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The Voice

i attended the local Australia day function this morning, where around 300 people turned up for the award ceremony.
Three of our local councillors turned up to get their picture in the paper with the award winners.
All three voted to not celebrate or mention Australia Day on January 25th, a fact that was pointed out by the chairmans opening remarks.
The recipient of our towns Australia Day Citizen of the year award had spent her entire life volunteering for numerous community organisations and spots clubs. never got paid a cent, and spent a lot of her own money just to keep some thkings afloat.
An exceptionally humble woman who was surprised that people thought she was some sort of hero, when she said her life had been surrounded by similar minded people who gave so much to the community.
Its highly unlikely she will get an OAM, much less a Companion of the Order.
the four persons awarded Companion of the Order of Australia are all highly paid eminent scientists or bureacrats.
And when you go down through the lists, you see well paid members of the legal profession who get awards for doing their job.
Geez even that little turd Sutton got an award for ruining so many peoples lives.
Our local here did her job as well as being heavily involved in volunteering work.
The elite always look after the elites.
The rest do the hard yards.
Mick
@mullokintyre Never a truer post penned.
She just mentioned this exact theme at breakfast this morning.
Those that do the most for their community as a whole do not get the acolades they deserve.
Sure the locals acknowledge them, but it should go a lot further.
 
Sutton (et al) getting a gong has completely discredited the whole thing anyway. If I were a community volunteer I would not want to be associated with those clowns.

Like Aus of the year and the Nobel Peace prize, it has become an absolute joke.

In any case, the true givers do not do it for recognition.
 
Geez even that little turd Sutton got an award for ruining so many peoples lives.

Mick

Forgot who Sutton was and looked him up

"Before moving into government, Dr Sutton was an emergency department doctor at hospitals in Tasmania and Victoria before a three-year humanitarian stint working as a doctor in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Timor-Leste."
 
An interesting take on the issues dividing Australians.

in the words of Federal Court judge Natalie Charlesworth, “distorting and misrepresenting” the words of traditional owners. The “subtle coaching” of Indigenous Australians, and the attempts to “encourage and hint” to come to particular conclusions, are common examples of activists trying to manipulate and use Indigenous Australians to pursue their own agendas, regardless of the best interests of those they are using.

Political activists exploit Indigenous Australians for their own ends

There may have been some people surprised to hear a Federal Court judge describe a “cultural mapping” exercise and other key components of the Environmental Defenders Office case against the Santos Barossa gas project as “so lacking in integrity that no weight can be placed on them” and tainted by “confection” and “construction” of evidence. But I wasn’t one of them. Using Indigenous Australians and our history to push a particular agenda is nothing new; indeed, the whole country witnessed the practice on its biggest scale yet during the 2023 voice referendum.

The euphemistically named Environmental Defenders Office, which has received more than $8m from the Albanese government, knew exactly what it was doing when it was, in the words of Federal Court judge Natalie Charlesworth, “distorting and misrepresenting” the words of traditional owners. The “subtle coaching” of Indigenous Australians, and the attempts to “encourage and hint” to come to particular conclusions, are common examples of activists trying to manipulate and use Indigenous Australians to pursue their own agendas, regardless of the best interests of those they are using.

This is all too common in Indigenous Australia: activists, academics and bureaucrats, with good education, opportunity and financial security, pursuing their own agendas, with complete disregard for and indifference to the genuine challenges being faced by Indigenous Australians in remote and rural Australia. Organisations such as the EDO, and the individuals who run them, are only too happy to use the plight of some of our most marginalised Australians to further their own ideological or political agenda.

It’s difficult to say what the most damaging part of this sort of behaviour is: the legal damage, the economic deprivation or the division and hurt it causes among all Australians. In the case of the EDO against Santos, distortion and misrepresentation were used, as Tasmanian senator Jonno Duniam put it, as a form of “environmental lawfare’’ that frustrates the courts, brings important projects to a standstill, and puts vital industries – and the thousands of Aussie jobs they create – at real risk. As even a former Labor MP, Joel Fitzgibbon, said following the Santos decision: “Hopefully the broader community is beginning to see activist lawfare for what it is, ideological and a threat to our living standard.”

