In the lead-up to the Voice to Parliament referendum on October 14, we First Nations peoples are feeling the boot on our neck. It’s harmed my health, and I’ve been feeling extremely conflicted about voting Yes.
I know the incredible work of Blackfullas who demand we should have Treaty first, and I agree with the progressive No in so many ways — I’m usually fighting side by side with them against the violent settler colonial system. However, this time my approach will be different.
It is not only politically engaged Blackfullas who are conflicted about voting Yes or No, or who are voting No. Recently my older brother moved in with me, and although he isn’t engaged with politics, he is angry because he believes, like many others, that First Nations peoples should be the only voters on this matter. I agree, but due to the very nature of Australian constitutional change, we can’t be.
The result is that no matter our vote, we’re required to convince the non-Indigenous people of this country of our demands and values, forcing us into a Yes and No binary that is divisive for our peoples. After the referendum has come and gone, we will be the ones left to pick up the broken pieces for many years to come.
This isn’t my first rodeo. When the Coalition forced marriage equality to be a public debate, calling for a plebiscite over simply introducing a bill to Parliament, it boiled all of the nasties to the top. We saw people online and in public saying homosexuality was like bestiality and paedophilia. That we should be quiet and accept our lot in life, and be grateful for their tolerance. And because of homophobia and transphobia, we saw too many LGBTQIA+ people tragically take their own lives. These losses and the fallout from these vicious public debates are still being felt.
At the time, I understood the damage a successful No vote would have for LGBTQIA+ people. The parameters of the plebiscite were just about marriage equality, but the outcome manifested into more transformative policies that continue to affect our everyday lives. If the plebiscite had been voted down, I don’t think we would’ve seen the progressive policies that followed in Victoria — such as the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021, the commitment to banning surgery on intersex children without their personal consent, and the improved accessibility for trans people to change their name and gender marker on their birth certificate.
In my time on the interim Aboriginal Treaty Working Group, I learnt that Victoria has had recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in its constitution since 2005. Has my sovereignty been signed away because we are included in this constitution? Absolutely not. Though after constitutional recognition in Victoria, we saw little changes from its inception until Victoria committed to a Treaty in 2016, just over a decade later.
I didn’t care then and I don’t care now about constitutional recognition. I once thought being recognised in the Australian constitution would give up my sovereignty, but I now understand that my sovereignty can’t be taken or given away. Our sovereignty is not only spiritual; it constitutes all of who we are — our laws, our conduct and our lives.
I agree with what Associate Professor Crystal McKinnon writes:
Indigenous sovereignty pre-exists and exists independently from colonial discourses of Aboriginality. Our social movements, our political protests, our artistic and creative productions, are bound together by sovereignty. They are connected because they are practices of sovereignty. If we accept that sovereignty is an embodied quality, then this embodiment means that any artistic or creative works that are produced by an Indigenous person are sovereign texts. This is the same for Indigenous people producing and acting in social or protest movements.
Gradually this year, while speaking to Black women such as Meriki Onus, Millie Telford and Larissa Baldwin-Roberts about what the Voice means for our mob, I’ve had haunting flashbacks from the plebiscite. I’ve thought about the effect of national campaigns putting minority groups in their sights, asking the country to debate their worth. Should we get these rights? Should we be listened to? Are we worthy of a say? Are we worth it?
During these times, media platforms are given to the most rabid racists and vicious transphobes, with little recourse or accountability. Lies spread like wildfire and so much campaign energy is put into myth-busting and countering false information. It is these racist and vile views that scare me the most. Who won’t be here at the end? Whose funeral will I have to attend?
We cannot compare the plebiscite and the Voice referendum too closely though. First Nations peoples face settler-colonialism as described by the late Patrick Wolfe, who defines it as “a system rather than a historical event, that perpetuates the erasure and destruction of native people as a precondition for settler colonialism and expropriation of lands and resources”.
We can’t look past the racist history or ignore the racist present of this country, one that continues to occupy our lands and waters by force. We face this in nearly every system, from Native Title to engaging with police officers or health professionals who have an utter disregard for First Nations life. The Voice is not the answer alone to racism. It will not make this country not racist, because we know that Australia has and always will be a racist country, so long as it exists on stolen Aboriginal land and is a settler state.
What I was worried about is happening in real time. As Millie Telford has said, “This country is having a conversation about us, without us.” Opposition leader and No campaigner Peter Dutton had gone to Alice Springs three times by May to stir up stories of dysfunction, as well as fuel lies that we aren’t capable of looking after our own affairs. This in effect led to Avi Yemini, a notorious Australian provocateur who has flirted with Neo-Nazis, going to Alice Springs and interviewing First Nations peoples on the street and in their homes in June.
Of course, the lies about dysfunction are far from the truth. Our communities have shown time and time again that when we are included in decisions and policies that affect our communities, we have the best outcomes and success. That’s why it’s important for First Nations peoples to be at the forefront of this conversation, the way we want to be seen and how we see ourselves and how we really are: as proud, Black and deadly.
