The joke often celebrated as the single funniest line of satire was written by novelist and screenwriter Terry Southern, and it occurs in the 1964 film Dr Strangelove when a Soviet ambassador and a US general come to blows, only to be reproached: “Gentlemen! You can’t fight in here! This is the war room!” So simple, so direct it almost comes apart. But it gets a laugh every time. It hasn’t been beaten yet.
That is, until the Voice referendum started, and became a testing ground to see just how many Indigenous people can be told to “shut up” by white people, because “otherwise you’ll never get a Voice!” This has become grimly hilarious now as the number steadily rises of visible First Nations leaders and everyday folk raising their, gosh, voices, to say they’re against this Voice thing, or not sure what it is, or think it is being done in the wrong way, at the wrong time, or…
I mean, how many do you need for this ridiculous claim — that voting or advocating No or “not Yes” is racist — to be demolished entirely? How can such a thing be taken seriously, especially when it comes from people who used to present themselves as fearless empiricists not bound by any ideology, blah blah blah? How many dissenting Aboriginal voices do you need to tell you there’s a non-racist argument for No?
The initial high-profile figures — Lidia Thorpe, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Nyunggai Warren Mundine, all coming from different angles — were soon joined by others who were No, such as Anthony Dillon, and either “No-ish” or highly critical of the assumptions of it, such as Gary Foley, Michael Mansell and Celeste Liddle (the latter two in the current Voice issue of Arena). Surely so many differing opinions cannot be dismissed as “cut-off intellectuals” or nastier attacks?
The Indigenous No voices are beginning to crowd out the actual Yes voices, and it’s not News Corpse doing that. It’s the sheer volume of dissent to a proposal and a plan — demanding the minimum possible political change so that the right would support it, and excluding from the start those likely to dissent from it — that’s doing it. The Voice has come apart on the Indigenous side, and whites have rushed in to fill the void.
In so doing, the high-profile Yes case, or the white side of it, has become a festival of political narcissism — and at the same time as a positive development: the rise of the Yes volunteer army. That tension was visible over the weekend as the Yes rallies surged across the country in a genuine outpouring of affirming energy, while Yes thought leaders upped the narcissism and fundamental misrecognition by the Yes case of the wavering or sceptical people whose votes they need.
There was so much of this. It was everywhere, and it builds and feeds off itself. It started with the new Yes campaign ad, with a young First Nations boy hoping he’ll get to a school good enough to let him have a life. People billed and cooed about its beautiful and inspiring nature. It was beautiful and inspiring, and it may well move a few waverers who see it to come down on the Yes side.
But within its design and appeal is a circular logic: it targets people on their capacity to feel empathy for, and join, the First Nations cause, and to feel that the narrative of reconciliation — of an equality of opportunity arising — is meaningful and involving. Well, of all those who feel that, the vast majority are in the Yes camp already.
The waverers, undecideds and “soft Nos” the Yes vote needs are those who come to this issue with no narrative of Black and white at all, with indifference to the narrative, or with mild disdain for First Nations peoples but sufficient sympathy for them as human beings to be persuaded to vote for something that may address their plight.
The mild disdain is in many cases unformulated. It is a sense that there was dispossession and violence, that the IPA/Tony Abbott/Jacinta Nampijinpa Price “better off” test — “without the First Fleet, how could Indigenous people stream old episodes of Friends, etc?’ — is silly. But it is also an irritation that First Nations peoples can’t get their act together after half a century of positive action, that so much time, energy and (inaccurately) money are devoted to the issue.
That is unfair for all sorts of reasons, but there it is. On the vast plains of terracotta and concrete that spread for thousands of square kilometres around the Australian civilisation we have built, one suspects that most non-Indigenous people have never knowingly met a First Nations person, save through official stuff like Welcomes to Country or school visits for talks. Torres Strait Islander peoples are all but invisible; Aboriginal peoples remain thought of as desert communities — in a terrible state, but outside the stream of Australian life.
None of this sense-of-destiny stuff will be persuasive — neither Linda Burney’s renewed call to “make history”, nor Geoffrey Robertson’s worry that we may lose our access to global levers of power, Julianne Schultz chiding us for not knowing the constitution by heart, or Barry Jones’s caution that this may be our Brexit moment will persuade sufficient people that they must vote Yes.
They see, if they are following the news at all, that First Nations peoples are divided about the Voice. How then, if it is so fractured, can it be a call to make history? They see a bizarre turnabout, where Yes camp leaders claim their mission is one of unity against the No camp’s division when the Yes camp’s cause is to institute a (legitimate) division of two types of Australians into the depth of the constitution.
That latter move — which re-institutes official legal First Nations status, and will have the potential to generate lawsuits about who is and isn’t eligible to vote for or help select Voice delegates — is only a move to a higher unity, if you already accept the reconciliatory notion that we have to pass through difference to a higher unity. The Yes case leaders are so deep into that, they can’t see how cockeyed that logic appears to many people.
The Yes leaders haven’t been able to kick the habit of presenting the No case not as an active opponent to be bested*, but as resistant sludge to be waded through or drained away. The arrogance is overweening, and it distorts thinking. Media Watch’s coverage of the No campaign on TikTok — which is faster and more compelling than anything Yes has done — was a case in point.
Thus, one ad juxtaposes Noel Pearson talking about the Voice leading to Treaty, with Anthony Albanese waffling and avoiding on RN Breakfast when asked about it. This was presented as duplicity by the No case, and the right. Yet it is double duplicity by the Yes case to argue this. Pearson has been linking the Voice to Treaty for years. The Voice was devised for Treaty purposes — so as, in Pearson’s phrase, there would be another constituted party for the government to “treat” with. Albo was simply lying by omission by ducking that, got caught doing it, and it was slapped into an ad.
Lying that that is lying, which the Yes case and its allies are doing, is about as counterproductive a move as it gets. Perhaps it all came together when an Aboriginal woman stood up before Senator Price’s NPC speech to state that she too was a No, and did not feel represented. She could have been given a few minutes to say something, maybe asked a couple of questions. Instead she was shunted off. “You can’t make verbal statements which count as publishing here! This is the Press Club!”
