Elizabeth? They held the launch for the Yes campaign in Elizabeth? That would be Elizabeth the noble but failed experiment, right? Elizabeth, Australia’s most extensive experiment in a UK-style “new town”, isolated from the capital, initially centred around an austere plaza with uplifting modernist sculptures that’s now a shopping mall? That Elizabeth? The one that over the years, cynically undermined by Liberal and Labor governments, became a welfare town — with many fine low-income people, but also a fair few predators and degenerates who turned sections of the place into a sump, showing the capacity for bold experiments to achieve the opposite of what they intended? That Elizabeth? The one named after the queen? (The poor old Guardian journalists covering it didn’t seem to have a clue as to the significance of where they were.)
Well, one can see the angle, but still. I presume it was thought, if it was thought at all, that the potshots the right might take at this failed and undermined monument to planning wouldn’t matter because no-one would be listening. And they would probably be right. Most people have long since switched off.
The Elizabeth launch was part of the Yes campaign’s, and the government’s, “pivot to the suburbs”, and from the reports the mood seemed positive but it also looked like all the same palaver. Noel and Marcia in the mix, the great and the good assembled, the Yes campaign fused with the government itself, in a way that no-one involved with these entities seems to think anyone out there has a problem with. The same speech from Albo with the chance to make history rhetoric, and a repurposing of South Australian Yes campaign coordinator Jakirah Telfer’s opening reference to the red kangaroo, and its anatomical inability to move in reverse. Said Albo: “We rise to the moment. Like the kangaroo and the emu on our coat of arms. They never go backwards — they just go forwards.”
That extra twist, and once again, the question: ham-fisted, or too clever by half? Can I point out that 1) if the kangaroo and emu do go forward, they will bump heads and the shield will fall over, and 2) as far as rising goes, the emu is a flightless bird. But sure, yes, the symbol of the Federation whose consecrating act was the exclusion of the original inhabitants is something that can unite us all as a positive example or something.
True, there was a fair bit of the more practical stuff in there, improvement of outcomes and closing the gap, but it was wrapped in the oracular notion of national destiny etc. I guess it’s hard to see how it couldn’t be, but that’s the problem of having this total identification of the state and one side of the contest. It blunts the capacity to make the most effective political argument for the Yes case, and puts it in the service of state self-aggrandisement.
Since the statecraft purpose of the Voice is to present ourselves to the world as a settler nation redefining itself through an act of dialectical synthesis, the Yes campaign is loaded with a purpose that may not be in its best interests. Quite possibly, many in the government now wish they had handled it differently, as a No vote will be an international disaster for this country.
First as myth, then tragedy?
The way it looks at the moment, the Voice is going the same way as Brexit. The cause of the knowledge class progressives — which includes the First Nations’ leadership — spruiked with an arrogant confidence in the obvious superiority of its case, of its appeal to reason and enlightenment, is failing in every possible fashion. Its circular focus on “making history” — make history by making history — leaves people cold, if they haven’t already bought into the idea and are Yes voters.
Beneath that, the notion that the central meaning of this continent-nation-state is the evolving mutual definition of settlers and colonised First Nations is something most simply do not agree with. Though few Anglo-Celtics in the suburbs have a strong sense of national destiny or purpose in the way that Tony Abbott or the Institute of Public Affairs would like them to have, they do have a sense of basic legitimacy about their own lives, and such historical connections as they can summon. It’s thin compared to other countries: a bit of Anzac, mostly family history, and the sense that one’s ancestors made something that wasn’t here before, which we carry into the future.
For those descended from the 1948 migrant waves, and more recent arrivals, the story is even more at variance with the one the Yes camp wants to tell. Some polling suggests that a greater number of non-Anglos will vote Yes — especially knowledge-class non-Anglos — an expression of non-white solidarity. But at the same time, the basic migrant story, the undercurrent of post-1948 lives, runs against the notion that the non-Indigenous presence on this continent is not resolved. That is because, quite simply, migrants resolve their presence here, or anywhere, by making their lives from scratch, even if that is now two or three generations back. The migrant, by migrating, claims the right to make a life wherever they have landed, without apology or deference.
So the more one tries to assert the story that legitimates the Voice as a moral absolute — you must be interested in this, this must be significant to you — the more it starts to piss people off.
What it was all for, whatever it was
What many people are getting from the relentless state push of the Yes case is the idea that the meanings they have made of their lives don’t count, that their struggles and achievements are second tier. It is turning mainstream indifference to First Nations self-determination into an active hostility towards it. This is all the doing of the Yes case. Much of the uptake of the No case’s more lurid falsehoods has been as a sort of manifest content, of this latent dissatisfaction, a way of giving accusatory voice to a complaint which, were it expressed directly, would sound simply pathetic: why are the blacks getting all the attention, again? Don’t I count? What about me?
Thus, what is emerging is something approaching a tragedy, a modest demand that will fall short because it has summoned an opposition that would not otherwise exist had it been done differently. For most people in said suburbs — the country and the north might be another matter — the claim to legitimacy of their own lives does not, any more, require a narrative of supremacy to give it meaning. Most people accept that a bloody, annihilatory event began in 1788, and continued for decades after. But they don’t accept that the current inequality is simply a continuation of that, or that there is an obligation to see it that way. There is a moral obligation to care about the grievous disadvantage of people you share a continent with, and that is what many people respond to. They want things to be better. But many don’t accept there is anything to be reconciled.
