Section 51(xxvi) of the Constitution of Australia, commonly called "the race power", is the subsection of Section 51 of the Constitution of Australia granting the Australian Commonwealth the power to make special laws for people of any race. As initially written, s 51(xxvi) empowered the Parliament to make laws with respect to: "The people of any race, other than the aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws". The Australian people voting at the 1967 referendum deleted the words in italics. Edmund Barton had argued in 1898 that s 51(xxvi) was necessary to enable the Commonwealth to "regulate the affairs of the people of coloured or inferior races who are in the Commonwealth". The section was intended to enable the Commonwealth to pass laws restricting such migrant labourers as the Chinese and Kanakas. Quick and Garran observed in 1901 that "It enables the Parliament to deal with the people of any alien race after they have entered the Commonwealth; to localise them within defined areas, to restrict their migration, to confine them to certain occupations, or to give them special protection and secure their return after a certain period to the country whence they came." There were delegates, however, at the 1898 Convention who argued against the use of legislative power to deal specifically with alien races, accepting that people might be excluded from Australia based on race, but arguing that once people were admitted to the country they should be treated in the same way as other citizens. The scope of s 51(xxvi) is, subject to the Constitution itself, unfettered in keeping with s 51 granting plenary powers to the Commonwealth. Section 51(xxvi) supports the rejection of legal equality requirements when considering legislation otherwise validly enacted under the Constitution. Thus legislation empowered by other constitutional powers, such as in the Northern Territory National Emergency Response, which was empowered by section 122, may be racially discriminatory. The second question in the 1967 referendum amended this section, removing the prohibition on the Commonwealth making laws in regards to "the Aboriginal race". At the time this was largely seen as a positive change for Aboriginal peoples' welfare, as the Commonwealth was seen as being more positive towards them than the states collectively were. In the 1998 case Kartinyeri v Commonwealth, the High Court was split on whether s 51(xxvi) could be used to enact legislation