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www.smh.com.au

Inner Sydney voters strongly favour the Voice. It’s not enough to make NSW a Yes state

Exclusive polling shows a narrow majority of NSW voters have confirmed their rejection of the Indigenous Voice despite a late rebound in support.
www.smh.com.au www.smh.com.au

Inner Sydney voters strongly favour the Voice.
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And that heading sums up rather a lot of this.

The majority of Australians who don't live in inner Sydney (or inner Melbourne) have had quite enough of those who do thinking they're born to rule the rest of society.

That's not in any way unique to the Voice but it's what's behind a lot of frustration among mainstream Australians on various issues.

There's some incredible irony in those living in the inner city saying others ought have a Voice to parliament. They could do that right now - just stop trying to control every debate. :2twocents
 
IFocus said:
For the Coalition maybe but for Labor the Murdoch empire is generally 100% negative to Labor from the get go.
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Yes that's true, but the two most read papers by the elites over East seem to be the SMH and the Age, as long as they stay onside Albos fine and things would have to be pretty bad for that to change as they are very negative the coalition.

It's interesting really, the Murdoch press and the channel 9 media basically decide who will govern and to a great degree what is and isn't acceptable.

It requires a very strong public reaction, to change the narrative, but when there is a strong public reaction, it doesn't take long for either side of the media to do an about face to save their circulation numbers.

The ABC used to be seen as neutral but that has long past and the younger generation are completely avoiding the ABC so their influence is now negligible.
They are going the way of the cheque book, once the older generation are gone I feel the ABC will be as well, the internet and services like starnet are making the ABC redundant.
It didn't have to be that way, but they basically have dug their own grave, which IMO is a huge shame but is the way when a service that is supposed to represent all choses sides.
People need to feel they are being heard and represented, not being herded, that is where a lot of organisations and services lose followers .
 
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IFocus said:
Aboriginals feel the same way.
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I think it's a basic human right to be consulted on government decisions that affect people.

So why not have a Voice for renters, mortgage payers, unemployed, people with disabilities, pensioners and just the basic Joe trying to earn a living ?

The answer is not to have special arrangements for particular groups, but to make democracy work for all.
 
I can't wait till Saturday, I'm so over all the guilt trips.

The Yes side have been unable to debate the reasoning on why Australians should vote Yes. Instead, they belittle all other views. they blame No people saying that they have not read the documents, or that they are brainwashed by the 'Murdoch media', I have heard terms like uneducated, ignorant, tricked.

They tell us it is only recognition but ignore the fact that a group of unelected people will have an advisory role, enshrined in the Constitution.

The Yes side do not understand that Australian voters understand that our Constitution as ensured that Australia has one of the best democracys in the world, that Australia is a country of political peace. The Australian voter understands that messing with the Constitution can bring dire consequences for future generations if not debated and implemented properly.

The Voice has not been debated and discussed with the Australian voter. It has been discussed amongst the elites, and snippets fed to us throughout the years. And then, when the Labor party won the election, Albanese told us that the Voice referendum will be coming. Instead of preparing a change that would unite the majority of Australians we got a poorly worded guilt trip.

For those blaming the Murdoch press, they are part of the failings we see in front of us. I run a business which has me talking to quite a few people of all walks of life, very few read papers, a lot listen to and watch the ABC, many of the young don't even watch the news on TV. To blame a media organisation for voter having an opposing view is to miss the whole issue of why the Voice is failing. Worse, it is creating division by using blame rather than accepting that a different point of view is a freedom that our system has allowed us to have.

Ironically, one reason the Yes vote appears to have been shrinking is that the Yes camp has refused to allow that there is a bona fide case for the No vote. Advocates don’t debate the matter on its merits. They insist on propaganda and hectoring. They denounce No voices as lying deplorables. They are impatient to get to Yes.​

Indigenous voice to parliament: three objections to voting Yes, and why they matter

Each of us must vote Yes or No at the voice referendum this Saturday. Enormous effort has gone into persuading us that we should all vote Yes. But polls indicate the number intending to vote Yes has fallen steeply. I have educated friends and family on both sides of the debate. My own opinion has long been undecided.

Yet I must decide – and the issue is complex and contentious. It’s easy to get rattled or diverted by polemic or detail. What is needed, especially in the next few days, is clarity and engagement. No one should want a divisive referendum or angry outcome – Yes or No.

