Until recently the Australian Greens’ position was that the Uluru Statement from the Heart had things round the wrong way. The statement calls for an Indigenous Voice to be enshrined in the constitution, and then — as a “culmination” — a Makarrata Commission “to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history”.
The Greens decided last year that this was wrong, and that instead “the establishment of a Truth and Justice Commission is one of this country’s first priorities”.
Indeed, the “First Nations representation to Parliament and/or government” appears almost as an afterthought in its “Truth, Treaty, Voice” policy. “Voice” only gets a look-in at the very end of the document.
Now the Greens seem to have decided that it’s just Truth, Treaty, and no Voice. Greens spokesperson on Indigenous issues Senator Lidia Thorpe says a referendum on the Voice is a “waste of money” and a “wasted exercise”. “You don’t need a referendum to have a treaty,” Thorpe says, again indicating just how low a priority a Voice referendum is for the Greens.
That leaves the Greens now looking as though they’ll align with far-right fringe dwellers like One Nation, and racist dead-enders in the Coalition, in opposing a Voice referendum — with a more hardline position that the opposition, which is yet to formally oppose it. And Thorpe has made clear either way that the Greens will not be supporting a referendum in 2023, saying the government is “kidding themselves to think that they’re going to a referendum next year”.
Given Greens’ support in the Senate will be required for the referendum if the Coalition blocks it, it could spell the end of any hope for a referendum happening in this term — leaving Indigenous recognition yet again to be put off, well into the second decade after it was first agreed by both sides of politics.
Greens Leader Adam Bandt says the Greens are still committed to “good faith” negotiations on the referendum, but that statement appears fundamentally at odds with Thorpe’s expressed views that there’s no point to a referendum, that money shouldn’t be wasted on it, and that it won’t happen next year anyway — before we even get the Greens’ policy position that the Voice is an afterthought.
It does however raise the serious question of what support Bandt can deliver if he decides to back a referendum. How many senators will he be able to count on in a party where the leader is so profoundly at odds with the relevant opposition minister? What can Bandt offer beyond a divided party where his own senators contradict him? For every Greens senator that refuses to support a referendum, the government will have to find another vote to establish a referendum at all.
Facing the possible refusal of the Greens to even permit a referendum to happen, the only upside for Labor is that the Greens are thus handing Labor a useful weapon in the 2025 election. In every inner-city electorate, Labor candidates will be able to tell voters they support an Indigenous Voice and wanted a referendum to have already happened — but the Greens blocked it and don’t seem to even support a Voice at all.
It will be up to Bandt and the Greens to explain to voters something they got away with not explaining in the 2022 election: why they think so many Indigenous groups got it wrong in the development of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Few things could be more helpful in Labor’s quest to portray the Greens as outside the mainstream, extremists committed to purity politics over effective delivery, bitterly divided ideologues who will disappoint mainstream voters who’ve been tempted by disillusion to back them. But the price will be extraordinarily expensive for a nation centuries too late already in recognising the people that invasion and occupation dispossessed.
Is the Greens’ position on the Voice to Parliament justified? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
Ah the Greens. Every time I think they might finally have their act together to become a meaningful party they choose another ideological hill to die on. The Greens enabled a decade of LNP climate stupidity, would they really ruin a voice too?
Actually Labor enabled a decade of LNP climate stupidity. Labor is showing its own climate stupidity now, by considering that the fossil fuels extracted from Australian soil and shipped elsewhere won’t have an impact on global warming.
That 2nd statement is a lie. The ALP and LNP enabled the destruction of climate policy. Remember The Greens supported Gillard’s price on carbon? The LNP killed it. How is that The Greens fault?
Very sadthat 55 posters here think this is an accurate or valid statement.
I frequently vote for the Greens. But if they really do this, I will be forced to look elsewhere. Making yourself feel good by insisting on perfection, without actually doing any good, is narcissistic nonsense.
Didn’t Whitlam once say ‘certainly the impotent are pure’?
He certainly did, although I thought it was, “Only the impotent are pure.” My late father loved quoting it every time the Greens said something.
A treaty with whom? First Nations Australians were made of up three hundred different languages when the Europeans arrived. We need hundreds of treaties with each First Nation, not a singular. This will take time, and much conflict. A voice will be easier to get started, noting there is going to be differences between all the different First Nations. As per usual with the Greens, perfect is the enemy of good, and we will end up with bad.
How about a really radical, brand new innovation like, I dunno, one citizen, one vote?
That could work a treat and might even result in a democracy.
Are you advocating against preferential voting and for first past the post?
So let’s say there are 10 candidates on the ballot and 9 candidate gets 9.5% of the vote each so the last candidate gets 14.5% of the vote. You’re quite happy for those 14.5% of the voters to determine who governs?
