'Racist' Australian constitution should be changed: Experts
Australia should change its constitution to give better recognition to the its indigenous population, a panel of experts recommended today.
In a report handed to the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, the panel also called for the repeal of two constitutional provisions with racist connotations.
They also proposed that a new passage is added to the document to recognise that the territory was occupied long before its discovery by the British.
Ms Gillard's Labor government has pledged to hold a referendum on the constitutional changes before the next general election, due in 2013.
Since Europeans settled the vast continent, indigenous Australians - often referred to as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples - have suffered terrible discrimination at the hands of both the settlers and the government they established.
Australian politicians have since apologised for the mistreatment, but its legacy has left Aboriginal communities rife with social and economic problems.
Explicit references to Aborigines in Australia's original 19th century constitution were negative — they barred the government from including indigenous people in any population count — and Australians voted overwhelmingly to remove those points in a 1967 referendum.
But many people still believe the document can be further improved to acknowledge and respect the position of the country's indigenous peoples. An expert panel of Aboriginal leaders, business executives, legal experts and politicians has spent the past year gathering opinions from people across the country.
They faced a delicate task of proposing meaningful changes to the constitution that would garner support from across the political spectrum. Without support from all Australia's main political parties, any proposed reforms would almost certainly be doomed to failure.
The panel presented its report to the government Friday morning at the National Gallery in Canberra.
(c) Daily Mail, London