Why would anyone vote Yes? There are several reasons. For decades now there has been a political movement insisting that colonisation was destructive and oppressive. Recognition of land rights, treaty-making and reparations have been called for. Explorer James Cook and others have been denounced. There are objections to Australia Day being January 26.

History wars have been fought and are still being fought. Read historian Henry Reynolds’ book Truth-Telling and you’ll be clear about what is at stake. The voice comes out of this context and a Yes vote concedes all this and seeks to rehabilitate and embrace the First Nations people of this continent.

Much ink has been shed over whether the voice would entail a follow-on set of demands for treaty, a division of sovereignty and huge reparations. Both Yes and No camps seem divided on this. It makes a big difference. Constructive consultative mechanism or ambitious and angry agenda?

Why would anyone vote No? They may do so, as activists insist, because they are in wilful denial of the historical truth, or suffer incorrigible ignorance of the proposal on the table, or because – as academic Marcia Langton has vehemently insisted – the campaign is “racist and stupid”. They may vote No because they distrust “elites” or they think it is objectionable to be patronised by all those voices insisting they really ought to vote Yes. So it goes in referendums and in politics more generally.

But however widespread they may be, these would all be bad reasons for voting No since they fail to address the basic issues.

If, between now and Saturday, you have the time and want to get a bit clearer on what is at issue, read Megan Davis and George Williams’s Everything You Need to Know About the Voice, especially chapter Six, Voice, Treaty, Truth. Your questions will, pretty much, be answered. But your mind may not be made up.

This, in fact, is where the concerns of more thoughtful No voters begin. Assume, for the sake of argument, that Reynolds and other well-informed scholars are telling the truth about Australian history, does it follow that voice, treaty, truth is the path we should take? Or even just the voice? It doesn’t follow. Wilful denial, incorrigible ignorance, racism and stupidity aside, there are substantial objections to the voice.

Ironically, one reason the Yes vote appears to have been shrinking is that the Yes camp has refused to allow that there is a bona fide case for the No vote. Advocates don’t debate the matter on its merits. They insist on propaganda and hectoring. They denounce No voices as lying deplorables. They are impatient to get to Yes.

Here are my three objections. First, the voice is an Orwellian fiction. There are many voices. An attempt to shoehorn them into one will not work. And putting it in the Constitution will make it all but impossible to rectify when it doesn’t work. Hence the opposition of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Nyunggai Warren Mundine.

Second, ironically, the voice would institutionalise racism in Australia by privileging a tiny minority and its cultural past in a country with millions of people from dozens of ethnic and cultural backgrounds from around the world.

Third, the voice will propagate Makarrata: a claim to sovereignty over vast swathes of the continent and huge reparations for fewer than 3 per cent of the total population, raising intractable questions about procedural justice and economic viability.

If you accept the premises of the activist movement, you may bridle at these objections. But if you are unable to answer them, you won’t persuade the doubtful to vote Yes. Don’t get angry, get savvy. Democratic government, since the Athenian revolution of the sixth and fifth centuries BC, pivots on a break with tribal affiliation and the development of individual rights, freedom of speech and public deliberation. The whole First Nations movement internationally disavows this reality on ideological grounds.

Democracy means multiple voices, not a voice. It means citizen votes, not tribal or clan votes. It won’t do to reject Athens as “Western” or “racist”. The issue is one of liberty, equality and citizenship. We need to draw disadvantaged Indigenous Australians into that kind of politics, not anchor them to Dreamtime clans. The lamented gap cannot be closed in a Dreamtime and grievance narrative. Or so a No voter will argue.

These are the objections to the voice that are cutting the ground from under a Yes vote on Saturday. If the referendum is to get over the line, its advocates will need to persuade the sceptical and uncertain it can work, perhaps by reference to the Sami parliaments in Norway, Sweden and Finland, which appear to have handled such challenges relatively well.

Had the Yes camp simply argued we should create a version of what Scandinavian countries have done, this referendum might have got up. Right now it seems likely to go down.

But let’s not allow that to deflect us from seeking a solution to the problem. Let’s dust ourselves off and seek honest, constructive and effective ways to bring equity and advancement to our First Nations. Yes?
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JohnDe said:
I can't wait till Saturday, I'm so over all the guilt trips....
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Solved that by entering my preference, yesterday.