The absurdity of the Albanese government funding an organisation hellbent on undermining government processes beggars belief and points to a government that is both out of touch and out of its depth. The claims that these activists are working for Indigenous communities while pushing their radical environmental agenda is likewise absurd. We know the quickest and most effective way to permanently improve the lives of our most marginalised is to encourage and facilitate economic advancement. However, as West Australian Labor Premier Roger Cook said: “We now see environmental groups undertaking that same strategy that we all condemned in the early 2000s, where they pull people away from the group and use that to undermine their own self-determination in relation to projects.”

Indeed, far from wanting to help, activists attacking mining and energy companies – attempting to stymie new development and trying to revisit and change past decisions – are actually hurting investment and depriving Indigenous Australians of those economic opportunities. We now find ourselves in the incredible situation where the federal government is actually funding organisations pursuing the deprivation of Indigenous economic participation, while simultaneously spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to implement ill-conceived, silver-bullet policy solutions to Indigenous disadvantage.

Is it any wonder Indigenous disadvantage is so entrenched, when the rich and powerful see something like the Barossa gas project as a greater environmental threat than an opportunity for Indigenous economic advancement. I believe we must also consider the damage these acts do to the goodwill of so many Australians towards Indigenous issues. A recurring theme of the 2023 referendum was the amount of taxpayer money being spent, both directly and indirectly, on Indigenous issues, and its efficacy.

At a time when Australians are struggling with a cost-of-living crisis, finding out millions of dollars in taxpayer money is going to an organisation filled with radical environmentalists, which seeks to obstruct progress and opportunity, and exploits Indigenous Australians to do it, only damages that goodwill and stokes more division.

The Coalition has repeatedly called for an audit into spending to understand what’s working, what isn’t, and where the waste is – calls routinely rejected by the Albanese government. That Anthony Albanese and Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek would continue to allow taxpayer money to be wasted like this is simply astonishing. It begs the question: is this all just a thinly veiled attempt to, as Queensland senator Susan McDonald puts it, “secure votes in inner-city seats under threat from the Greens”? This was on display on Wednesday when Solomon MP Luke Gosling fell into line, saying he “still sees a role for the EDO”.

The truth is that what was uncovered by the Federal Court is not uncommon. Instances such as Santos’ Barossa gas project and the “white hands on black art” exercise are just the tip of the iceberg. The EDO needs to be defunded not just because it is a proven bad actor, but also to send a clear message that the age of exploiting Indigenous Australians to achieve political goals is at an end. This is what Peter Dutton and the LNP are ready to do, and what Albanese and the Labor government are incapable of doing.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is opposition spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians.
 
An interesting take on the issues dividing Australians.

in the words of Federal Court judge Natalie Charlesworth, “distorting and misrepresenting” the words of traditional owners. The “subtle coaching” of Indigenous Australians, and the attempts to “encourage and hint” to come to particular conclusions, are common examples of activists trying to manipulate and use Indigenous Australians to pursue their own agendas, regardless of the best interests of those they are using.
 
The claim that the Voice is a Communist plot has become a clarion call for the anti-Voice campaigners, despite similar claims being debunked for decades.

In 1983 when McDonald published his fifth edition of the book Red Over Black, subsequent claims of Communist infiltration through First Nations organisations were rubbished.


 
The claim that the Voice is a Communist plot has become a clarion call for the anti-Voice campaigners, despite similar claims being debunked for decades.

In 1983 when McDonald published his fifth edition of the book Red Over Black, subsequent claims of Communist infiltration through First Nations organisations were rubbished.


I've never heard that one before.
The voice was a step too far, simple, it sounded like a con job, it was presented like a con job, it was treated as a con job.
Pizz poor planning, pizz poor presentation, pizz poor outcome.
That's why it has been dropped like a hot spud, Albo knows it so he has moved away from the fall out zone, don't overthink it. ;)
 
The claim that the Voice is a Communist plot has become a clarion call for the anti-Voice campaigners, despite similar claims being debunked for decades.