There is still time, I think, for the Yes leadership and the burgeoning Yes army to realise that they are trying to do two separate things. They want a Yes vote that comes from an acceptance of the narrative of dispossession and reconciliation, that an Edenic society was destroyed by the arrival of carceral settler colonialism. But they don’t need people to believe that for a Yes vote to count. They just need to get to Yes. Swear to God, slap together a quick and dirty TikTok ad saying this in its entirety:
A Yes vote in the October 14 referendum will set up a First Nations advisory group to help Parliament improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They’ll do all the advising. Vote Yes and you won’t have to hear or think much about most of this stuff ever again.
That would do the trick. (Here’s the soundtrack.) Do you think the 90% vote in 1967 was all liberal, colour-blind anti-racists? In 1967? In Australia? No, it was many, many convinced racialists and supremacists voting simply to hand the problem over to the federal government, with some increased powers to get something done.
Maybe that ad would be a good idea, maybe a bad one. But if it seems to you, as a Yes proponent, a shocking or impertinent or denigrating one, you’re still not thinking about winning this vote. You’re thinking of changing the culture of large sections of non-Indigenous Australia, which is a rather taller order — and why I guess, the cry has gone up against so many people: “Shut up! We’re trying to get you a Voice!”
*Yes, grammatically that should be “bettered”. Now go correct apostrophes on menus.
The media is consistently platforming First Nation Voices which are opposed to the Voice. Survey after survey show that the vast majority First Nations people support the voice. Whilst I would agree that some of that support is soft, it feels more reminiscent of how the media used to handle the vaccine debate in the early 2000s when they drudge up someone who opposed it for the semblance of balance. I follow plenty of First Nations people on social media, yet very few of them seem to be getting called up for their perspectives, yet the media continuously bends over backwards to find yet another individual opposed to the voice.
This is not to say that their perspectives are invalid, it’s just that they represent a minority view.
But why do black commentators and leaders have to only pay heed to the opnions black people might have, whereas white commentators can simply say what they think? If people have become community leaders, why are they not entitled to be listened to and argued with? That’s especially so when they argue that the Uluru meetings were selectively constructed to obtain consent
“That’s especially so when they argue that the Uluru meetings were selectively constructed to obtain consent”…………
Does it not occur to you that the “argument” is obviously utter bollocks.
It bears a remarkable similarity to Trump’s “Stolen Election” line of bullshit.
Do these self-styled “community leaders” expect us to believe that literally hundreds of meetings across the whole of Australia were cunningly orchestrated (by the secret elites, no doubt) to “obtain consent”???
I doubt you could sell that line of roke-manure to a five-year old…………..
Especially problematic when US Koch linked CIS (like IPA) in Sydney appears to be supporting the ‘No’ vote…. very whiffy….
It has no similarity to Trumps claim about the ‘stolen election’. That is the logical level of the 5 year old you mentioned
Oh really?………….
Trump maintained that a nationwide conspiracy of (presumably omnipresent) “Elites” banded together to alter the election results.
Price maintains that the (hundreds of Nationwide) meetings (over a period of years) were in fact a conspiracy (presumably by her equally-derided “Elites”) to create the illusion of consent.
Both present a wildly unlikely nationwide conspiracy theory, running for years, expressly designed to thwart their intent.
Price has recently even adopted the Trumpian “Anti-Elites” line and purports to be the “channel” for a completely mythical base of Aboriginals who don’t want a Voice.
You really can’t see the similarities?
I guess there are none so blind as those already KNOW the answer………….
Arr no Trump claimed that he won the election in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. His reference to the elites is rarely mentioned only Democrats. I don’t believe Price referred to the process as a conspiracy. You make a straw man argument when you misquote both Trump and Price to ‘prove’ your argument. Trump doesn’t present a wildly unlikely theory. He’s simply lying for self advancement. Everybody knows that. Price is expressing an opinion. An opinion that many will disagree with but for which there has been no thorough investigation. It’s like the overused accusation of labelling people as Nazis. Shows a terrible lack of historical insight.
There’s some magical thinking from some of the indigenous No commentors like Mundine’s “the hard work begins after the No vote” – which neglects that the work is *harder* after a No vote. None of them have proposed a path to treaties or other gains that doesn’t involve establishing some consensus, and yet they’re so willing to undermine the progress to consensus established so far. They have made the path forward about them as individuals.
Whose work is harder after a ‘no’ vote?
Anyone whose work to achieve the goals articulated by the Uluru meetings. There may be people who want to achive other things, but if they undermine the efforts of others in order to make any successes for indigenous people contingent on their preferred process, then that just smacks of saviour complexes.
I don’t understand this. Why does Rundle think that Blacks are only listened to by Blacks? The crowd at the press club was predominantly white. From what I can see, and it would make sense tactically, white NO leaders are more than happy to have black no advocates front and centre. To tell you the truth, Rundle’s positions lately look like contrived contrarianism.
Yes, they do smack of “any argument in a storm”…………….
Where did I say that? The confusion is yours, not mine. Ah contrarianism! When you disagree with an opinion you cant understand.
No – Patrick disagrees with an argument that is irrelevant, contradictory and contrarian. The confusion of this argument is that an Aboriginal woman and her mother – the other woman – both of whom are politicians, claim to be the Voice of the Aboriginal people, whilst ignoring what the other mob are saying and Guy says they can’t be called out for it by people who aren’t Aboriginal.
This is despite the disavowal of the Senator by those very same Aboriginal people as she doesn’t represent them but the white folk who want their land. Those who currently have no voice because the views of the Senator are listened to while theirs are not given any publicity at all by media fixated on one contrarian woman. Ah – there is the similarity.
I wait for the day when an article enlightens me rather than provokes with its contrarian tilt.