The greater divide
By insisting on such, the Yes leadership and progressives in general have lost the lead. They have not only insisted on a specific formula for a new Australia as the only possible moral arrangement, they have asserted a more general morality about how politics should be done — the idea that it is good to be curious, inquisitive, to like new knowledge, other cultures etc. This is the knowledge class/progressive v mainstream division in its strongest form.
The knowledge class cannot see the habits and values that make their life — curiosity, willingness to change, reflection on received truths etc — as only one way of living, among others. “If you don’t know, it’s OK to vote No” is a perfectly legitimate conservative judgment to make. There’s no point attacking that general principle when you’re trying to explode its specific argument: by establishing that there’s nothing to fear from this particular initiative. The disdain for political caution — in which every sense of disquiet is constructed as irrational fear — is simply progressives using the Voice campaign to buttress their own preference for the new over the old, the future plan over the messy present etc, to the detriment of actually persuading people and winning the damn thing.
From and to the suburbs
What’s to be done then? If the Yes campaign is really going “to the suburbs” then it better bloody mean it. It better admit that the level of knowledge, of First Nations peoples, of history, is very low, and accept that there is no moral requirement on someone to be interested in things they’re not interested in. Anyone motivated by the “make history” thing is surely already got; now it’s just scaring people off.
The full pivot to the ’burbs means abandoning all that history stuff altogether, and going almost wholly with the instrumental case for the Voice: that the assembly will help find better solutions to the problems experienced by First Nations peoples in health, housing, education etc. Galling as it might be to many, an exclusive focus on the minimal, advisory, supplicant and mildly ameliorative role of the Voice may convince enough undecideds and waverers that it is both practical and no threat, and to give it a go. That may be a most unmacropusian step backwards, but it is also a reculer pour mieux sauter.
Roo the day
There is something very endearingly stupid about the Albo government launching the campaign for this audacious progressive Australian initiative from the middle of one of the most failed audacious progressive initiatives of modern times, a few years after the national Australian company it was built around pulled out. But really there’s no time for this klutz act anymore.
Make the case for a Voice in such a way that people can vote for something to improve First Nations peoples’ lives, without feeling they have to put their own in question. If that seems to be rewarding complacency, small-mindedness and limited conceptions of the nation by pandering to such, get over it. The Yes case needs to decide whether it is trying to win people’s vote or change who they are. The whole campaign needs to turn on its central core to kick back hard and yes, yes, it’s those damn kangaroos again…
Is the Yes campaign botching things? Do you have much hope that the Voice will be voted up? Let us know your thoughts 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.
I have recently returned to the town where I grew up.
We first moved here in 1957. Aboriginal people lived at the dump, on the outskirts of the town. They lived in humpies – bits of tin or sacking strung between two trees. They had no sanitation, no electricity. Children died of gastro, or hepatitis. The only reason they did not get polio was that we were all vaccinated at (public) school. After the hepatitis epidemic in 1959, the Council built houses of corrugated iron for them – freezing in Armidale winters, and boiling in summer. It was called Silver City….but still no sanitation or electricity.
The little girl whose ulcerated leg I bathed when I was First Aid girl in 5th class, whose legs were encrusted with dirt because they had no water to wash themselves or their clothes – I often wonder if she is still alive – she really needed anti-biotics for that ulcer, but instead just got my clumsy 11 year-old effort to bathe and bandage her leg.
Fast forward to today : and the kids I went to school with are now Elders (if still living).
So I’m voting Yes – it is the least I can do to respond to the graciousness of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Indeed, the vote is essentially a response to the Uluru Statement from the Heart, something neither Rundle nor the Yes campaigners seem to mention nearly often enough. Vote No and you are turning a deaf ear to that statement and request. I read a No vote comment recently that talked about rejecting something that “Albanese had dreamed up.”
Having paid attention to the recent Cambridge Disinformation Summit, it’s clear that micro-targetting of communities is being used by the No camp to undermine trust.
Nearly half of Australian adults are functionally illiterate, leaving many at the mercy of shock jock rants and screaming lying headlines for their news. Unless you acknowledge and address that, progress is going to be painful and often too late.
You have probably hit the nail.
Certainly when the reporters head out into the community with their microphones, they quickly encounter a staggering array of bigots and poorly informed people.
Not as bad as the USA yet, but heading that way, and driven by the same media forces that dumb people down and inures them to brainwashing they are getting.
This is why F2F conversations with your friends family and colleagues is so important
That’s the common thread with Brexit and Trump, suggested by citing UK trade advisor Abbott, and the IPA. The latter is part of the US fossil fueled Koch Atlas Network, found at Tufton St. London informing MSM, the fringe, Tory Party and many RW grifters/influencers in between.
Meanwhile one of Abbott’s presentation choices, Heritage Foundation (Koch’s US flagship) have a media arm The Daily Signal (Orwellian doublespeak) which mirrors Fox and alt right media, now has a plan ‘Project 25’ for any Trump Presidency, very alarming:
‘Here’s How You Can Help a Future Conservative President Take Down the Deep State (confirms that the GOP is ‘owned’)
…a coalition of conservative leaders and former political appointees has compiled a game plan to equip him or her to restructure the federal government to make it more cost effective, high-performing, and accountable to the people.’
