Aboriginal people aren't in the Constitution is

 myth number two that Warren Mundine addresses. 

He actually says very little about this myth because there is very little to be said. It was the 1967 referendum which removed the last express exclusions. 

That referendum had no difficulty in getting over the "double majority" hurdle - a majority of people in a majority of the states. It was widely and willingly supported.

I was not old enough to vote in that referendum but I can remember it being held. I hope I will always remember the sight of my paternal grandfather and M...'s father actually hugging one another as the results came through. My paternal grandfather was a very Victorian era man. He did not normally show emotion. You had to know him well to know what he was feeling at all. 

Grandpa had spent weeks talking to people about the referendum. He had spoken about the importance of it at church. Grandpa was no public speaker but he was one of two people at church given the task of persuading everyone to vote in favour of equality. I remember him talking about what his mother, my great-grandmother, would have wanted and how she had supported aboriginal people on the dairy farm and then around the docks. Many people in the church would have known my great-grandmother very well indeed. I have no doubt she would have been out there campaigning for "yes".

The other person to speak was M...'s mother R... and I remember there was the sort of stillness there is when something very, very important is being said. The minister of the day knew what he was doing when he asked her to speak. It was almost unheard of to hear clapping in a Presbyterian church but R....'s plea for a "yes" vote brought spontaneous applause. 

The referendum question passed and M...'s father and my grandfather stood on the footpath outside my grandparents' home as they were going their separate ways to work and hugged. Men didn't hug back then. They shook hands - but this was too big for that. They hugged.

So why would we now want to dismantle this? Why would we want to put in a clause which would once again segregate people? Have we given up all hope of equality?