Black ‘no’ campaigners arent being tackled by whites for their arguments. Theyre being told they dont represent black people and shouldnt have a distinct opinion, or that theyre tools of the right.
Everything’s contrarian to you that you disagree with. That’s a failure of your capacity to reason and analyse other ideas
But again, they represent a minority of the community. They can have and share their views and are being consistently platformed to share said views. Ultimately though, they don’t represent the majority of First Nations people view on the voice.
Black ‘no’ campaigners are being tackled by whites for their arguments. They’re also not being told they don’t represent black people. (The opposite is also true, but one truth isn’t greater than the other just because you choose to highlight that particular example.)
They shouldn’t have a distinct opinion if their opinion is not distinct. But, if their opinion is distinct, they should have a distinct opinion. (To manufacture a distinct opinion that is not heartfelt may suggest an opinion that qualifies as monetisable contrarianism).
And yes, unless you believe change is more likely with a vote for the status quo, then they are (inadvertently or not) tools of the right.
Would it be fair to say white people are divided on the Vote, why would you expect any different, with the First Nations People?
They have heard many of these promises a several times before and very little has been delivered.
yes. to be frank it rather astounds me that any Indy Oz person would touch The Voice as proposed with a barge pole. that’s a purely personal observation that’s of little importance to much, and certainly none to any Indy Oz voter!
It’s not talking down to anyone to point out the political reality of the looming victory of No. Such momentum will be lost that it will be extremely hard to get to Truth and Treaty let alone getting back to Voice. The electorate has a short attention span. It also likes winners. Goodwill will slip away leading to generations of increasing despair. That’s politics in this country, brutal and simple.
Despite what Dutton may mouth, he knows very well (and relishes) the fact that if the No vote gets up, any action on Aboriginal reconciliation is dead in the water for at least a generation……..
Dutton just wants a win – and he doesn’t care who it will cost.
“Sudanese Gangs Mk II”
And may he stay in opposition for at least a generation, he certainly does not represent my Liberal values for the last 50 years
May he stay in opposition at least long enough for the NACC to send him down……………..
(I’d agree there is simply no comparison between the current crop of Nutbags and the Liberal Party of Fraser…… I actually voted for him at one stage!)
Except Warren Mundine and Michael Mansell argue that after the Voice has been cooked thats when the real work can begin. And Liddle says that the idea of a loss being a disaster is overblown. You got a response to those arguments, some of which have been made by those people in this publication…
Warren Mundine and Michael Mansell may well get to work once the Voice fails, but they will get no support as everyone else will have checked out. Politicians of all colours know that this is the chance to get something done, and if it fails, there will be no political effort expended on Indigenous issues for a very long time. This behaviour is not specific to this issue, but all major national issues. I think @Simon Roberts nailed it with “The electorate … likes winners.” Everyone is excited about Gay Marriage because it got up – if it had failed, it would not be on the agenda again for a long time. Same for a republic, etc. etc. This is why it is so disappointing that many Indigenous leaders are not supporting the voice because it is “in the wrong order”, or “doesn’t go far enough”. We need to start with something and build on it and shape it, rather than shoot down the opportunity because it is not perfect.
Marriage equality was not put up for constitutional change. If it were it would probably have been rejected [I suspect]. The voice should have been legislated and would have had bipartisan support and would have been widely supported. Changing the constitution is unnecessary overreach and I suspect stupid virtue signalling. This whole process has had devastating consequences that at least some of us predicted early on. Very poor political judgement. Like AUKUS I fear that they thought it would make them look decisive and virtuous. Both decisions were never thought through and are disastrous.
Spot on. I’d like to meet the electoral Einstein who thought it was a sound political idea to a) enter into a formal anti-china pacific defence & security pact with the UK at the behest of the US or b) invite a formal popular vote on whether or not to give Indy Oz something non-Indy Oz doesn’t have.
This tired old argument has been dismissed that many times, I see no reason to repeat the rebuttal.
The Uluru statement deliberately sought Constitutional Change because then, although the Voice format night be altered by subsequent governments, it can’t be eliminated entirely as has happened in the past.
A Legislated Voice could be eliminated after the next election.
I have explained the problem with that. By the way just because less than 3% of the population want to change the constitution to give them more influence, it is extraordinarily clumsy to just assume the remaining 97% will think that’s fine, no need to discuss it. Suggests that any old oppressed minority group can get together and demand a change to our constitution without consulting the nation as a whole. Yes one of Albanese’s few promises at election was the Uluru statement but we didn’t get a choice about any single issues. He could have promised anything and he would have won because he was against an incompetent, corrupt and dishonest administration.
Except the Voice was something the authors of the Uluru Statement specifically asked to be included in the constitution. Legislating the voice is not acceptable to the FN peoples here. And Dutton knows it!
Er…so the ALP aren’t likely to bring in any other proposal having been burned. The LNP aren’t interested and see indigenous people as a useful political tool at certain times. It’s a fact of Australian politics that there are no votes in helping indigenous people and the modern LNP is only interested in votes. Mansell and Mundine can ‘argue’ til they’re blue in the face but constitutional recognition or a commonwealth treaty ain’t gonna happen. I’d be interested to here what Guy sees as Mansell’s and Mundine’s achievements vis a vis Indigenous recognition over the last 30 years.
Why do you demand that their work be directed towards ‘recognition’? Mansell, with others, has spent decades building the Tasmanian aboriginal community from a point where they were not even regarded as existing. Why do you demand, as a white person, that long-recognised leaders prove themselves, according to your priorities, not theirs?
And Mundine?
What about former Olympic sprinter Patrick Johnson, Cate? Does he live up to your political expectations of an Indigenous Australian?
https://deadlychoices.com.au/ambassadors/patrick-johnson-olympic-sprinter/
Alas this cursory glance on Teh Internetz at his Indy Oz credentials doesn’t make it clear whether he’s voting ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, so I suppose that might make your assessment of his legitimacy a little trickier.
Best get googling, there’s 812, 700 FN Australians for you to work through. Let us know your results.
