this over-riding law arises under the "external affairs" power contained in section 51(xxix) of the Australian Constitution. The power arose from the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination to which Australia is a signatory. This use of the power in this manner was confirmed in the landmark High Court decision in Koowarta v. Bjelke-Petersen in 1982.
Read more about Racial Discrimination Act 1975: Definition of Racial Discrimination Under The Act, Racial Hatred Act, Australian Human Rights Commission, Northern Territory National Emergency Response in Relation To The RDA
Famous quotes containing the words racial discrimination, racial and/or act:
“I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Rarely do American parents deliberately teach their children to hate members of another racial, religious, or nationality group. Many parents, however, communicate the prevailing racial attitudes to their children in subtle and sometimes unconscious ways.”
—Kenneth MacKenzie Clark (20th century)
“Predictions of the future are never anything but projections of present automatic processes and procedures, that is, of occurrences that are likely to come to pass if men do not act and if nothing unexpected happens; every action, for better or worse, and every accident necessarily destroys the whole pattern in whose frame the prediction moves and where it finds its evidence.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)