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/04/20/4-pillars-project-2025-conservative-plan-undermine-liberal-behemoth-washington/
That’s the common thread with Brexit and Trump, suggested by citing UK trade advisor Abbott, and the IPA. The latter is part of the US fossil fueled Koch Atlas Network, found at Tufton St. London informing MSM, the fringe, Tory Party and many RW grifters/influencers in between.
But as Guy says, it is not an effective response to this to tell large swathes of people they are deplorable. Or to appeal to people using terms that only appeal to people who are already strong supporters. I think it was Gough Whitlam who talked about people who preferred the warm inner glow of being right over actually being effective.
Meanwhile one of Abbott’s presentation choices, Heritage Foundation (Koch’s US flagship) have a media arm The Daily Signal (Orwellian doublespeak) which mirrors Fox and alt right media, now has a plan ‘Project 25’ for any Trump Presidency, very alarming.
The Daily Signal 20 April ’23 ‘Here’s How You Can Help a Future Conservative President Take Down the Deep State (confirms that the GOP is ‘owned’)
…a coalition of conservative leaders and former political appointees has compiled a game plan to equip him or her to restructure the federal government to make it more cost effective, high-performing, and accountable to the people.’
I take it you broke your original into three parts to try to get it past the algorithm when it was sentenced to the Awaiting Approval Cell. It eventually got the nod.
Yes that is correct and here is the related link form Heritage’s Daily Signal, continuing like Fox, RT etc, along with GOP & far right to demand a collapse of national government, in UK Truss & Kwarteng followed similar in almost crashing the UK economy and budget… as McCain described the Koch ‘Freedom Caucus’ in the Senate as ‘lemmings in suicide vests, they simply don’t care’
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/04/20/4-pillars-project-2025-conservative-plan-undermine-liberal-behemoth-washington/
Yes, that is correct 🙂
Heritage’s Daily Signal, continuing like Hannity et al at ‘F*x’, RT etc, along with GOP & far right to demand a collapse of national government; in UK Truss & Kwarteng followed similar in almost crashing the UK economy and budget… as McCain described the Koch ‘Freedom Caucus’ in the Senate as ‘lemmings in suicide vests, they simply don’t care’
I think it’s simpler than that, when there’s a proposal for any change it’s easier to say ‘no’ and settle for the status quo rather than evaluate the proposal and say ‘yes’. And that’s without the noise from squalid opportunists such as Dutton.
And perfectly legal political lies. You can’t leave those out. How reprehensible is it for our “leaders” to deliberately lie in the certain knowledge almost half of the electorate lack the tools to discern or discover the lies?
“Galling as it might be to many, an exclusive focus on the minimal, advisory, supplicant and mildly ameliorative role of the Voice may convince enough undecideds and waverers that it is both practical and no threat, and to give it a go.“
Agreed.
If you don’t know, give it a go.
Failing that, may have pull out a‘ Stop The Votes’ campaign that highlights the measly $20 fine for not voting – If you don’t know, don’t go. – we’ll call it operation red back etc.
But seriously, here’s hoping Yes can start hitting some targets (as underdogs) and make the case that the Voice is a fair-go proposal to reduce cost-of-living pressures for ALL Aussies by stopping the bureaucratic waste that comes when elites don’t listen.
Say no to more of the same old torte by voting Yes.
*rorts
And there I was yearning for a Sacher-Torte on the alte Ringstrasse of Wien.
And you weren’t wrong.
Wasn’t Elizabeth the location of the launch of the 1967 referendum? I assumed that was why it was chosen this time around. In Australian rules footy context, Elizabeth – via Central Districts – has a storied First Nations history: Sony Morey, Wilbur Wilson, Gilbert McAdam, Derek Kickett (en route from WA to the AFL), Eddie Hocking, Philip Graham, to name but a choice selection.
Not forgetting Jimmy Working Class Boyo Barnes who could not wait to get the hell out.
Typical ungrateful pom.
He’s NOT a pom, he’s a SCOTSMAN.
I was 14 when my mum went to vote on the 1967 referendum. I had no idea what it was all about but I asked her how she would vote. A life-long Liberal, she said she would vote Yes “because we’ve treated the poor buggers terribly”.
I’m with Guy – leave the high-flown rhetoric about reconciliation (whose meaning remains a mystery to many people) and focus on Closing the Gap.
And I’m with you both. As Paul Kelly says in his comment on the voice, it’s All about a fair go. Just that. A fair go. Don’t complicate it. It’s Aussies helping out in a national crisis as we do in floods and bushfires.
It may yet prove to be many very good things, but a ‘fair go’ is the exact opposite of what even the most perfectly executed and efficacious Voice could ever possibly be. It’s a ‘special go’; an ‘extra go’; a ‘racially categorised go’; a ‘different-label go’; a ‘marked out from everyone else go’. A ‘ghetto go’, a ‘paternalist bauble go’, a ‘Whitey sheltered workshop go’, a ‘Westminster special needs go’…a ‘segregated status go’ permanently entrenched into our Constitutional DNA.