This is the equivalent of King Harold, arrow in eye, saying that because we lost the battle of Hastings, we can now get on with the real work of defeating the French.
Well, we’re about to find out if they’re right, Guy and you can be certain the work environment’s going to be very unpleasant. Lots of noise pollution, what with 40% of the country shrieking “You’re all racist!” and the other 60% bristling, baring their teeth and shouting “No we’re not!” back at ‘em.
My son had a noise pollution issue in the lab today because the roof was being pressure cleaned. Not much lab work got done because they couldn’t hear themselves think, so they called it a day early.
I cannot see how a ‘No’ vote can in any way be taken as a vote for change, because it is a vote for ‘No’ change. It is, whether you like it or not, a vote for the status quo, for things to stay as they are.
Can you honestly imagine, after Australians have voted to not changing anything, that any political party is going to go to an election with radical or consultative policies looking to redress historic injustice? Or to go out on a limb with concrete proposals to ‘close the gap’?
Honestly?
I’ll anticipate a “But, what will a ‘Yes’ vote change?” with an I don’t know what if anything a ‘Yes’ vote will change. But, a vote for change at least provides an opportunity and political legitimacy for efforts to change. Something changed, and so something else may change.
Mundine and Mansell might well argue that once a vote for ‘No’ change is secured that the “real work” will begin. But I cannot, in good faith, envision anything will change at all. How are their fellow ‘No’ voters going to somehow find the impetus to change anything at all when Australia has just voted to change nothing at all?
Good summary of the problem facing contrarian No voters. Some might call it Windbaggery.
If a No vote is the way forward to improving the outcomes of disadvantage, why are Mundine, Mansell & Co are not tasked with publishing their blueprint of the “real work”, along with timelines, process & etc.
Once again, Monty Python has it nailed, with the Society for Putting Things On Top Of Other Things.
You’re the ones wasting time, resources and public goodwill on the probably doomed, wholly unnecessary task of constructing a new sheltered workshop in which to do things you could start on tomorrow in the public square if you chose to.
Rundle’s ‘Voice that needs to shut its mouth unless it says the right thing’ is the Python skit.
Dear me. Someone is all worked up. You have a Plan? Do you? Let’s see it then.
And it’s not even 5 o’clock
Actually that was a bit mean. I’ve taken it back.
No, mate, you’re the one wasting more time than anyone else on this comments section. You’ve got around 30 comments or more arguing in favour of the status quo and/or impugning the characters of anyone who happens to believe the status quo is not the way forward.
I take the Referendum and the future of Indy Oz very seriously, sure. Not going to apologise for that.
and thye only ‘characters i’ve impugned’ – rightly – are the odious twits that keep calling price et al ‘uncle toms’, etc. the others i’ve just disagreed & argued with. trhe big boys and girls will survive my mighty intellect’s wrath, i’m quite confident.
I’ve started to just cast my eyes further down the page when your name comes up
Is that out of fear that you might learn something to disturb your smug complacent ignorance?
Or ignorant, smug complacency which hides the complacent, ignorant smugness?
Fair enough, Cate, no-one’s obliged to listen to my Voice, either. Sorry, my voice.
There are so many wide, sweeping assertions in this piece but the main assertion is that white voices are bullying black people and telling them to shut up.
This is just plain wrong.
Guy ignores the significant Black leadership of the Yes campaign backed up by the Labor government. He ignores the history of the campaign from the time of the Uluru statement some years back that was not and is not white led.
Most of us would not be aware of the dissent within the Indigenous communities were it not for white media allowing for those Indigenous No voters to be heard. Who is drowning them out? Disagreeing with them is permitted in this society and the Indigenous Yes campaigners have done a good job of that but it is no match for Sky After Dark and Warren Mundine spreading the message that the commies are coming.
The fact that there’s plenty of indigenous yes advocates, doesn’t change the fact that there are plenty of ‘no’ ones – and the suggestion that the ‘no’ case is nothing but racist amounts to a legitimising of them.
I didn’t say they were being drowned out. I was saying they were being told to shut up. Which seems a weird thing to do in pursuit of a voice
I agree, telling Indigenous No voters to shut up is not on. From my point of view the No campaign haven’t been arguing in good faith the merits of a Voice in the constitution.
Most of the arguments are on matters that appeal to underlying prejudices and rhetoric around First Nations people.
– The cost of closing the gap, misquoting $30 billion.
– the families that are millionaires from government handouts. The term indigenous industry used regularly.
– the fact that there are white skinned Indigenous
– no such thing as inter generational trauma.
– Colonisation was good.
Yet again, Indigenous people are on trial and calling out these tropes means you’re a reverse racist
FFS, engage with the argunments I/No voters am making. Not the ones you are inventing, or obsessing over.
Argue against the best ‘No’ cases, not the worst. Make one up for yourself, if mine aren’t up to scratch. If you can’t or won’t make yourself adopt that discursive and advocacy approach…you’ll never secure real progressive reform, ever.
I’m simply repeating key points that No voters are expressing to me, the points that are resonating with them based on what they’re getting from Facebook and as evidenced here.
https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-is-30-billion-spent-every-year-on-500-000-indigenous-people-in-australia-64658
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-25/voice-no-camp-responds-gary-johns-blood-test-welfare/102639842
– no such thing as inter generational trauma.
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/08-online/intergenerational-trauma-and-all-that/
None of the people I’ve spoken to have raised with me the interplay between section 51 and 129 and the risks. That may be the people I’m associating with, but to deny it’s not a key part of the discourse is wishful thinking.
The points you’ve made are 100% appropriate and ideally would be the level of discourse that we’d see.
The fact is I haven’t yet made up my mind whether I’m voting Yes or No. I’m not a Constitutional lawyer and obviously read Anne Twomey, Greg Connelly, but did skip over Quadrant. I think there are risks, do the benefits outweigh the risks? depends on if parties act in good faith. It’s government there will be winners and losers no matter what decisions are made.
