Last month’s furore over the NSW government’s plans to permanently fly the Aboriginal flag on the Sydney Harbour Bridge seemed like run-of-the-mill culture war stuff. But it also provides a preview of what to expect around the federal government’s Indigenous Voice referendum.
As part of last month’s NSW state budget, money was earmarked to install a third flagpole on the Sydney Harbour Bridge following a campaign by Kamilaro yinarr Cheree Toka. While many celebrated the announcement, the reaction against it was loud and swift.
Predictably, the decision to give the flag of Australia’s Indigenous people the same prominence as the Australian national flag and the (largely forgettable) NSW state flag evoked charges of “woke” and “virtue signalling” across talkback radio, in print and on social media from the usual suspects and audiences. But it wasn’t just them.
The $25 million price tag — the cost of erecting an enormous structure on one of Australia’s most important pieces of architecture — fed a lot of the backlash. Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation chief executive Shane Phillips labelled the proposal a “smokescreen” that was intended to divide. Wiradjuri and Badu Island woman Lynda-June Coe told the ABC that she understood people objecting to spending millions on a flag rather than being “injected into other areas that our mob have been crying out for a long time”.
Almost as soon as it was announced, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet began to walk back the original announcement before eventually deciding to simply replace the bridge’s NSW flag with the Aboriginal flag. This pleased the announcement’s supporters while taking the wind out of the sails of its opponents.
It’s all but inevitable that a referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament will bring out the same culture warriors. But unlike the flag issue, a Voice isn’t something you can implement with a clever political fix.
Referendums are costly. The same-sex marriage postal vote cost the government $122 million — and that’s before you consider the enormous cost paid by the LGBTIQA+ community, whose members were subjected to a long and vitriolic debate about their basic rights.
The cost will be disingenuously presented as a false dichotomy: “Why are we paying for a Voice to Parliament when we could still improve the welfare of Indigenous Australians?” a columnist or politician will ponder, despite having never shown interest in improving the welfare of Indigenous Australians in the past, and ignoring the fact that, as an incredibly well-off nation, we have the means to do both if we want.
Despite the call for a First Nations Voice coming out of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, Indigenous Australians are not homogenous and there will naturally be some who oppose it. Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe wants to see a treaty prior to a Voice (although the Greens say they will not oppose Labor’s efforts to launch a referendum), while Coalition Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says there are other more important issues. Despite the deliberative and thoughtful process led by Indigenous leaders, fringe voices will be elevated to “both sides” of the debate.
Then there’s the awful, toxic stuff we’ll get from those who take bad faith interpretations of what is happening. All the wonky debate about implementation will be subsumed by months of accusations that Indigenous Australians are receiving preferential treatment and that it’s actually racist against white Australians to do this. This is the perfect grist for the culture war mill.
The point of this isn’t to convince you that the Indigenous Voice isn’t worthwhile. It is. We should listen to Indigenous Australians whose careful consultation process led them to this point.
It is important, though, to understand how the public debate around the Voice to Parliament is likely to play out — both to help the stewards of this reform to make their case and to steel the voters against people who are disingenuously opposing it.
Oh its going to be indescribably awful and I extend my sympathies to all aboriginal people whether they support the Voice or not. But I hope it will carry and just like with same sex marriage we can just make it happen and guess what the sky won’t fall in but it might actually assist with closing the gap!
The $122M junk mail, voluntary participation SSM question was not a referendum.
It was a delaying tactic by Abbott & his uglies that was not necessary and only arose because the Rodent used his 2004 majority in both Chambers to ram through a five word change to the Marriage Act.
It was a plebiscite which was non binding on legislators, hence the eventual free vote.
It yielded a YES vote from only 48.5% of the electorate (barely 62% of the 80% returned ballots).
The 1967 Referendum, one of the most solid results in our history, made Aboriginals full citizens and the 1992 High Court Mabo decision ensured land rights on unalienated Crown land.
Well put for a a white guy. And I sort of agree about the nasty PR sh*t a voice to parliament referendum will entice.
I have intellectually wrestled with how to make the Australia fair for blackfellas in an Australia we whitefellas have created on top of what was here, ignoring (sometimes deliberately) what was already here.
I come to this conclusion: Capitalism will never be a solution. Capitalism reifies property. Blackfellas have a very different an plural relationship to property than the greed Capitalism demands. My solution: Just listen to blackfellas and turn your capitalism filters off. Blackfellas have a lot to teach Capitalism about cohesive humanism and we should be listening to that. Do what they suggest. Listen to how to change the whole system for good. I a betting that will produce more equity than the >50 years we have claimed to know best an have achieved about FA in ‘closing the gap’. KPIs do not defeat racism, whether outright or just a consequence of intellectual and social laziness and disconnection.
Agree that very few people could tell the difference between the state flags of NSW, SA, VIC, QLD or TAS. They are almost identical.
Also agree that very few whites, and even fewer of more recent immigrants, have ever been up close to an aboriginal, spoken to or had a meal with and aboriginal. However the facts are that all people should be equal in opportunity and rights and should be treated properly. That includes compensation for past wrongs. So a treaty at a minimum.
“always was, always will be” and “sovereignty never ceded” are both toxic and will be skillfuly used to terrify the average voter. Stop using the 90 percent YES vote in 1967 as a benchmark for the referendum as you are NOT going to get 90 percent support on any issue of substance. Not in today’s polarised world. WA and QLD will vote against anything that is too radical and from there, you only need one more state and then you are toast.