21 March – At the conference, Arthur Calwell and Gough Whitlam were photographed outside the venue at Kingston in Canberra. Although Calwell was the Leader of the Opposition, neither man was a member of the federal executive. Menzies jibed that the ALP was ruled by "36 faceless men".[1]
14 August – Yolngu people petitioned the Australian House of Representatives with a bark petition after the government sold part of the Arnhem Land reserve on 13 March to a bauxite mining company. The government did not consult the traditional owners. When bauxite mining at Nhulunbuy near Yirrkala went ahead, the Yolngu took their case against the mining company to the Northern Territory Supreme Court. Despite their claim not being upheld in the 1971 court decision, non-indigenous Australians were alerted to the need for indigenous representation in such decisions, and a permanent parliamentary standing committee was created to scrutinise developments at Yirrkala, among other initiatives related to the indigenous people's moral right to their lands.
1 November – Indigenous Australians could vote in federal elections on the same basis as other electors when an amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act became law. The November 1963 election was the first federal election for Indigenous people in Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. Indigenous voting rights in other states had been in place since 1949.
15 November - The Queensland Police Service raids the town of Mapoon, forcing residents at gunpoint to leave their houses and board a boat for relocation 200 km to the north.[2]
30 November – Federal election: The Coalition government was returned with an increased majority of 10 seats over the Australian Labor Party. The election was for the House of Representatives only.
Short films produced in Australia included the following screened at the Venice Film Festival[1]
Adam and Eve – Dusan Marek
Along the Sepik – Ian Dunlop
Russell Drysdale – Dahl Collings
Sidney Nolan – Dahl Collings
They Found a Cave – Andrew Steane – XV Int. Festival Films for Young People
William Dobell – Dahl Collings
Others:
The Queen Returns – The 1963 Australian visit of Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh was filmed by the Commonwealth Film Unit. Much of the 30-minute film is devoted to Canberra and its history as the Queen's visit coincided with Canberra's Jubilee Celebrations – 50 years since the founding of the city.
Television
Nine Network founded as the "National Television Network"
^"Boilermaker Bill's Jakarta jottings; Boilermaker Bill McKell Labor Legend". Crikey. 10 September 2004. Archived from the original on 11 September 2005. Retrieved 3 April 2006.
^Tony Koch (2 November 2010). "Notorious bureaucrat who oppressed Aborigines dies unlamented". The Australian. News Limited. Archived from the original on 4 February 2013. Retrieved 1 January 2013.
^Field, Anthony; Truman, Greg (31 July 2018). "How I got my wiggle back : a memoir of healing". Hoboken, N.J. : Wiley. Archived from the original on 9 December 2019. Retrieved 31 July 2018 – via Trove.