Like you’re newby I’m more disgusted by some of the arguments and discourse of the No side, including from likes of Lee below. Makes me more inclined to swing Yes. He/she/they/it couldn’t even give me the courtesy of engaging, carrying on about cereal (ironic with the name Lee). I don’t know what bubble he/she/they/it are living in that he/she/they/it thinks these things aren’t being said because they are.
Reposted without the snark.
I’m simply repeating key points that No voters are expressing to me, the points that are resonating with them based on what they’re getting from Facebook and as evidenced here. https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-is-30-billion-spent-every-year-on-500-000-indigenous-people-in-australia-64658 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-25/voice-no-camp-responds-gary-johns-blood-test-welfare/102639842 – no such thing as inter generational trauma. https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/08-online/intergenerational-trauma-and-all-that/
None of the people I’ve spoken to have raised with me the interplay between section 51 and 129 and the risks. That may be the people I’m associating with, but to deny it’s not a key part of the discourse is wishful thinking.
The points you’ve made are 100% appropriate and ideally would be the level of discourse that we’d see.
* universalism and equality? Isn’t closing the gap bipartisan? or are you referring to communism or something?
* practical unknowns. Is this Runsfeld thing? Known unknown and unknown unknowns? Look I agree that it is not a fullproof solution and the fact is there will be bad faith actors on both sides. As I’ve stated elsewhere unless policy makers actually consult/ co-design, or whatever they’re calling ‘needs’ based funding these days, in conjunction with the Voice informing parliament, there is a risk it won’t improve outcomes.
* Blak Australia betrayal, you’ll have to give me further information on this I’m not sure what you’re referring to, and to be honest I haven’t read all of your posts here if you raised it earlier.
The fact is I haven’t yet made up my mind whether I’m voting Yes or No. I’m not a Constitutional lawyer and obviously read Anne Twomey, Greg Connelly, but did skip over Quadrant. I think there are risks, do the benefits outweigh the risks? depends on if parties act in good faith. It’s government there will be winners and losers no matter what decisions are made.
Like you’re newby I’m more disgusted by some of the arguments and discourse of the No side, including from likes of Lee. Makes me more inclined to swing Yes.
Mr J I’m already all over this thread like a rash and my reply to you may not sneak through Moderation. if so, Id be happy to email it to you direct if you’d like..I’m at jackrobertson@ozemail.com.au
“Argue against the best ‘No’ cases, not the worst”?
Yeah, like you, Guy and the Merdoch hacks argue against the worst ‘Yes’ cases (including even the made up ones), not the best.
More performative “Do what we say, not what we do” hip-hocrisy.
Not thinking, drowning so best to stop clutching at the straws so badly needed for the strawman pseudo-points.
Did you find them on a cornflakes box?
Here’s some…. The lies from the hard right are expected, but those from the left just as bad.
Price suggested that colonialism isn’t affecting them now. She didn’t deny the truth about the past. She and others suggested that most would not want to go back to the pre colonial days. That might be correct.
The claim that voting no means doing nothing is false. Dutton has supported a legislated voice and if they did that a year ago we could see how and if and in what form it should be set up. The claim that a new govt would change it is highly contestible. If a legislated voice was working no gov would change it, indigenous affairs is a political nightmare for all parties and it would not be stopped if it was working.
We could have had a voice without the division and hatred that this is causing. Either Albanese was naive or he was attempting to wedge Dutton.
Price is right about this process instutionalising victimhood and grievance. Finally many of us do not believe the constitution should be based any thing other than we all have the same rights. ‘We are one’.. we’d have to change the Anthem.
Again, a couple of broad assertions with little evidence to support them. Most of the racist stuff (and there’s quite a bit) is coming from whites. If people ring talk radio and make abhorrent, racist statements are we just supposed to ‘respect’ that as an opinion? I have yet to see any senior Yes advocate condemn the No side as racist because they oppose the Yes case. And you can wheel out Langdon but what she said was a legitimate criticism of a case based on myth, misinformation and irrationality (Why do we need a Voice? Aboriginal people have running water for goodness sake! And they love it!). If that is the best that NO can come up with then I think it’s fair to say that there aren’t any valid arguments for not having a Voice. Layers of bureaucracy? That is how a modern state works. Sometimes it’s efficient other times not. You reckon the LNP will hold another referendum? The LNP have been bad faith negotiators going back to Hindmarsh Island. Not enough detail? There’s plenty of information available and the question itself is clear and concise. I’d say there’s been more detail during this campaign that we’d get during a general election. To say that that black NO advocates are being told to ‘shut up’ is merely falling into line with the No tactic of making shit up.
“And you can wheel out Langdon [sic] but what she said was a legitimate criticism of a case based on myth, misinformation and irrationality”
Oh please. Don’t insult us with quibbling, dogwhistle semantics. ‘Racist’, ‘a bit racist’, ‘internalised racism’, ‘unconscious racism’, ‘susceptible to racist campaign tactics’, even just ‘targeted by racist campaign tactics’…it all amounts to the same flung slur and every Australian knows it right down in their loins. Especially when it’s delivered with the splendidly gathered disdain of a battle-hardened warrior like Marcia Langton in magnificently full-throated (and doubtless exhausted) cranky-Elder mode. Honestly, it’s way too late now obv…but don’t try to wriggle out of such a dumb campaign f-up by splitting clever-wordy hairs.
Why not? Well not, dummies, because our poor fragile widdle ‘No’ souls will be offendedy-wendy-woo. Our skins are thick with privelege and the ones of us worth bothering about can empathise that being called a racist pales (geddit!) in comparison to being abused by one. Anyway, plenty of us are. So: fair play.
The reason you don’t try to posh-parse your way out of a self-destructive choice of words like those is because if you do try, rather than having her defuse its impact by owning it as a dumb blunder, apologising, and then quickly moving on, you simply encourage similar campaign ill-discipline and replicated echoing, all down the chain. And thus it has cometh to pass. For example, BK’s escalating ‘call a spade a spade (and dig an ever-deeper hole for ‘No’ with it) shtick; for example the placarded ‘Racist pigs!’ charmers so smugly captured on SM by Alex Antic. Golly, who’d have thought the ‘No’ stupidity stupids would think of doing that!?