In 1983 when McDonald published his fifth edition of the book Red Over Black, subsequent claims of Communist infiltration through First Nations organisations were rubbished.


Clearly you are suffering denial, investigate Langdon and Mayo as an entry point. Additionally you might want to examine your own ideology.
 
Black market grog runners exploiting the locals, as it used to be.

But wait doesn't Airbus have all the necessary answers.
Just got the call, he is booked on the next flight out of Australia to parts unknown.
To many questions to answer and has to meet with persons unknown at this stage to have high level discussions about some unimportant matter.
 
Clearly you are suffering denial, investigate Langdon and Mayo as an entry point. Additionally you might want to examine your own ideology.
Teela Reid clearly stated “I think that what we need is to get back to these radical roots of the Communist Party”, and she is one of the biggest advocates for indigenous.
 
Clearly you are suffering denial, investigate Langdon and Mayo as an entry point. Additionally you might want to examine your own ideology.

They use stealth and deception to gain power, they fudge historical facts to suit their needs and brainwash the young and vulnerable. The referendum was a big slap in the face for them, but they are regrouping.

By glossing over some facts and hiding others they publish lovely rosey articles and art. The old doctrine about the workers being robbed by the bosses is still pushed to this day, even though the people have never been richer or healthier in any previous past of history.

Some of the propaganda they push -

The history of the Communist Party’s support for Aboriginal struggles

The role the early Communist Party of Australia (CPA) played in fighting for Aboriginal rights provides clear examples of the way that a joint “black and white” challenge to the oppression of Aboriginal people can build the radicalism, consciousness and strength of the working class movement in Australia.

Theory
To paraphrase Marx, the ruling ideas in society are the ideas of the ruling class. That’s why they must be challenged and interrogated, and why we take seriously the development of our own theory and the writing of our own history.

On this page, we aim to provide a guide to contemporary and historical Marxist theory and the history of struggles of the working class and the oppressed, particularly that which concerns socialists in Australia.

Why we need Marxist theory

What do we need theory for? We know there is a crisis. We know we are being robbed by our employers. We know we’re all angry. We know we need socialism. All the rest is just for the intellectuals.
 
Can we learn from the NZ experience?

In Australia, the ‘always was, always will be’ activists will never give up trying to find wedges to create co-governance, different legal rights and different legal systems based on race. They should learn from NZ’s experience.

Kiwis prove dangers of race-based division

Once you open the Pandora’s box of separatism and special rights based on race, it is a terrible task to stuff the shocking spectres that emerge back in the box.

Bitterness and division will be your constant companions. Best to learn from our neighbours across the ditch and keep as tight a lid on the box as is practically possible. New Zealand’s divided governance arrangements, and resulting uncertainty about who governs and how, now verges on plunging the country into major civil strife based on race.

The shocking divisions on display even before Tuesday’s Waitangi Day are a harbinger of the deep unhappiness now unavoidable in New Zealand race relations.

New Zealand has its own special legal and cultural framework that entrenches, and exacerbates, its racial divisions, and we can only watch on and wish our neighbour well in trying to resolve them. What we must not do is import or replicate the legal, cultural and political schisms inherent in New Zealand but almost entirely avoidable in Australia.

As Anne Barrowclough’s analysis on the weekend explained, ever since the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, New Zealand has had a framework of divided governance.

The English-language version of that treaty ceded complete sovereignty over the country to the Crown, but the Maori version of that treaty was said to be much more ambiguous. That uncertainty led to the adoption in the 1980s by the Waitangi Tribunal, an unelected body of assorted well-meaning lawyers and academics, of the so-called Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

These principles were an airy-fairy, loosy-goosy group of platitudes that apparently made the country a “partnership” between the New Zealand Crown and Maori. There was never any definitive or precise statement of the extent of the co-governance thereby established but co-governance of some kind it clearly was.

