User talk:Stuart hc

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Proposed deletion of Fair play for musicians
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 * Fair play for musicians

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Nomination of Scott Peoples for deletion
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Thunder River Rapids Ride incident
Hi Stuart hc ('occasional contributer'),

As you are interested in this event, you might like to review, check or copy edit the content at Ardent Leisure.

Regards, 220  of  Borg 06:10, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

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Your revisions to History of Australia
Hello Stuart hc

I have reverted your revisions to the section on female suffrage because the previous version was more accurate and your revisions are not supported by the cited sources. For example, the reinstated version states that the introduction of female suffrage in WA had some racial restrictions. These aren't weasel words, but an attempt to briefly and accurately summarise a complex issue. The restrictions were on aboriginal, Asian and African voters who were not naturalised British subjects and who did not meet the property qualification for voting. So it is wrong to say that only "White" women for enfranchised - Aboriginal, Asian and African women who met the property qualification and were British subjects could also vote, as could "non-White" women of other origins who were British subjects and met the residency qualification. Also your changes give the misleading impression that racial restrictions were uniform across the States and Commonwealth and that only "White" women benefited from the female franchise. This isn't the case, Restrictions varied from state to state and also between the states and Commonwealth, and racial restrictions were a separate issue from the female franchise per se. I agree that the article doesn't fully reflect the complexity of the situation, but we need to remember that it is a general article on the history of Australia which can't be expected to go into the details. I think the article as it stands makes it clear that there were racial restrictions on voting and that this was separate from the extension of female suffrage. Happy to discuss. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 12:53, 26 December 2022 (UTC)


 * 1) The phrase "with some racial restrictions" is a textbook example of weasel words in this context. White women were a minority in WA in 1900 (although the British colony did not count indigenous people in its census modern estimates put the pre-colonial population of Australia at 3 million, and WA had the lowest population of white people in 1900 - https://theconversation.com/the-first-australians-grew-to-a-population-of-millions-much-more-than-previous-estimates-142371), so to say "women had the vote with some racial restrictions" gives the impression most women had the vote when only a minority of women had the vote.
 * 2) As you say this is a summary article so I dropped the property qualification. All indigenous Australians were British subjects under colonial law. The number of indigienous people who were substantial land owners under British colonial law was close to if not actually zero (colonial law did not recognise First Nations land rights). So it is correct to summarise the situation as "White women won the vote".
 * 3) Before the 1902 Franchise Act the voting restrictions were different state by state (but only WA and Qld had a White-only restriction). After 1902 the White-only racial restriction was uniform across the Commonwealth and gradually the states changed, and Section 41 of the constitution effectively expired over the next few years, so that all the states were also uniform in their White-only racial restriction by 1922 (this is all in the https://www.aec.gov.au/indigenous/milestones.htm reference but also ). This is a summary article so the important dates and milestones are used, with the most important being 1984 when universal suffrage was reached in Australia. Some may argue that 1962 is more important for women's suffrage but 1962's law made it illegal to encourage indigenous men and women to enrol and voting wasn't compulsory so no resources were made available (there were no polling stations in many indigenous communities) effectively disenfranchising a substantial portion of the female (and male) population. Women's suffrage was a solved problem in New Zealand in 1893, but trying to ignore the racial restrictions in Australia that lasted until 1984. It may be better to just omit the sentence about the WA 1900 Act since it was such a small White population and complicated by race and property restrictions, and instead describe the 1902 Franchise Act which covered all of Australia at the federal level.
 * 4) The White-only racial restriction was controversial even in 1902 when the Franchise Bill 1902 was introduced. This bill proprosed universal suffrage for all adult subjects (both men and women and included indigenous subjects). However as the bill was debated, an amendment was eventually added to specifically excluded non-White people (except Maori) - "No aboriginal native of Australia, Asia, Africa or the Islands of the Pacific except New Zealand shall be entitled to have his name placed on an Electoral Roll unless so entitled under section forty-one of the Constitution". This amendment was described at the time as "monstrous piece of savagery [on the part of the government]" by senator O'Connor. The race restriction remained controversial until 1984 so it deserves more accurate treatment than the weasel words in the existing History of Australia article. Stuart hc (talk) 05:57, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * You have misunderstood the article on the Commonwealth Electoral Act, so I have also reverted your changes to that article. The Commonwealth Act did not override state legislation, so anyone (including Aboriginals, Asians etc) who were entitled to vote in the states continued to be so entitled and were entitled to vote in Commonwealth elections as well. In NSW, Victoria, SA and Tasmania Aboriginal people were entitled to vote unless they fell within another category of exclusion. There was no "White only racial exclusion" operating in Australia, although plenty of politicians did want such and exclusion and there were racial restrictions on the franchise. The article on the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 needs work to capture the complexities and I would be happy to work with you to improve it. However, you need to fix the body of the article first in order to change the lead, as the lead should be an accurate summary of the body of the article. Also please note that there are no reliable estimates of the Indigenous population of Australia before 1788. Current estimates range from 300,000 to 3 million. By 1900 there were perhaps 200,000. Also note that it was only "full blooded" aborigines who were excluded from the Census and many restrictions only applied to "full blooded" natives. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 10:32, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your recent edits to the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 article. Your new summary addressed my concerns with the previous phrase "with some racial restrictions".
 * The details about Section 41 you added are very important to how the Act was applied in practice and the High Court THE QUEEN v. PEARSON reference is relevant.
 * There's one word that remains in the article which is misleading - namely "uniform". When the bill was originally proposed it was for a uniform franchise and the senators (e.g. O'Connor) and lower house members of parliament supporting the original bill referred to that form of the bill during discussion as the uniform franchise. The final version of the bill when passed had the extra restrictions and was not considered a "uniform" franchise by any side. So to avoid the misleading use of "uniform" we can change the first sentence from
 * "The Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 was an Act of the Parliament of Australia which defined a uniform national criteria of who was entitled to vote in Australian federal elections"
 * to
 * "The Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 was an Act of the Parliament of Australia which set out who was entitled to vote in Australian federal elections"
 * (there's another use of uniform further down which could also be omitted).
 * One more point to improve accuracy is that "unless they already had voting rights in an Australian state" should change to "unless they were already enrolled to vote in an Australian state". The following is from "Citizens Without Rights" by Chesterman and Galligan
 * "Whether or not Aboriginal men were actually on the Victorian electoral roll prior to 1901 would become crucial in determining whether they could vote federally. In a provision designed to protect the rights of the women who had already won the vote in some States, section 41 of the Commonwealth Constitution provided that people who had the vote at State level could not be prevented from voting federally. Accordingly, the Commonwealth Franchise Act, which otherwise excluded Aborigines, gave the vote to those Aborigines who had the vote at State level (by means of an exception required by section 41 of the Constitution). But, as Pat Stretton and Christine Finnimore have shown, this provision was defined narrowly to mean that only those voters actually enrolled at the State level prior to 1902 were entitled to the protection of section 41."
 * (the Stretton and Finnimore reference mentioned in that quote is "Black fellow citizens : Aborigines and the Commonwealth franchise")
 * The "A Federal Story" reference has a footnote describing that Section 41 was interpreted even more narrowly after 1912
 * "A later interpretation by Garran (in 1912) narrowed the Commonwealth's view even further so that unless an Aboriginal person had actually had their name on a Commonwealth Electoral Roll, the mere fact that they had been enrolled to vote in NSW, South Australia, Tasmania or Victoria before 1902 did not protect their right to vote at Commonwealth elections" Stuart hc (talk) 11:34, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback. I'll make those changes.Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 11:44, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

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