Label this new ‘public health crisis-response civic administration identifying, separating and therapeutically-sanitising go’ whatever you want, ‘yes’ voters. No innate identity-derived ‘go ’ that is not constitutionally equally available to every citizen is a ‘fair’ one. It cannot possibly be, by literal definition: what can ever be conceivably ‘fair’ about a ‘go’ you are either born with a citizenly entitlement to…or you are not. Such an unfair extra ‘go’ might ‘feelzz’ like an instrument of ‘progress’. It’s not. Such an unfair extra ‘go’ might even appear to improve the overall ‘go’ outcomes of the disadvantaged it’s granted to – but it won’t be the unfair extra ‘go’ that is doing the improving.
I am labouring this point to an offensive extreme because the ‘yes’ case is ferociously advocating for the self-sabotaging of one of the key driving engine rooms of human civilising progress. Civilised countries do not create different categories of citizenship among its citizens, with different citizenly rights. Not ever, not in any form. A Voice enshrined in the Constitution for only one ‘kind’ of to-be-henceforth-forever two different kinds of Australian citizen is the opposite of the Australian ‘fair go’. The end, the death of it, in fact – the extinction of its possibility, in both constitutional abstraction and democratic expression.
If you’re a genuine political progressive, vote ‘no’.
Straying from the topic somewhat, but in a sense we do already create different categories for our citizens. We aren’t equal under the constitution.
The federal division of Clark has 75,000 people. Macarthur has about 140,000. An elector in Sandy Bay has twice the voting power as one in Menangle Park, for constitutional reasons to which no one seems to object. An elector in Campbell Town has about four times the Senate voting power as their fellow Australian in Campbelltown. Again, for reasons well understood and accepted.
We do have different categories, Australians from smaller states. We have disproportionate and, strictly speaking, undemocratic weight at the ballot box. And when we vote we are electing representatives with actual power, not a consultative/advisory body.
Uncivilised? Constitutionally abstract? Or just democratic expression?
To clarify – and it ought be fairly clear already, if not from a ‘good faith’ reading and contextualising of this post, then in plenty of others in which I’ve made the same explicit point of principle, too. But fair enough critique: so, the sentence below properly intended to say, and would better read (my bold added):
Civilised countries do not create different categories of citizenship among its citizens, with different citizenly rights, deriving solely from innate and immutable identity markers. Not ever, not in any form.
Hope that clarifies. Again, your points are fair enough and relevant, helpful ones. Thanks, Tom W.
Sorry, not ‘Thanks, Tom W.’ Thanks Jo D. Apols.
Perhaps you slipped or had a momentary paroxysm on Jo D’s identity marker!
Sublimal to the point of witlessness it would have been, but aye, quite possibly! 🙂
NZ does, and has with the Māori indigenous. Take a look there and you’ll see a massively successful bi-partite cultural hegemony at it best in operation at every level of society. Kids in school, for instance learn about both the indigenous cultures and the colonial European, including the languages. Thus, the resonance of cultural displays such as the haka across all levels of NZ culture.
There are many, many kinds of Australians, the voice offers us a chance to listen grow learn and become collectively healthier.
That’s very, very true. But there ought only ever be one kind of citizen.
Practically in the eyes of the law and a racist there is 2 types of citizen now. The voice is aimed at levelling the playing field. Other no voters have stated that it will create a special group with unfair advantage. There is no way that Fn’s are going to improve their health and education standards without dragging the rest of the low socio economic groups with them.
Conservatives would never accept that. Yet neoliberals need an underclass to be/ feel superior , cheap Labor, a kicking person, etc.
This is where your argument aligns with something pretty ugly although it clearly isn’t your intention.
A truth of which I – like the many Indy supporters of Senator Thorpe’s ‘no’ position, only even more so – am acutely and painfully aware of. Thanks oodles for the explicit generosity and good faith of your last six words, Stuart.
Yes they do. The most obvious example being children and adults. Another being those incarcerated vs those not.
What “rights” are you saying the Voice would engender some citizens that others would not have ?
Huy Doc. No, they don’t. (See my clarification to Tom above if need be). Your ‘most obvious examples’ both I think being, rather, unwitting counter-factuals to your own assertion. Every citizen in Australia traverses the same human journey. That journey includes passages of our lives where our citizenly rights are ‘different’, in all sorts of dynamic ways and for all sorts of contingent reasons. For example, when I’m a minor, I can’t sign certain (any?) legal documents. Neither can any other minor citizen. If I commit a certain crime I might be imprisoned by the State; so equally, at least in principle (and in practice always equally at each court’s singular discretion) might every other citizen who commits the same crime. As a minor I can’t legally consent to sexual activity. Nor can any other minor citizen. (Aagain, any court exemptions will derive from equally-applied singular court processes.) When I have Covid, my movement rights may be restricted by the State. So will those of any other citizen with Covid (again, again…with any exemptions grounded not in innate and immutable identity markers, but in equally consistently-applied terms).
And as an Australian citizen I have exactly no more, and no less, voting franchise rights than every other Australian citizen, with any ‘differences’ to these once more governed only by policy, democratic-contingency and operational rules that are no more and no less applicable to every other citizen, too. Ensuring an equality of bedrock individual franchise that is iron-clad enshrined in the Constitution, and watched over by a protective High Court that has more power in any dispute with our parliaments over that very bedrock universality of franchise.