No queue, mainly people of a certain age (retired). Pamphleteers outside were cordial . As I was out of area, the process was more complex, establishing then signing off on electoral details. Locals were in and out, in a few minutes with checks on computer. I can't see how "vote early, vote often" will scam the process.
 
IFocus said:
Aboriginals feel the same way.
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The question I'll ask is why not fix this for everyone?

There was a lobby group in Tasmania back in 1995 that threatened to take the federal government to the UN over it breaching treaty requirements by failing to consult on certain matters so it's not a new concept.

So why not have an overarching requirement for proper consultation with those affected by decisions? Why limit it to Aboriginals?

I'll cynically suggest it's because a handful of activists plus the media don't want to lose their grip on society. :2twocents
 
JohnDe said:
Easy to have missed, it was released sometime in 2022. The election was on 21 May 2022.

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Interesting. Good to see the First Nations reps and candidates listed there. Ginger Jack especially.

Screenshot 2023-10-10 at 3.58.54 pm.png
 
Smurf1976 said:
The question I'll ask is why not fix this for everyone?

There was a lobby group in Tasmania back in 1995 that threatened to take the federal government to the UN over it breaching treaty requirements by failing to consult on certain matters so it's not a new concept.

So why not have an overarching requirement for proper consultation with those affected by decisions? Why limit it to Aboriginals?

I'll cynically suggest it's because a handful of activists plus the media don't want to lose their grip on society. :2twocents
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Unfortunately many feel the same way.

You could come over to SP and my area and we could take to to seriously disadvantaged white areas (might need a gun as well)

Then drive to the far north of WA and NT visiting Aboriginal communities and towns.

The differences are in your face stark.

Or you could just read the gap report and accept Aboriginals were here first forced off their lands butchered, murdered, raped etc and should be reconised in our constitusion.
 
IFocus said:
Unfortunately many feel the same way.........Or you could just read the gap report and accept Aboriginals were here first forced off their lands butchered, murdered, raped etc and should be reconised in our constitusion.
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That comment is exactly why Jacinta Nampijinpa Price makes so much more sence thant the Yes campaign.

Should we have a Voice for the descendants of the convicts that were forced from their homes and taken to Australia, those convicts that were " forced off their lands butchered, murdered, raped etc"

History shows us there has been many wrongs done to the inhabitants of every single country since humans began to travel.

I agree with recognition of first nations, I agree with giving assistance to improve the lives of those in need.

I say NO to giving an unelected group power of say in our parliament by change of the constitution, no matter how seemingly insignificant.

One Australia, one people.
 
sptrawler said:
You are never going to create an inclusive one nation society, if you are enshrining a two citizens society, it will just fester hate, entitlement and false expectations.
It didn't work in Africa and it wont work here.
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Tell NZ that, comparing to SA is nonsensical.

Note the vid on the issue of Israel its argued Jews have the right to occupy Palestine because they were there 1st
 
IFocus said:
Unfortunately many feel the same way.
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An economic gap between remote Aboriginal communities and the rest of society sure, I accept that as true and consider that it ought be rectified.

But can anyone explain why someone such as Ray Martin, for example, needs special representation to government?

I’ve nothing against him personally but he’s one of the most well known people in the country and would almost certainly have earned $ millions from his long career on TV. He’s in the top portion of society and has already had plenty of opportunities to hold politicians, including prime ministers, to account.

Hence the problem I see with it being race based. If it were circumstance based then sure, I doubt anyone would argue against that, it’d have overwhelming support almost certainly so long as the aim was to fix the underlying problem not simply hand out money.
 
Speaking of Ray Martin,

"
Mr Martin had made headlines for the comments he made at a Yes event on September 28 at the Factory Theatre in Sydney’s Inner West.

“If you don’t know, find out what you don’t know,” he told the audience.

“What that excellent slogan is saying, is if you’re a dinosaur or a d***khead who can’t be bothered reading, then vote No.”

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What we don't know is what Parliament will do if Yes succeeds and they aren't telling us because they don't know either.

So it's impossible to do any research that will tell us the final composition, powers and procedures of the Voice because they haven't been decided yet.

So Ray, maybe the word you used to disparage No voters should be applied to yourself.
 

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