Do you get it yet, Patrick? Do you grasp how easy you’re making the campaign for the ‘No’ material world stumpers, and how hard for the ‘Yes’ ones, with narcissistic, self-important, pointless moral abstractions like “If people ring talk radio and make abhorrent, racist statements are we just supposed to ‘respect’ that as an opinion?”
It’s an election campaign mate. Not a Catholic confessional scene in Martin Scorcese movie or a New Yorker cartoon about an angsty couched doberman asking his psychiatrist: “I mean I’ve fully transitioned now but the Cavoodle upstairs still wants me to f**k it: do you think she’d still respect me as Ashera”?
There are no and never were any ‘Yes’ votes you didn’t already have in any talk whatsoever of Australia’s ‘racism’.
That should have been bullet point #1 on every campaign 0500 briefing sheet and volunteer crib sheet. In the space of a few days you cretins have managed to flee the high ground on anything further at all to do with ‘racism’ without us ‘No’ lot – plenty enough of who are doubtless indeed comme ca – even trying to charge up and take it.
Hell of a campaign anti-achievement in Australia, Einsteins. Hell of a switcheroo. 🙁
and dig an ever-deeper hole for
‘No’‘Yes’ with it)noggin-type, apols. thanks for yr forebearance Mods, I know I am carpet-bombing this thread tediously already but the opportunity to engage properly and at length is stupendously appreciated. chrs
Ohwellhwell is 100% coffect. So many wide sweeping assertions and straw men in this ridiculous opinion piece it’s hard to find anything factual. I presume it was published under “Opinion” so any journalistic standards could be thrown out the window. It’s just a scattergun series of made-up quotes and opinions attributed to conveniently unnamed Yes campaigners.
For example, ‘That is, until the Voice referendum started, and became a testing ground to see just how many Indigenous people can be told to “shut up” by white people, because “otherwise you’ll never get a Voice!”’
Who exactly is telling Indigenous people to “shup up” “otherwise you’ll never get a Voice!”? The quotation marks around this indicate that he is quoting someone, but the source is never mentioned, which is because Guy simply made it up.
Unfortunately Crikey don’t seem to have learned from Guy’s last disgusting effort trying to stitch up Brittany Higgins. They should remove this verbal vomit, just like they did with the Higgins beat-up.
Who were the people who told which people to shut up, though?
I mean, if we’re talking generalities, we could claim ‘everyone’ told ‘everyone else’ to shut up on the basis that the ‘everyone’ didn’t publish the ‘everyone else’, or that the ‘everyone’ disagreed strongly with the opinions of ‘everyone else’. I mean, if you’re a Merdoch hack, somebody simply disagreeing with you amounts to censorship of the highest order and the obliteration of free-speech forever and ever, amen.
So, specifically, on the basis of the headline, which person or people told which person or people to shut up? And, was anyone else involved?
Identifying a dozen loud-mouthed, wannabe sellouts as being proof that “The Indigenous No voices are beginning to crowd out the actual Yes voices” is wildly hyperbolic……………….
………do the tens of thousands of Aboriginals who were consulted over a period of years in order to create the Uluru Statement suddenly count for nothing? They don’t get an opportunity to speak at the Press Club. Should they march on Parliament?
I’d agree that the Yes campaign needs to find a way to make an impact, but trying to combat a campaign of fear and lies with logic simply doesn’t work (otherwise Trump would never have made it out of the starting blocks).
Yes, I was going to say something similar. The Voice came out of blakfellas openly and honestly wanting to be heard. What happened then was that politics got in the way. It may pay to remember that the best weapon any colonizing force possesses is to turn one set of the oppressed against the other. It happened in India, South America, Africa, and it happened here. And when you look at those Aboriginal dissenters like Price and Mundine, you can see that it still continues.
oh come on. Are you really comparing the various subalterns and native police that imperialists pressed into service thru a mix of oppression and small incentives, with independent leaders and commentators like Mansell, Mundine and Liddle. That is an utterly disdainful take about black people. Sorry, blackfellas. Love to say blackfellas dont we?
“ Love to say blackfellas dont we?”
You really have sunk low Guy.
Yep, that’s exactly what I’m doing, because that’s what’s happening. The incentives are no longer small, and they may take different form, but the principle remains the same. There’s a point where black leaders can disagree with The Voice – for one thing it will be relatively ineffectual in bringing major change – and I have no argument with that. Each is entitled to their view. But there’s the point where some are feted by the Right because they are black and because their dissent is useful in muddying the waters. Perhaps you should read Maeve McGregor’s article.
And by the way, I grew up in the Territory, and I’ve worked with urban Aboriginal folk for over two decades. I’ve never encountered any problem with using the word ‘Blackfella’ with anyone of Aboriginal descent. Only certain whitefellas.
But you simply apply a fixed idea of what historical race relations are, and then interpret any variation on that by indigenous people as something to be approved of, or seen as corrupt. Why this ‘feted’ by the right? Price is of the right. Why do you render her and others as being used, rather than having agency in their own right? Because theyre outside of what you regard as an acceptable range of opinion?
Oh come on Guy……….
…..I doubt even you would believe that.
We regard her as “Being used” because it is blindingly obvious that she is. Her sole attributes are being part-Aboriginal and being prepared to spout whatever bollocks she is told to. The only reason she has the gig is that her predecessor bailed out rather than adopt the Party line. She has no such qualms.
Dutton will drop her like a hot rock as soon as she has served her purpose.
Sen.Price is fortunate indeed that you know her better than she does herself – all the better to ‘splain to the silly lubra.
You don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows…………….
you’re noxious mate
Some people like to be loathsome so that’s a success.