Unless and until…we agree to the Voice proposal.
Now, I don’t know whether or not you are being deliberately obtuse, Doc….but surely you can see that the Voice amendment proposed IS explicitly, in and of itself, a Constitutional right that I will not ever have, and that an Indigenous fellow citizen will automatically have, by mere virtue of being born. That extra right will be the permanently enshrined one to help elect a body that is outside our shared Constitutionally-derived elected bodies (our shared parliaments)…but imposed on them by our Constitution. Whether that body – the Voice – does nothing at all, or transforms Australia into a harmonious rainbow paradise, or destroys the entire bloody fabric of our civic society…is entirely irrelevant to my stance on principle against it: my bedrock insistence on universal equality of democratic franchise for all citizens. Which I regard as a core pillar of any genuine politico-philosophical progressive worldview, but – regardless of whether that’s theoretically/classically right or not – is to me at least non-negotiable.
The extra ‘right’ you interrogate…is not simply inherent in the (proposed) very existence in the constitution of the Voice. The Voice IS that extra right. As I see it. Chrs.
The underlying premise of the Voice is that indigenous people, by virtue of being present before colonisation, constitute a distinctly unique identity (ie: “indigenous” can’t be just substituted with “indian”, or “asian”, or whatever). If that’s not a premise you agree with then obviously “No” is the only logical vote.
The purpose of the Voice is for indigenous people to offer advice on issues relevant to indigenous people.
If you are not indigenous, the Voice is irrelevant to you.
Not so, Doc – very much not correct, for me at least. In fact I have no particular difficulty with Indigenous Australians being ‘recognised’ in the Constitution as a distinctly unique Australian ‘identity’, and even a ‘special’ one – in that Whitey-KC-trendy sense of Blak Australia being the original stewards with a unique cultural attachment to our shared country, yada yada. All that Dot-Painty/Paul Kelly/Midnight Oily whitey-arty-blackfella-leeeervin’, invariably from urban hipsters with a great spiritual hunger of their own to feed but a middle-class squeamishness about doing so via their mum n’ dads faith/spiritual cultures. To be honest I think it’d still be fairly thuddingly patronising – like when vanilla Oz ‘deigned’ to give rainbow Oz permission to marry – but (hand-on-heart) if all this Reffers proposed to do was what it says on the pack (very dishonestly, frankly)…then I’m 97% sure I’d be a Yes. (A slightly embarrassed and apologetic-to-Indy Oz ‘yes’, sure…but a vote’s a vote. I wall-papered my SSM ‘yes’ in really rather naughty language and I’m sure it was still counted.)
The premise I don’t agree with is the creation of a new instrument of democratic expression based solely on that distinctly unique ID, an extra voting right that only this newly-distinct ‘kind’ of citizen will henceforth have. That of itself is as I’ve said a breach of principle to be resisted, regardless of any Voice’s impact on governance as such (or not). But if you follow the logic, then, really, that extra voting right will (at least arguably) constitutionally guarantee the holder of it a power, too: a power over our Federal parliament that the other citizens will never possess. That power will be the power to have made, on their voting behalf, re-presentations to the Australian parliament and the Executive government. Currently no re-presentational group in Australia has the Constitutionally-guaranteed power to make our parliament and executive receive the re-presentations they make on behalf of those they represent. Not the AMA, not the BCA, not the MCA, not BHP or Commbank or NewsCorps, not the Unions, not Amnesty International, not the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council, not GetUp!, not #MeToo, the NFF or the Friends of the ABC. Or the Land Councils, the ALS, the Coalition of Peaks, or any other Indy body, either. We can all of us through our lobby and protest and activist and interest and political groups shout at our parliaments and governments, and try to do so as equally as we are able to manage it. But there is currently no constitutional law that sits above our parliament and government, and provides an iron-clad rule that any one cohort of those shouters’ and their re-presentations must be properly received. But that’s what a Voice will be, and do: a big C rule uniquely making – in comparitive terms – our democratic machinery listen to only the one kind of citizen, a rule complete with attached VAR referee (High Court) to make any subjective calls over disputes. Like what a parliament, public service body or governnment minister must do with a bunch of words written on glossy paper, or a powerpoint presentation run through, or a fiscal projection Xcel spreadsheet, in order that it becomes a properly, constitutionally-acceptable ‘representation made‘. Which surely must include, by reasonable logical inference, a process via which it’s ‘properly received and considered’. One would imagine that if a future Prime Minister were to ‘receive’ any such Indy Voice ‘re-presentation’ by saying something like ‘Oh, I haven’t read it, mate. Why should I?‘ a High Court might struggle to look the other way on a Voice appeal. That is the structural-level, constitutional revolution/disruption the Voice proposes. And that’s why it’ll impact us all. It’s untenable to assert that this change is irrelevant to me, when what we are talking about is a change that will compel something of what is every citizen’s parliament, and every citizens’ executive government (etc) – including mine, yours, every Indy Oz citizens’ – but, uniquely, at the direction of only one kind of citizen.
