Dialog start
Flora and fauna
Vernon Ah Kee![The front cover of The Australian Aborigine, showing a side profile drawing of an Aboriginal man with a long beard](/https/www.abc.net.au/rightwrongs/assets/media/2017/03/flora-and-fauna-image-624x1024.jpg)
AUDIO: (ABC RN)
When artist Vernon Ah Kee was born in 1967, he wasn't counted in the official Australian census. "We didn't exist at all."
The Constitution produced at Federation stated "Aborigines not to be counted in reckoning population" and that the Commonwealth would legislate for any race except Aboriginal people. This left the states in charge of Aboriginal affairs.
Vernon Ah Kee is a member of the Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Yidinji and Gugu Yimithirr peoples, and his exhibition. Not An Animal or a Plant explores the experience of not being counted.
Dialog end