To say that white colonization has been a good thing for Aboriginal people I would argue is well outside an acceptable range of opinion. Some of it has; much has not. Nor do I take a position of either/or on indigenous politics. Of course, there are a range of opinions, and so there should be. Even Price’s – within the realms of fact. But there’s a point where I can’t tell if the puppet is performing under their own actions, or whether there’s a hand up their arse.
Why not just call everyone fella.
Why not just call everyone Whitey?
becoz we’re not
But you prove the point of the piece yet again with your arrogant and narcissistic assumption that the ‘no’ case most urgently in need of rebutting – perhaps the ‘only’ one there is – is your (strawman-hysterical) one of ‘fear and lies’.
Your witless refusal to even ponder the many legitimate ‘no’ arguments, despite us positively begging you to (you daft dill), let alone take them seriously enough to try to out-argue them, is why they/we are wiping the floor with you, you big goose. You’re losing the debate not because of my side’s ‘fear’ and ‘lies’ – and of course ‘racism’ – but because you insist on dancing alone in front of your own mirror, punching yourself in the head.
Go on, let’s see you do it again. Try not to call anyone an ‘uncle Tom’ again if possible, mind you.
NWAR
chortle. but you did reply, anonymous person. you did dance in front of your mirror, punching yourself in the head.
It gives me enormous satisfaction to know that you’re sitting somewhere in Australia in front of your little keyboard, furiously wishing you at least had the courage to spout your ‘Uncle Tom’ slurs at Indy Oz Australians without having a need to cower behind an e-hood.
What on earth are you going to do, anonymous person? Reply? Furiously conspicuously not reply? Reply with ‘DADSPNWAR’*?! Out your real name?
Chortle.
*Definitely absolutely double-secret-probation not worth a reply.’
NWAR
But you did. Again.
I am not indigenous, so do not fully know the internal politics, but tactically speaking both NO campaigns have successfully sidelined and delegitimated the Uluru assembly. Albanese probably expected a conservative NO campaign, but underestimated the pull of the Blak Sovereinty movement.
Conservative NO scored a master stroke in securing media savvy Aboriginals to its cause, confusing the public.
The colossal patronising blind spot never ceases to stun.
Could it possibly possibly be that Price and Mundine and Mansell and Thorpe and Liddle etc etc didn’t need clever old conservative Whitey to cunningly ‘secure’ them to anything?!
Do you reckon that maybe they might just have come to hold those ‘no’ views all by their clever selves?
Not possible? Hmm. Why not, OC? Do tell.
Really. Stunning, truly offensive narcissism.
Really, so you think that if the LNP had grudgingly supported the Voice the progressive No would be just as prominent? You have a naïve view of the media in this country.
That may be so, I dunno.
But I have an entry-level-human respectful view of Price, Mundine, Mansell, Thorpe and Liddle, etc. Which is the courteous assumption until I have fair reason to be think otherwise that they’re individuals with their own brains and their own agency, and they each came to think the things they say they think all by their big gwowed-up selves and for their own big gwowed-up weasons. Which in the case of the elected reps among them, may – or may not – include party-political pragmatic discipline, which is generally the way you turn policy into legislation into law into changed lives.
Spare me the high-moral BS, JR. Your “courteous assumption” didn’t extend to those on the other side of the debate who you insisted were simply doing Whitey’s bidding. The only people with “brains and own agency” are those in agreement with you, eh?
No. And my ‘courteous assumption’ also extends to the human entitlement to be ambitious. One doesn’t have to admire it when it’s shackled to political cynicism to extend a colour-blind equal right to all pollies of all colours to do so. Senator Penny Wong agreed to oppose SSM politically for much of her early parliamentary career, didn’t she. She was criticised fiercely from some quarters for it, and I bet it was a painful pragmatic position for her agency to reconcile, too. But her entire representational ‘legitimacy’ was never traduced in the way the Indy Oz ‘no’ pollies are now being subject to. Including the ‘sovereignty no’s’, but especially those who genuinely don;t thinnk a Voice would be good for their own constituents, Indy Oz or not. Chrs.
Your colour-blindness, JR, is that you attack as disrespectful those who accuse ‘no’ campaigners of being tools, when less than a week ago you were accusing ‘yes’ campaigners of being tools.
Oooh, look over there! Penny Wong!
The only person I’ve attacked is the noxious e-hood wearer who keeps calling Price an ‘uncle Tom’.
I am not implying anything about intellectual capacity.
I am saying that the Government expected that the Uluru meeting would be taken as the outcome of official consultation, and has now been delegitimated and drowned out in the debate.
Having had many years of observing the political game, I have a strong suspicion that there are sometimes tactical considerations. The fact that Neville Bonner has never had an indigenous successor to his Senate seat should be a warning to all those who assume that the current indigenous representation will be maintained in the long term.
but ALL limited-space elite representational politics is competitive, brutal, transactional, pragmatic, outcomes-driven, compromising, and above all else contingent. even at extreme worst case for sake of argument, why should it be any different for Indy Oz reps in the main game ie bonner/mundine/thorpe/burney…etc?
I think mixing in with the consensual realities of broad rep democratic politics makes indy oz pilitics/voices stronger and louder. while seperatist/ghetto politics weakens and sidelines it. What you imply is a vice I see as a virtue = universalist and equal participation…in all its inglorious glory! Only the impotent are pure comrade! best rgds
And just the other day, JR, you were offering the exact same “truly offensive narcissism” when you insisted First Nations supporters of the “Yes” vote were simply pawns of Whitey’s determination to ensure nothing changed.
You don’t reckon people like Langton and Pearson might just have come to hold their ‘yes’ views “all by their clever selves”?
Of course I do. I take their views and positions very seriously and consider them with respect, and I disagree with some of them and how they seek to put them into material expression.
I’m not asking any ‘yes’ advocates here to agree with my (or anyone’s) ‘no’ case, (although I think you should agree with mine if you want to improve Indy Oz’s prospects and dignity). I’m simply pointing out that if you – and Langton, Pearson et al – want your ‘yes’ case to prevail over it in a democratic vote electoral campaign, you should start taking it more seriously than to start from an assumption that the only ‘no’ arguments are illegitimate in some way, including those from Indy Oz ‘no’ advocates.