PS: As you may recognise, the real red flag is the American fiasco. Whatever you do, avoid garnishing your Constitutional black stuff with unnecessary hooks, splinters, knots, leg-ups, ingress points, endless add-ons and tail-chasing tweaks…sooner or later, some grifter will take advantage of them, and end up politicising the whole show to the point of policy/governing paralysis.
Again, per the proposal the Voice is only making representations relevant to indigenous Australians. If you’re not indigenous, then they’re not getting anything you don’t have, because what they do get is only relevant to them.
But none of those groups are the same – per your first paragraph – as indigenous Australians. So… why would they ? Your argument is based on a false premise that you have already identified as a false premise.
You keep writing “logic” when what you mean is “I think”.
If the intent was for it to be “properly received and considered”, then that is what would be proposed.
What would be the basis for such an appeal ? Per the words, the Voice has the ability to make representations. There is absolutely nothing there about said representations even having to be read, let alone considered, let alone acted on.
The lack of any requirement for the Government of the day to do anything about what the Voice says is the very obvious loophole that allows them to ignore anything they don’t like. It’s so obvious that it clearly must exist deliberately – or, more likely, the requirement for active consideration of anything the Voice proposes has been quite deliberately left out, precisely so that if the Voice proposes something politically impossible (or even just inconvenient) that proposal can be ignored.
Pretty much your entire argument here is regurgitating long- and multiply-refuted “No” fear mongering about power the proposed amendment simply does not create.
Well, I am pretty sure that the vast majority of those Indy Oz Voice propoents currently arguing so passionately for the Constituional right tio ‘make representations’ do not see it your way, Doc. (How else is the ‘Voice’ supposed to be regarded by them as so critical to ginfally having a true say?! And the real point is that there is deep division in Indy Oz on precisely this point. And that there-in lies what I see as the seeds of an almost inevitable final betrayal of Indigeous Australia.
If the Voice’s ‘right to make representations to parly and exec et al are intended to be (or turns out to be regarded as such by said parly/exec/wider Australians – essentially Indy advice ‘business as usual‘…then what is the point of it at all? Why not just a C-acknowledgement of Indy Australia as a distinct and special identity?
Well that’s what written in the constitutional amendment they support, so… it would seem a little presumptuous to assert they think something else entirely. ::shrug::
Re: your point about representations ‘only relevant to Indigenous Australians‘…well, presumably as Australian citizens too, Indigenous Australians and their repesentational advocates are perfectly entitled – obliged as citizens, I would even say – to have opinions, views and policy positions regarding every single thing that is relevant to me, you, or any other (non-Indigenous) Australian citizen?! An Indigenous Australian IS an Australian citizen too. (Maybe – as I think – first and foremost, an Australian citizen.) Are you saying that, despite that equal citizenly status, Indy Oz’s Voice is somehow not going to be ‘allowed’ to make representations to parly/gov/APS Australian policy on certain citizenly ishoos? I dunno – floundering here – ‘ishoos’ like foreign affairs, economics, the definition of ‘a woman’, same-sex marriage, climate change, social housing policy, euthenasia…because they’re, you know, ‘only’ an ‘Indigenous issue’ representational body?!
Come on. You don’t think that, Doc. Because that would be profoundly…well, paternalistic at best, and outright racist at worst, surely. And I know you are not remotely either of those things. Chrs.
No.
‘…Constitutional ‘black letter‘ stuff…rather awks typo. Apols.
You make a fine point, nobly reasoned, Jack. However, your stance appears to be predicated on the assumption that our current situation isn’t a rapidly unraveling shemozzle in which our alleged rights are evaporating, if they ever even existed.
In this neofuedal hellscape where only the ultra rich count, any move whatsoever which serves to even minimally empower some of the most disadvantaged is to be seized and pushed as far as it can go, because we’re getting bugger-all else, and this civilised society based on enlightenment values you’re holding out for is a mirage. It never was, and never will be, as long as the public square holds no noticeable pushback against the filthy scum setting the agenda.
AN ‘extra’ voice, based solely upon claimed race.
Woe betide anyone with the temerity to ask for proof of those specific genes, the cries of RACIST would be deafening yet it is the very basis of the extra privilege.
Dr Verwoed would be so proud.
So Sweden Norway, New Zealand and Canada not Civilised countries?
They probably need a bit of good old Aussie know how so Let’s run some civilising lessons –
Torturing refugees to death 101;
Intro to Demonising your Muslim neighbours
Locking up your indigenous population ‘fairly’
How to Spy on your poorest regional neighbour for your favourite oil company
Aussie Aussie etc….
Fair challenges. Thanks for taking the time and thought.
New Zealand Maoris get the (dynamic) choice to vote via either the Maori or the General electoral rolls. (As I understand it) every NZ voter still gets just one vote to help elect just one representational MP to the same shared parliaments. As a matter of the franchise principle I am defending, I’d argue that that ‘extra’ franchise right is more akin to the right of all electors to geographically move electorates in they think it sufficiently necessary to seek more, for them, palatable representational options. But yes, Kiwi Maoris do have an extra democratic right to non-Maoris. And yes, NZ is a civilised country (Fluffy McCaw and Marc Hunter not-with-standing), even arguably more manifestly so than Australia. Not that it’s my business, but FWIW I still happen to think they should abolish the Maori roll – and some Kiwis think that, too. Could the Kiwi system work in Australia? Without a long-extant sovereign Treaty between two broadly-establishable Sovereign Peoples – ‘Indigenous’ and ‘non-Indigenous’, say – I think not.