Or maybe you haven’t thought that far ahead.
No need for a such a crude, yet over complicated, hypothetical example for FptP.
In an electorate of 100 (scale it up how you will) with 4 candidates where A receives 40 votes, B 30, C 20 & D 10 then A wins and the other 60 voters can go suck eggs.
Or try reality – Thatcher never came within cooee of a majority of votes, never mind a majority of the electorate even in her first ‘landslide’ in 1979.
The tory vote declined even further thereafter but the massive majority of seats only gradually eroded thanks also to voluntary voting.
The Greens (and previously the Democrats) regularly outpoll the Nats by multiples but that lumpen rump is the tail that wags the Lib dog because of the number of seats (not) won.
In this country, only Tasmanian state elections are truly PR – its Hare-Clark system is as near to pure D’Hondt as can be found in the Anglosphere – with STV applied to Multipe Member Electorates, similar to Ireland & Aotearoa.
Most of Continental western Europe uses D’Hondt but, like the US Electoral College, some have a Party List (Germany being the most stolid example) to ensure that democracy doesn’t scare the hor$e$ too much.
Apart from NAP – who clearly don’t read no good – what sort of halfwit would bother to downvote a simple explanation of how voting works under different systems?
Can anyone give an idea of exactly what would be in this treaty?
Treaties have to be negotiated but key would be questions of sovereignty
The term ‘sovereign’ of itself, may turn-out to be a ‘mine’ under the aspired roadway now under debate?
What privilege, benefit or advantage would this ‘sovereignty‘ confer that would, ipso facto, be unavailable to other citizens?
If none, what is the point of it?
Have a read of the book Truth-Telling by Henry Reynolds. He explains the legal aspects of sovereignty, along with accepted practices in other British colonies, and the international law of 1788.
If the British did obtain sovereignty of half of the continent, by decree, while knowing nothing of the various inhabitants of the country, or their nations, Then ALL first nations people became British citizens and were entitled to the protection of the crown, instead of which they were run off their country and murdered in their thousands.
And some faux concept of sovereignty 200 yrs later will … do what precisely?
It’s not singular. It is multiple ie every Clan group.
Personalities obscure realities. The ‘contest’ appears to be between which comes first. Constitutional Referendum OR the individual multiple self-governance Treaty negotiation(s) between Clan Groups and their respective State/Territoritory. Essentially, how much funding, infrastructure required. There appears to be a potential division as to whether ‘The Voice’ should precede ‘Treaties’. Reason being should the referendum fail; then that may forestall progression of Treaty negotiations?
No the contest is “who will be leader of the Greens in 12 months time, Adam Bandt, or Lidia Thorpe?”
If Kermit the Frog led the Greens they would still be more deserving of wide support and a better proposition for government than the Lib/Lab duopoly.
And it can’t be made by the federal government. Multiple treaties have to be made by the states – it is the state that occupies the land, not the commonwealth
Exactly.
Not strictly true, the federal government still owns the vast majority of land in this country – eg the entire Western Division of NSW is Crown lease, at peppercorn rent, to the soil/water miners, aka graziers, who do not have freehold title which can be terminated for a variety of reasons.
The same applies to most of WA, Qld, NT & SA and of course Toytown ACT.
Maybe I’ve got this wrong, but my understanding is that crown land in NSW is owned by the crown of NSW, not the federal government, and it’s administered by the NSW government
Shhh, it’s a secret.
Perhaps I’m still suffering brain fog. Can someone please explain the downside to a referendum which shows good faith & the likely passage for a Voice for First Nations people? I fail to understand what damage this might do as, at the very least, it’s a forward step.
I believe most Australians would support the referendum.
This is the problem with Thorpe’s stance. She’s not articulating an alternative, just rubbishing what has been put forward.
Unfortunately, she’s rarely good at articulating anything. This could be different behind close doors, but in front of a camera she seems to find it quite difficult.
I sorta get Thorpe’s opposition – after all a Voice could be seen as window dressing, compared to a full-fledged Treaty. But I’d still like to see the Greens support it. From little things etc.
Pragmatism gets a bad name in politics because it’s seen as compromise, but I for the life of me can’t understand how anyone can be in a position to make improvements wouldn’t try to make them as much and as often as possible.
Would this voice be better than what we currently have? If not, then I understand opposing it. But I cannot understand anyone opposing it for being inadequate if they think it makes any positive different at all. Politics is about making incremental changes, and the perfect is not the enemy of the good.
Exactly! “What do we want?” “Gradual change.” “When do we want it?” “Eventually.”
Stepping in the right direction is still progress.
Thorpe is too fond of being oppositional.
This is about dealing with racism not enabling it.