The Waitangi Tribunal’s stated vision that the “the Crown and Maori, reconciled in the spirit of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi, will be empowered to join in creating a better future for all New Zealanders” is a lovely sentiment. The reality in recent years has been bitterness. When the former government introduced ethnic priority for Maoris in the health system, it provoked disgust among doctors and non-Maoris.

The ACT and New Zealand First parties, now in coalition with the National Party, have a policy of de-Maorification, and are demanding a referendum to clarify the Waitangi principles, and a poll before the election that brought all three parties to government suggested a majority of New Zealanders support the referendum.

Thankfully, Australia is not cursed by the institutional framework that makes these issues so difficult in NZ.

The Australian legal position on sovereignty is clear and unambiguous. As settled by the High Court in Coe and other cases, the Australian Crown is the sole and exclusive sovereign in this continent. The High Court specifically stated there is no room for any form of residual sovereignty of Indigenous persons.

With the exception of eccentric corners of some of our law schools and political fringe-dwellers such as Lidia Thorpe and her “blak” sovereignty movement, nobody seriously contends otherwise. Any possibility of change to Australia’s existing sovereignty arrangements was snuffed out by the disastrous failure of the voice referendum.

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Noel Pearson and Anthony Albanese. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Though the legal system does not support them, the “always was, always will be” activists will never give up trying to find wedges to create co-governance, different legal rights and different legal systems based on race. The treaty push, most recently aired by Greens who have little understanding of middle Australia, is the latest such Trojan Horse.

Elsewhere too, our system of equality under the law is under challenge. In British Columbia, where I’ve been for the past month, the provincial government is set on a course of sharing governance of Crown lands with First Nations.

As Bruce Pardy, a professor of law at Queen’s University, explained in the National Post last weekend, the effect of amendments to the BC Land Act will be to grant veto rights to hundreds of First Nations groups.

This change, described by some academics as a shift away from the Westminster model of governance, has its roots in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. While Australia, Canada, the US and New Zealand voted against this declaration in 2007, in 2016 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reversed Canada’s position.

The result, Pardy says, is that “First Nations will have a veto right over how most of BC is used. Joint management can be expected to apply to mining, hydro projects, farming, forestry, docks and communication towers, just to start. Activities at the heart of BC’s economy will be at risk”.

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Lidia Thorpe


With the push in Australia by the Greens and other radicals within our law schools and bureaucracies to unravel our current governance system, we need to consider one fundamental question before it is too late. Do we go down a route of separatism, co-governance, divided sovereignty and different rights for different groups, or do we continue to support the principle of every person being treated equally under one system of government?

Australians demonstrated with determination at last year’s Indigenous voice referendum that they want one country with one governance system and equality under the law for all. They want rights and obligations to be based on individual characteristics not on membership of collective groups.

Positive discrimination for limited purposes and limited time periods is acceptable to many Australians so long as these discriminatory arrangements are diligently scrutinised to ensure they fulfil their purpose and last no longer than strictly necessary.

Recent decisions of the US Supreme Court winding back temporary affirmative action programs for university admission that had outlasted their purpose demonstrates this is a growing global realisation.

Not only does Australia not have a legal history or framework that mandates divided governance, it has a vibrant multicultural society with many different subgroups all of whom are entitled to respect, tolerance and support but not entrenched privilege or rights.

Equality under the law means we can still celebrate diversity and encourage people to enjoy their culture. Our Indigenous people do deserve recognition as the original occupiers of this land, and government support to help their individual circumstances. We can recognise Indigenous land rights because they reflect acceptance under Australian law of existing traditional usage and ownership of the land by Indigenous peoples.

But permanently entrenched differentiation in legal or political entitlements – by setting up separate courts, entering into treaties, or providing race-based (rather than need-based) rights and entitlements – is a recipe for entrenched unhappiness and continued division we are now seeing in New Zealand.

For every Maori demand, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The result is a constant ratcheting up of ill-feeling and division.
 
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