As for the Sami parliaments of Norway and Sweden, both are seperate and self-contained administrative bodies which have evolved in pretty much the exact reverse manner in which the Voice is being proposed for us: emerging and evolving first as progressively more detailed, functionally legislated representational mechanisms from the State parliamentary system, with governing remits and powers clearly grounded in quite specific and well-established electoral base, cultural, and (in Sweden’s case) geographical particulars – reindeer hunting, language, education, its own internal activities, policies and dialogue with its electors. Formal Constitutional recognition (permanent democratic embedding) has been a relatively recent ‘final flourish’ to this process. One thing to note is that the way Sami voters (each of whom must actively choose to be Sami voters) elect these democratic bodies, and the way these bodies conduct their representational activities, is transparent, independently scrutinised, and accountable to them via all the normal parliamentary mechanisms. It ‘could’ I suppose turn out that our federal parliamentary processes will, post Referendum, agree that a truly efficacious (and truly democratic) Indigenous Voice is best to be constituted as a fully-blown, self-contained parliament of its own, too…but geez, it would probably have been useful to have that kind of complex (and likely squabblesome!) conversation first (say via a Constitutional convention). FWIW, I think that if we could somehow reverse-engineer the Sami experience and retro-fit that framework to Indigenous Australia…great. But I think to do so would be impossible, not least because the Sami parliaments have emerged organically and over time upwards from Sami tribal/community-level bodies. That they’ve been nurtured to do so thus is, yes, of course, (further) testament to Norwegian and Swedish civilisation. But you can’t just nick someone else’s civilising ‘endpoint-expressions’ in the hope that they can be grafted, fully-formed and viably, onto your own.
The Canada example is, I think, the most agonisingly apposite to raise – and I think as a cautionary one. Canada is a civilised country, sure, but IMO it’s one that is increasingly flirting with exactly all the regressive (de-civilising?!) risks that underpin my on-principle instinct against a Voice. In fact, at least as far as I can decipher, the Canadian people have already committed themselves to a whole lot of future constitutional headaches-to-be-endured, in the form of various formal recognitions, agreements and treaties with not one but three different prospectively self-governing, internal-but-sovereign, Peoples: the Metis, the Inuit and First Nations. I don’t think there’s anything especially encouraging to be drawn – certainly not yet – from the current ‘state of franchise play’ in that country for us, and our Voice deliberations. Time – or more knowledable/expert obervations – might prove me wrong.
So sure, there’s clearly different ways for civilised countries to make manifest a ‘fair go’ universal franchise as befits their own national, demographic and historical particulars. My default principle though remains that countries are wise to keep their own version of ‘universal franchise’ as truly universal – as unemcumbered by Constitutional qualification – as their own particulars allow. For me, no-one advocating a ‘yes’ Voice vote has come close to justifying this profound change to ours. Cheers and thanks again for your pushback, JohnC. Good food for thought.
When I consider the context I have to vote ‘yes’. First Nations people have been here for more than 60,000 years. Since being colonised they have been treated appallingly and are well behind in every aspect of life. Optimistically, that gap will take decades to reduce significantly.
The Voice would give them the right to provide advice to government on their own issues. Yes, that is special treatment in the constitutional context, but the government of the day can also choose to ignore that advice. The Voice does not guarantee First Nations people any influence. Other sectors of our society have had far more influence over our governments for years. Political donations, lobbying, religious influence, etc.
The ‘fair go’ is something politicians drag out when they want to ignore structural inequality and win votes from sections of society. The Voice is a small step toward giving First Nations people an actual fairer go.
You may well be proved to be right, and if that is so I will be very happy to concede I was wrong to vote againmst the Voice. But, as I nbote to Sheryl Gwyther below, the key point to make is that the instrument via which Indy oz gets to enable an actual fairer go will have less to do with a Voice than what things that Voice actually says, and by saying it, makes to happen. I can’t see how whatever those things turn out to be, they already can’t be said as things stand right now, with equal clarity and unified efficacy, Voice or not. Chrs.
Civilised countries do not ignore for centuries and up into modern times, the dire affects of land stealth and cultural loss, Indigenous inequality, horrific living conditions, high mortality rates for babies and elderly Aboriginal people, continuing deaths in custody, and the list goes on.
If you want to, as a normal human response, change these horrifying statistics by ensuring Aboriginal people have a real say and therefore an authentic chance to improve their lives and futures, vote YES.
The point is that Australia, since at least 12967, hasn’t ‘ignored..up into modern times’, all those things. And that Australia has, since then, tried multiple possible ways of ensuring that aboriginal people HAVE had a real say in addressing them, from raising a dedicated Ministry, to electing Indy MPs, to bodies like Lanmd Councils and ATSIC, to fundamental legal revolurtion such as Mabo, and so on. None of them worked, and there is no reason at all to simply hope that a trying a constitutionally-enshrined permanent citizenly distinction and its concomitant Voice will, of itself, work any better. The instrument of an Indigenous ‘say’ matters far less than what it is used to say, and do.
