What exactly is the Greens’ position on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament? We know their formal position is an Uluru-statement-is-wrong argument that a Voice should come last after “truth” and “treaty”. But what about the government’s intention to hold a referendum on an Indigenous Voice? It seems to depend on whom you ask and what day of the week.
Greens’ First Nations spokesperson Senator Lidia Thorpe said in September the referendum is a waste of money and a “wasted exercise”. She won’t commit to supporting the case for an Indigenous Voice. Yesterday, Thorpe and Greens Leader Adam Bandt demanded $161 million be committed in the budget on truth and treaty mechanisms. Fair enough — that’s Greens policy.
But then the kicker: Thorpe says she will not support an Indigenous Voice unless there is “concrete progress on all three aspects of the Uluru statement”.
So is the Greens’ formal position that they won’t support the Voice referendum unless their budget demands are met? Thorpe, after all, is the party’s spokesperson responsible for the issue. But wait a moment — on Wednesday, Thorpe’s colleague Sarah Hanson-Young said that she would be supporting a Voice and her colleagues would too.
That was after the brief disturbance created by The Australian reporting that Thorpe had met with failed Liberal candidate Warren Mundine about his plan for a campaign against the Voice. It turned out Mundine was meeting with a number of crossbenchers about other issues; Thorpe denied she would be backing a No campaign and has complained to the press council about The Australian (good luck).
The Greens appear caught in a wedge between the far-left elements of their base — some of whom will gravitate toward a horseshoe union with the far right to oppose a Voice regardless of the proven need for Indigenous co-design and co-implementation of policies — and the more mainstream sections of the party, including voters who swelled the Greens’ representation in Parliament on May 21, who support a Voice and regard the obsession with reversing the Uluru statement as pointless contrarianism.
The public playing out of this tension, with a hapless Adam Bandt apparently unable to display any authority on the issue, looks increasingly like the Greens are focusing on internal politics rather than putting their energy into a bona fide attempt to implement the Uluru statement.
Either the Greens back an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the coming referendum or they don’t. The constant parade of different positions, caveats, attacks and assurances while the right musters its forces to launch a wrecking campaign is an expensive self-indulgence.
I listened to Bandt on RN Breakfast this morning and I struggled to see him any better than Dutton, Ley, Littleproud, etc who are also trying to run various cons at the moment. The Greens (except for H-Y as far as I can tell) may not be joining the No campaign but they are doing their very best to destroy the Yes campaign in its early stages.
Greens members and politicians must surely know that Treaty and Truth will be harder to get up than a body designed to ensure effective consultation with First Peoples on First Peoples’ specific policy and issues (Voice).
They must also know that the processes leading up to the Uluru Statement were rigorous, including those that involved learning about things like constitutional law and bodies in place in other countries.
They must also know that the majority of people involved in the Statement’s processes support Voice first and they must surely have read the report written by Calma and Langton.
To say that the treaty process will be reasonably easy because things are going well in Queensland and Victoria is disingenuous. Victoria is a progressive state and I’d bet everything I own that most Queenslanders don’t even know about the treaty work under way in Queensland.
Why on earth any Green thinks that holding up effective consultation won’t have a negative impact on things like deaths in custody is beyond comprehension. I just don’t believe a single person in The Greens believed that.
I could go on and on, but I won’t.
I only voted for Greens in the Senate because I watched an interview on Insiders where I understood Bandt to be saying that The Greens wouldn’t pull a stunt like the one it is pulling now.
I certainly won’t fall for lies like that again. I look forward to at least one independent candidate of Pocock’s calibre appearing on the ballot in the next election along with some of the other very interesting groups that have been emerging over the last little while. No more Greens for me if this is what the party is.
It would destroy any integrity for the Greens to side with the Far Right Conservatives like Pauline Hanson, Mundine, Babet, Roberts and Price, to support the No campaign. It sounds just like the Republican Referendum when we saw the “Direct” Republicans side with the monarchists to vote no, and the basis if it does not suit their specific view of what should be, then oppose it. So we end up with nothing 23 years later. We do not want the same thing happening with the voice to parliament referendum where we will have to wait another generation simply because of irrational political gamesmanship, particularly from the so-called progressive Greens.
Yes Bernard, I don’t expect the ‘strategic voters’ will indulge them a second time if they continue with this nonsense.
Yes indeed. Bandt on ABC RN Breakfast this morning was shambolic, all over the place, embarrassing, making no sense. For example, his attempts to say Thorpe describing the Voice as a ‘complete waste of money’ was not at all opposing the Voice were as successful as you’d expect. And so on.
Bandt has been in Parliament for 12 years and on RN Breakfast sounded like it was 12 days. I’d love to know how he managed to persuade the membership that he should be Leader. I never thought I’d say this, but Sarah Hanson-Young looks a far better prospect for that role.
He’s trying to head off a challenge, not from SHY, but from Thorpe. This is all about their leadership and naked ambition, nothing more, nothing less. At the end of the day they are just the same as any other political party.
Regretfully, they are worse. It is time they all sat down together and sorted out Leadership and Policy. There is a genuine need for a Green voice. But right now rational Australians may have had more than enough of current opportunistic behaviours.
Thorpe as leader would be up there with Dutton as leader of the Liberal Party.
Yes, Sarah Hanson-Young has been consistent in her stance, bravely fending off misogynist attacks and not forgetting the Greens foundational concerns, such as biodiversity protection, species’extinction, etc.
“Wrecking campaign” is a good way to describe the situation but it should not continue. Two senior indigenous members keep sounding that they oppose the Voice. I suggest they are just being perverse for the sake of it but it will be enough to sink the voice. It is already in trouble with some people opposing it because it singles out one section of the community and because the Government is going about it in a very peculiar way.
All too often I find the Greens hard to understand with contradictory stands on different subjects. They urgently need to tighten up their ship.
Absolutely, stamp out & crush all different points of view that deviate from the Word.
It’s the only way to prove that We are All Individuals ™ ® ‘\_(°~°)_/` with no distinguishing features.
Haha tell Linda Gale and Rohan Leppert
Another neologism of which I was, thankfully, previously unaware – “…the implications of Greens’ policies for the rights of non-trans women…” – wow.
Just WOW!
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/ousted-greens-convenor-defiant-amid-party-s-trans-row-20220623-p5avyj.html
That’s one of Loki’s.
Isn’t he Freya’s brother?
At least he was able to give birth, albeit as a mare.
Views are one thing, actions another. I audibly groaned when seeing Thorpe raise fist and insert colonizer into the Senate oath not because I disagree with her view or right to feel as she does but because her action would likely tip some towards voting No. Compare her impact v that of the wonderful and recently deceased elders, Martin Luther King etc etc. Has F’ you ever been a strategy that served the desired ends?
People are not drones, the Greens do not have an agree or be sacked policy like the deranged facists in the ALP