First Nations peoples are better off when we are free to set our own course. Yet successive governments have long locked us out of decisions, instead forcing their policies on us, insisting they know what’s best. We know what our communities need. Forty years ago, when government health services were failing us badly, we took the driver’s seat and set up Australia’s first Aboriginal community health centres. Today, these services are the best in the country, and the government models their health, legal aid and childcare systems on ours.
Our people are strong and resilient, and when we are free to choose our own path, the whole country benefits. We’ve seen this in Victoria, where because of Aunty Tanya Day’s family, we’ve abolished the criminalisation of public drunkenness; and because of Aunty Veronica Nelson’s family and the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, we’ve changed the bail laws.
A representative body is a small step along the way, a mechanism for us to demand policy changes. This isn’t a means of justice, or land back, it’s a representative body.
Ultimately, I believe that when a clear majority of Australians vote Yes in the referendum, it will send a strong message that we want justice, equity and enduring change. A No vote will set back First Nations justice for decades, and nothing reflects this more than the rapid rise of right-wing neo-Nazis who are becoming more brazen, more vocal and more organised.
I worked on a message research project involving Blackfullas from around the country this past year, called Passing the Message Stick. In its report, it highlights a theory of change: “If we build a groundswell of public support and win a resounding Yes, then a wave of transformative change for First Nations justice will follow. Public momentum and demand gives governments a political mandate to act on bold policy reform.”
This is far from ideal, but it is happening, and a No vote will have devastating effects on Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities alike. On their ballot papers, I ask settlers to vote Yes to First Nations’ strength and leadership. And if the Yes vote wins, non-Aboriginal people must resist complacency and the slumber that often happens after historic moments.
The fight is not over and the work is not done. I ask that your Yes be a commitment too, to continuing to support our campaigns, standing alongside us in our fights for justice, and joining us on the streets at our protests — because Yes isn’t enough.
I’m voting yes but this headline is just fodder for late night crazies at Sky. The tone and content of a debate can cause deep distress, but words are not violence, semantically or legally. To stifle speech by calling it violence, no matter how appalling the debate gets, is an illiberal path that I don’t think any of us want to go down.
You’re a bit late to protest. ‘…semantically or legally…’ Actually the Racial Discrimination Act of 1995 can make words an act of emotional violence that constitutes an unlawful act (if not automatically a crime).
It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:
(a) the act is reasonably likely in all the circumstances to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or group of people,
and
(b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or some or all of the people in the group.
Expanding on the definition of ‘an act’:
A variety of acts can constitute racial hatred, including speaking, singing and making gestures in public, as well as drawings, images, and written publications such as newspapers, leaflets and websites. There are three essential components of this unlawful conduct:
Clearly the writer is (or says she is) ‘intimidated’ by the Voice referendum/public debate. As the ACT makes clear:
The victim’s perspective is the measure of whether an act is likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate…
There are solid exemptions and there is a lot of subjective leeway in interpretation of the letter-law, so it’s not helpful to get overly worked up about the implications. The Act hasn’t really opened the gate on a flood of Federal/Magistrates Service court cases. But it is worth revisiting the relative few that have gone that way, say Jeremy Jones v. Frederick Toben (2000), to grasp the relationship between any HRC finding based on the Act that does wind up seeking jurisprudential redress. In that case the Court ordered the removal of the material in question, and any failure to do so would presumably have invoked a variety of contempt statues at least (ie then potentially invoking criminal sanctions). This is a live debate, given the ongoing Section 18C political divides, and especially the recent entry of newish players like the churches and Blak Australian activists like the writer. It’s hard not to conclude that at some point more and more cases will be pushed into tricky Federal Court territory. Especially since in the years since the Act arrived, there’s been an increasing resort generally to tropes about ‘hate speech’, the rise of victim politics as political strategy, and the casual equivalisation of hateful ideas with hateful, harmful behaviour (as in that headline). The idea that simply arguing against certain things – same sex marriage, The Voice, sex-based definitions of gender, or for that matter, Catholic articles of Faith, the desirability of the nuclear family or the ‘abomination’ that is homosexuality – is a harmful act…has really taken a grip on the public polity.
https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/racial-vilification-law-australia
It has not. It has certainly taken a grip on conservative rhetoric, but that is deeply paranoid to begin with and only loosely correlated with reality at the best of times.
chortle, really doc, do maintain a basic grip on material reality yourself won’t you. read this article – ‘referendum an act of violence’. oh noes! Read any millennial ‘ID poltx’ hand-wringer here at Crikey, SMM, trans, Teh Evils Gods, Teh Evilz Libs, Teh Evils redneck reactionary right…oh noes, oh nboes oh noes…all these
dangerousideas-we-just-don’t-like careering violently around the place, causing innocent kiddies to top ’emselves, etc etc.If the idea that expressing an idea can be a harmful act hasn’t taken a grip on the public polity…then why do we even have Hate Speech laws? Once you’ve crossed that Rubicon, all that remains is quibbling over the details.