Northing that needs to be done to improve the lives and place of Indy Oz requires a ‘Voice’ to be said. Indeed, the question to ask of the Indigenous and non-Indigenous leadership advocating it is this: why haven’t the things the Voice will presumably say to government and parliament been said already? Indeed, long ago? Best rgds.
Well, simply because there has been, and is explicit and implicit racism within our Western institutions and ways of thinking and living. This is particularly the case in Australia which, to use an old term, suffers terribly from the cultural cringe. The questions of social structure and political structure need to the addressed. The ALP is trying to do this with the Voice to parliament and in its whole-hearted response to meet the Uluru Statement from the Heart, in full. The Uluru Statement itself is a collective and gathered response from Indigenous Australians, from grassroots to the elites, and everyone between. Its a genuinely a representative document and call of what they think and reckon will make those changes which governments and other groups have tried, and failed to meet. The Voice will help to close the gap of Indigenous disadvantage in education, life expectancy and access to medical and housing needs. These, for us Westerners, are basic human rights. I am with you, Jack, insofar as putting more reason into the debate. Afterall, how can you desire structural change, or in fact see the problems in their actual structural consistency without a good measure of reason. Australian society and culture carries licit and explicit racism. The Voice to Parliament will work its way into our institutions and national psyché is a way that makes us a better nation. We will be less prejudice and, put simply, a nicer place and people to be around.
Thanks, Brett, that’s a relatively solid and attractive pitch in comparison to much of the fragmented and often-contradictory ‘Yes’ cases: the longer-view ‘strategic’ impact, the ‘trickle up’/’march through the institutions’ (in a constructive way) line. If over time that’s the overwhelming outcome of a successful Referendum – and I aknowledge the generation-shift effect, too – that’ll help improve the practical and policy nitty-gritty, ie the correction of Gap, and race/ist-historical and entrenched attitudinal disadvantages. I guess, though, I am less wary of any one decent, individual good faith ‘Yes’ case than I am the clash of the many different ones. Dr Smith above, for example – who I regard as no less decent, intelligent and in good faith as you…argues that the Voice doesn’t confer or underpin any such improved capacity to make those changes which governments and otehr groupds havew tried, and failed, to meet…in so far that the Voice won’t, at a disputed pinch, equip Indy Oz to have its collective and gathered policy advice heard and acted on by non-Indy democracy any better than past and current frameworks.
If what you argue is the material outcome over time of a Voice, even partially, then I’ll be content enough to accept that I was mistaken to vote ‘No’. But if we do prove able to get there with a Voice…my view won’t really change: that we can (could have) got to that future better place without a Voice, too…and in doing so, avoid altogether all the many risks/potential unintended consequences we are making (we made) ourselves hostage to. It’s not installing the ‘Voice’ (or not) that will improve Indy Australia’s lot; it’s what it (or any other future Indy voice/s) subsequently says, and what we hear of that, and act upon.
Best regards, Brett, and good luck with your advocacy.
Cheers Jack, though what about the fact the Indigenous Australians do want the voice, and that the Uluru Statement from the Heart is their represented (across the whole spectrum of local to high administrative) desire. That is what Indigenous Australians want, and surely the first step to ensuring the institutional disadvantages we obviously agree upon, is listening. Listening attentively and quietly – as a first movement in a broader attempt at integration and equality in the structures of our shared society. It’s the first step in empowerment of the other that listening attends to. And, the Voice would institutionalise that for our disadvantaged neighbours. Thus, the very name of the instrument proposed, The Voice. Empowerment of the other is always difficult at a personal level of course. Which point geos to what you term my advocacy. In a very real way, I am no advocate. The referendum will not impact me in terms of the content and policy and shifting the Gap to a better place. Though, as part of the Australian community, that longer term view you spoke of, will mean that I live in a more just, fair and cohesive community. If I were to advocate then I’d say stuff just like that and speak of how the Yes vote will help make for a greater moral integration across our community. And surely that is something worth considering and voting positively for?
I truly hope that if the multitude of ‘Yes’ votes do collectively prevail, then it’s your (& that of the doubtless many like-minded) version of the Voice that emerges from it. Good luck mate. To us all! 🙂
Jack, the issue is that Aboriginal people were here before us and have fundamentally different ways of being (doing and thinking). They should not be forced to become like “us” because we decide it – and it’s clear every day that we are not going to make any serious effort to be like them.
This is a different category of person and the fact the invading, thieving side of the equation has made almost no effort to integrate with the people who were here first is the fundamental reason things are so bad for Aboriginal people.
I’m lukewarm about a Voice, because I think we need Treaty and a meaningful recognition of the political, cultural and other rights of Aboriginal people before things improve meaningfully.
But given that’s unlikely, a Voice will at least me a small mechanism for the original owners of this place to have their side of things heard.
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Bob, I can’t tell you how much I agree with (what I think is) your core view: that at the heart of any real ‘reconciliation’ of Indy and non-Indy Oz lies the urgent need for each – but overwhelmingly, the dominant and now increasingly self-destructive ‘imported’ approach – to give some ground, to combine and together expand, such that a whole new way of living in this infuriating, mysterious, gloriously-unique joint might finally emerge. Whatever the vote result, if we can’t subsequently manage that, the result won’t matter at all. Warmst rgds and good luck.