Not ‘wrong’ ie you simply disagree with them, or don’t hold to them. Illegitimate in some way. Becoz, you knowz…Teh Racismz. Teh Stupidz. Teh Greedyz. Teh Scaredz. Teh Ignorantz. .
Teh Uncle Tomz.
Jack you need to check out the Western Desert Nganampa Walitja Palyantjaku Tjutaka Aboriginal Corporation and what it has been able to do with the Purple House http://www.purplehouse.org.au. They set up dialysis on wheels to so something to address the appalling consequences of kidney disease in the Central Australia. They are entirely Indigenous run and they support CARV – the Central Australian Renal Voice. This is a brilliant organisation established only in 2012. There needs to be more Indigenous-designed and managed programs and that can be achieved through a Voice to Parliament. Enough with the white paternalism. Would rather see an end to the kidney disease which means those dear little kids dancing their culture in the dust are very likely to have their limbs amputated in their 40’s or 50’s.
Yeah I was peripherally involved with a similar community-grassroots-designed push viz. the Blacktown Hospital AHS Dialysis & Renal Care ‘bespoke’ approach to high urban-regional rates of Indy Oz diabetes, by way of research & papers I was doing a few years back on WS obesity, and some advocacy work in loose partnership with Western Sydney Diabetes and the Blacktown Centre for Indy Oz Excellence.
https://www.wslhd.health.nsw.gov.au/Aboriginal-Health-Services/Key-Services/Specific-Health-Services/dialysis-renal-care
https://www.westernsydneydiabetes.com.au/western-sydney/western-sydney-hotspot/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Sydney_Leadership_Dialogue
https://kimberwalli.com.au/
Not remotely polishing my Indy Oz right-on credentials, OWOW, which are vanishingly small: sole point being…well this kind of smart, successful biz has been going on under-the-radar all over for yonks, and driven by all manner of disparate voices and politics and ideas…A Voice may well give such particulars a net added ‘push’; it may turn out to be a net counter-productive ‘drag’. Either way, we know we/Indy Oz can do this stuff already, and are, and will keep on doing it regardless. Best rgds.
A verbose avoidance of the accusation, JR. And strawmen thrown in for good measure.
There is, of course, a big difference between saying all ‘no’ arguments are illegitimate because of racism, and some ‘no’ arguments are shaped by racism. But that kind of subtlety isn’t something either you or the Merdoch press wish to acknowledge, is it?
So let’s go back to what is different? You damning ‘yes’ voters for calling ‘no’ proponents tools? And you damning ‘yes’ proponents as tools of Whitey.
The ‘yes’ voters are disrespectful and patronising, but you’re absolutely not?
Brazen hip-hocrisy, no?
Oooh. Look over there! Penny Wong!
no idea what hypocrisy you’re talking about. saying some high profile ‘yes’/Indy Oz leaders and advocates (Langton, Pearson, BK) side are making dumb campaign mistakes that help the ‘no’ case isn’t the same as calling them duped ‘tools’ of sinister forces on their own side, nor is it delegitimising their advocacy or agency or legitimacy in general – as the odious ‘uncle tom’ slurs do of Price.
I’m just saying they’re witlessly helping ‘No’ with their incompetence. Very different (and perfectly ‘respectful’) thing martz. I’m not going to coddle/lower my expectations of Langton just coz she’s Blak. Chrs.
Specifically, your hypocrisy is you attacking others for calling a ‘no’ proponent a tool, when you, only last week, were calling ‘yes’ proponents tools (of Whitey).
It doesn’t matter who you think you’re helping, JR, brazen, unapologetic hypocrisy makes ‘good faith’ argument and debate near impossible because it suggest the argument is not being made on principle or genuine conviction.
But I just don’t think I have called any ‘Yes’ Indy Oz advocates ‘tools’ of (of Whitey), martz, except in that sense of counter-productive campaign malodroitness. I’ve certainly not done so in any regressive (ie I think paternalist & racially debasing) ‘Uncle Tom’ sense.
I just don’t think your counter accusation is right or fair. Rgds.
Here’s what you said of what was asked for by the Uluru Statement from the Heart, JR: “Whitey-Forked-Tongue rhetorical sleight-of-hand, which I think has been deliberately crafted, by Whitey, for Whitey’s usual purpose.”
An army of straw men died in writing this article.
Where’s Ray Harryhausen with his dragon teeth for the YESterdays to sow?
That’s the way. Keep right on losing.
Attaboys.
The only losers will be the people the Voice is intended to help. Unless you also count the taxpayers who will continue to waste money on ineffective programs. But the child manacled to a chair, in prison, with a bag on his head, will lose. All those wagging school because they cannot understand, or hear, the teacher, will lose. Those with fetal alcohol syndrome will lose. Those with failed kidneys will lose. Those who are to be killed by their partners will lose. The downward spiral of hopelessness, generation after generation, will continue, creating losers all the way.
Or we could listen to their voices and begin to turn things around. That’s called a win.
Every word you see or hear, whether by journalists, politicians or the guy next door, complicates the issue. But your gut feeling, what your heart tells you, is what matters. Do the right thing.
But we don’t need a Voice to do all that. And a Voice won’t do all that for us, either. Some of us have spent a long, long time doing our best to do all that already, too. And we’ll keep doing it whatever happens on 14 Oct.
Good luck and best regards.
Jack and Guy, the vaudeville act.
it’s an impressively efficient flourish in a Yes/No vote campaign to abuse advocates for both available options with the one six word zinger. although the way bedfellows like you must be testing his resolve there’s always hope that you’ll swing rundle’s vote for us, too.
you do realise you’re campaigning on my behalf, right, Patrick? I’m the status quo, mate. Every sneer makes my easy case easier, and your harder case…impossible. Prolly.
Thanks man. Keep at it.