Don’t do your back moving those goalposts.
No I think Jack is correct here. The left is just as enthusiastic as the right at overstating the “harm” done by criticizing their favored positions, and as a leftie I don’t say that with any relish.
LOLwut?
The Leader of the Liberal Party is encouraging the idea that the AEC is corrupt because they are following the law.
Jack I agree with criticism of hate speech as a political strategy, but as a matter of law, violence describes acts of physical harm or the threat of physical harm (assault, battery, homicide etc) and are considered distinct from acts of offensive or intimidating speech. We wouldn’t describe violence as a debate, and shouldn’t describe a debate as violence. It’s sloppy and misleading.
Yes, point taken Paul, quite correct. I don’t by the way disagree at all that ’emotional violence’ (to add that useful qualifier) can be just as harmful and debilitating as physical violence. Not at all. In many ways the psychological damage wreaked by violent crimes can be far more harmful than the physical damage, which at least can (sometimes) heal. This is especially so in crimes that assault one’s identity – hate crimes. Where I divert with supporters of hate crime laws is in rejecting that it’s The State’s role to combat them, with legislation – precisely because that inevitably politically weaponises or idelogically them, as well as opening up and endless, subjective can of worms regarding the limits and scope of such legislation. I think using the law to prevent people from being…bigoted and nasty is a category error. That’s a job for broader society: extant moral frameworks, applied civics, courtesy, manners, poeer pressure, public shame and other social consequences, adult role modelling…as well as a general inculcation of individual resiliance and strategies for negating hate. To me, even simply defining something like racist abuse as a ‘hate crime’ runs a risk of having a counter-productive effect, including ‘bigging up’ its perceived impact and potentially weakening its targets’ individual capacity for psychological defence against it. The ‘sticks and stones’ strategy. Rgds.
…And oops, my sloppy. Toben did of course did refuse to remove the material, he was found guilty of contempt, and he did serve three months in jail for it.
Strictly speaking this is true, since violence is defined as being physical.
However, it seems clear that the intended meaning is a more along the lines of causing harm, which “words” most definitely can do, as is recognised both formally in law (eg: sexual harassment, false advertising) and informally in culture (eg: bullying, lying).
Then say the debate is ‘causing harm’, not that it is ‘violence’. My point is not ‘strictly’ true, it is simply true. This casual substitution of “harmful language” for “violence” is a recent phenomenon and downplays a significant difference between the two. Pushing the idea that words are violence is a deliberate (and I believe dangerous) political tactic that we should not allow to go unchallenged, even when it is used to support positions we otherwise agree with.
Strongly agree with this.
Good grief. It’s a headline on an opinion piece.
This headline is not an isolated rhetorical flourish. Equating harmful words with violence is a recent trend in political discourse, pushed by cynical forces on right and left. It is a hyperbolic tactic to shut down criticism and debate, but worse it drags us back to a time where insults justified a violent response. It is the logic that underpinned duels and lynchings. Words are not violence. Debate is not violence. Insults are not violence. And to conflate them is dangerous and illiberal.
The piece above does not do this. The only mention of violence within its body is:
I don’t know what other examples you are thinking of so I can’t comment on them.
AGREE
I put my YES on my Facebook page a few days ago that said “Here’s why I’m voting yes to the Voice. It might not be the perfect answer but my listening is a perfect start.” I thought a lot about those words, to make it about announcing where I stand, not about what I think others should do. I’ve been flabbergasted at the torrent of mostly well meaning people sending me stuff to get me to change my mind – from clearly edited and questionable videos, some outright hate speech, sky news repeats – and an almost hysterical opposition. At first I was angry (do they think I haven’t given this any thought?) and then sad – I mean WTF? – and now I’ve decided that I’m going to offer my students and facebook friends a process for finding a way forward with goodwill, no matter what people are voting. Our work with horses has taught us that conflict is totally unnecessary, that there is always a third way that brings people what they each want, that requires no compromising on either side. I can only imagine what you and your mob are feeling in the midst of this sh*tshow Tarneen – my deepest commiserations and best wishes.
goodwill – key word there for me. Thanks Jennifer.
People who are voting Yes because they feel it is the ‘good person’s’ vote for which First Nations people should be ‘grateful’ should read this article. You should vote Yes because it is the right thing to do in this referendum, and you should seriously consider what comes afterwards regarding First Nations people and what they want and need.
If the Yes vote wins, it will be because the majority of Australians saw through the scare campaigns from the extreme left and right, to focus on a representative body that should prioritise immediate economic disadvantage.
If No wins, it will be due to Australians hearing the identical message coming from the left and right – the Voice would deliver an inequitable race based extreme (what the right is saying), or that it should do so (what the “progressive No” is saying).
I wonder if I am the only dyed-in-the-wool leftie to read pablum like this and be seriously unimpressed.
For someone apparently appalled by Nazis, Williams sure has a lot of “blood and soil” reasoning going on.
Count me out of this undergraduate-level posturing.
No you’re not the only one Joe