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Australians have resoundingly rejected a proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in its constitution and establish a body to advise parliament on Indigenous issues.
Saturday’s voice to parliament referendum failed, with the defeat clear shortly after polls closed.
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Also, from the article:
That is the slogan contracted for brevity. The context is, if you do not know, and none of us do as their is NO detail, then do not give the government a blank cheque. People are rightfully cautious about government and possibly giving it more power.
At NO point has there ever been no detail about this. It is an advisory body to Parliament. When Parliament is making decisions, it can seek advice from this Indigenous-focused body. It is that simple. But by having the Murdoch press and Liberal government shovel this “ohhh but but but there’s no detail!” line over and over and over again, people started to believe it. For no fucking reason, since the purpose of the Voice has been clear since day 1.
How many people would be on the advisory board?
How would they be chosen?
How long would their term lengths be?
Do they all have to be indigenous?
Things like that are the details we’re wanting but were refused.
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Cautious of giving the government more power. Government.
The voice as it was would have been ripe for abuse by the government. They could just put any of their cronies in the voice advisory role and just have it go “yeah the indigenous people agree that you should make more mines where our heritage sites are”.
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It would though, because it would now give the government the ability to say that they listened to and consulted with the indigenous advisory board, made up of white mining magnates and pauline hanson, and then went ahead and leased out the indigenous cultural land for mining for 100 years. See? The government can no go ahead and do things that harm indigenous culture and people while being able to have the full backing of the indigenous voice to parliament.
You not understanding the ways that this position was ripe for abuse by the government isn’t suprising, nor is your trying to pass it of as me changing my tune.
I didn’t say the Voice has any power. It doesn’t. What I’m saying is that the voice existing gives the GOVERNMENT more power.
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No, they didn’t have an indigenous voice behind their decisions before. Now they would have.
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I just learned about the native police the other week. I can’t believe that we didn’t learn about that shit at school! Honestly our education system is so inadequate that I can hardly blame such No voters.
If you just want to completely make up things then I guess you could say that?
You seem to miss the reason why many of us voted against this - it doesn’t give the indigenous people any control or power over their future. All it gives them is another “voice” that can and will be ignored by the government. There have already have been and are dozens of indigenous advisory panels to the government. Why do people think another one with no power will suddenly make a difference?
What they should have done is something like give a large number of constitutionally protected senate seats to an elected by indigenous people indigenous group. Give them actual power over what happens. All matters relating to indigenous communities goes through them. Instead what they proposed was to give someone who may or may not be indigenous a seat at the white fella table with some crayons and a promise that they’ll listen to them, but don’t actually have to.
Wot? Absolutely nothing stoping parliament from listening to the numerous recommendations that would improve the standard of living or life expectancy of indigenous people. Why would you think a few token lines in the constitution will change that?
Because they’ll have an official body they’ll be dismissing rather than one of many groups, which aren’t always unified - it forces nothing, but does give a go-to body that the government will need to take an optical hit to ignore.
The constitutional amendment helps because the deserve recognition, and because it stops the next government disbanding the body.
And what if that official body is filled with government cronies and yes men, since the only thing protected in the constitution is that the body exists. It doesn’t even specify that it has to be made up of indigenous people.
Think about the next time the LNP get in power. Do you really think they wouldn’t kick out everyone in the body and fill it with their own people that will support their agenda? Think about if One Nation got in power one day - they could then fill the Voice with literal neo nazis who would be the ones in charge of representing the indigenous people.
Do you see why what was proposed was pointless and could lead to more harm than good?
So there will be just as many people saying the voice doesn’t represent them or their country but white folks can feel like everything is fine and dandy. Swell
Would you mind clarifying what you mean? There’s a few ways to interpret this.
If you mean that it’s not a perfect representation of the views of the indigenous community, that’s obviously true, but unavoidable in any representative body. What it does is solicit feedback from the community and effectively pushes that forward as a single, strong voice. This works in the same way that a union brings together workers that are powerless as individuals and small groups, into a single, far more powerful, though not perfectly representative body that’s able to campaign for meaningful positive change for all members.
Sounds swell to me.
There are hundreds of indigienous mobs around Australia. They do not all agree. They do not all get a long. Having a single voice wouldn’t work. It’s not like workers for a company unionizing at all. There are still disagreements among indigenous groups over land ownership and who was the rightful original owner etc.
some injustices are structural
Which a token gesture does absolutely nothing to change…
What’s token about forcing the government of the day to take the optical damage from publicly dismissing the guidance of the official body representing indigenous community? Seems it would give them reason to reconsider as well as a great body to consult on how to best prioritise and address the issues facing the community.
There was nothing in the amendment stopping the government of the day from filling the official body representing the indigenous community with white mining magnates and skinhead nazis who all agree that all of the sacred indigenous sites should be mined.
Entirely depends on how it’s to be structured. Which the public didn’t vote on. Done correctly I do agree on the optics of an official body though.
So it’ll be good, or ineffective at worst. What’s the issue?
Either way, some of us whities just don’t feel comfortable determining the future of indigenous people.
That’s the point of the Voice though, isn’t it - to give a body representing indigenous Australians a say in decisions relating to them.
That’s contrasted with the current situation, where the government selects an indigenous affairs minister, then optionally cherrypicks the indigenous representative bodies that support their agenda.
you absolute donkey.
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