The Voice

[Smurf1976]

They are NOT relevant.

They are directly relevant so long as it's government pushing the message.

Every now and then someone conducts as survey of Australians' trust in professions and the results are consistent - politicians are at or very close to the bottom meanwhile the medical profession is at the top.

Hence the resistance to pretty much any major reform in Australia. When the information's coming from the least trusted people in society, ordinary people who lack a deep understanding of the issues are inherently cautious.

That's not a judgement on the Voice itself. It's saying why the "trust me" approach isn't being accepted.

 

[rederob]

They are directly relevant so long as it's government pushing the message.

Incorrect.
Your points were not in any way relevant to what the Voice is proposed to be and what it would do. Where have you provided an example of a body that only provides advice being a concern?
Furthermore, Labor is proposing a "yes" vote but the government is only proposing a referendum, so your claim about the government's push is also wrong. There is no funding from government for either campaign.

Every now and then someone conducts as survey of Australians' trust in professions and the results are consistent - politicians are at or very close to the bottom meanwhile the medical profession is at the top.

So what!
This has zero relevance to the referendum question.
As a by the bye, however, using your logic we should be wary of the AMA who also provides advice to government.

Hence the resistance to pretty much any major reform in Australia. When the information's coming from the least trusted people in society, ordinary people who lack a deep understanding of the issues are inherently cautious.

You have overlooked the fact that this was never going to be a political stoush, and only after Dutton decided to change that did waters get muddied. Since Dutton's involvement there has been a constant stream of misinformation and outright lies about the Voice. I have pointed many of these out in this thread. That was followed by conservative media supporting Dutton so we now have them peddling nonsense as well.
Oh, if you don't believe it got political you should read about how the LNP cherry picked expert legal advice to make false claims in Parliament and the media about possible legal challenges emanating from the Voice.

That's not a judgement on the Voice itself. It's saying why the "trust me" approach isn't being accepted.

I think you are confused here.
"Trust me" = Dutton?
Or Albanese?
It cannot be both.
That's where the campaign stands as the Voice went from being a good idea for change with bipartisan support to a political arena where ideologies trump common sense.

 

[rederob]

Yes, it does look like a lot of work for the courts & lawyers, given that the Yes side can only yell derogatory abuse at everyone. Sort of shows how sad their understanding is.

Perhaps you can explain what you are talking about.
If it's about sovereignty then the courts can have no involvement, as sovereignty is vested through the people in our Constitution.
If it's about the Voice then you should read the expert legal opinions that contradict your claim.

I look forward to reading your opinion via the AFR or another source seeing you have none of your own date.

 

[JohnDe]

I'll save everyone a lot of guesses, they'll use govt funding to challenge the crown over sovereignty, then the whole of Australia will have to pay extra taxes for a minority group that doesn't want to help itself and lives in the past.

This is what I fear -

"The lesson is this. A Yes vote in the referendum is not the end of the process but rather the starting gun to a long and divisive treaty negotiation where the voice has the whip hand. This will likely lead to separatism and bitterness, not reconciliation."​

Worried about the Indigenous voice to parliament? Wait until you see the treaty

Australians will discover that if they vote Yes, the constitutionally entrenched Indigenous voice is not the conclusion of the intended makeover of our national governance arrangements. It is but the first step. While the voice is a major change to our Constitution, it is a mere enabler for activists’ overriding objective of a treaty with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

What few voters understand is that while the voice provides the necessary negotiating platform and leverage for activists to achieve the desired treaty, the new constitutionally enshrined race-based body is only secondary to the treaty. That is because the voice does not in itself give ATSI people the two things activists really want: namely, sovereignty and a form of self-government, and reparations. Only a treaty can do that. That’s why voters should realise that a Yes vote will likely guarantee many more years of agitation and division until, and perhaps even after, a treaty is achieved.

Anthony Albanese can be expected to do his usual Chicken Little routine, accusing those who are curious about what comes next as fearmongerers. The shame is that the Prime Minister is intent on concealing what comes next.

The next stages are obvious, not because I say so, but because this is what the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and the academic writings that have driven the treaty movement, say.

The Uluru statement is the starting point. It calls for a “First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution” but acknowledges this is not the culmination of their ambition. As the statement says, “Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda … we seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between government and First Nations and truth-telling about our history”.

Given Albanese said in his election victory speech “on behalf of the Australian Labor Party, I commit to the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full”, Australians need to understand clearly what this treaty – the end point of the Uluru statement – means.

The definitive description of what the treaty means can be found in the 2020 edition of the book Treaty by George Williams and Harry Hobbs. Williams is a prominent legal academic from the University of NSW and was a member of the constitutional expert group that advised the government on the drafting of the proposed constitutional amendment. Hobbs is also a Sydney legal academic.

Sovereignty, the first aim of a treaty, raises fundamental questions about how the country will be governed in the future. As the Uluru statement shows, those pushing for treaty, including Williams, Hobbs and other members of the academic legal movement, do not accept the traditional view that we have in Australia a single sovereign entity in whom exclusive legal and political power is vested.

While the voice provides the necessary negotiating platform and leverage for activists to achieve the desired treaty, the new constitutionally enshrined race-based body is only secondary to the treaty, writes Janet Albrechtsen. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The High Court in Coe v Commonwealth in 1993 made clear that the Mabo decision does not support “the notion that sovereignty adverse to the Crown resides in the Aboriginal people of Australia. The decision is equally at odds with the notion that there resides in the Aboriginal people a limited kind of sovereignty.”

Williams’ and Hobbs’ response to this is to question Australia’s very legitimacy, saying the “reality” requires us to recognise that “the Australian nation-state has a legitimacy problem that remains unresolved”.

With that as their starting premise, it is not surprising that Williams and Hobbs call for a treaty which meets three conditions: “First, it must recognise Indigenous peoples as a polity, distinct from other citizens of the state on the basis of their status as prior self-governing communities. Second, the agreement must be reached by a fair negotiating process conducted in good faith and in a manner respectful of each participant’s standing as a polity. Third, the agreement must settle each party’s claims … (t)his must include the state recognising or establishing some form of decision making and control for the Indigenous people that amounts to a form of self-government.”

The first element requires us to accept that Australia is not one indivisible nation. It has two polities. The first and third elements call for some form of self-government by Aboriginal people.

While Williams and Hobbs are not prescriptive about what form that takes, they quote the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which says Indigenous peoples have the “right to autonomy or self-government” in relation to their “internal and local affairs”.

As an example of what this might mean, Williams and Hobbs quote Canada’s treaty with the Nisga’a people which recognises the Nisga’a right “to exercise self-government over a range of local and internal affairs, including lands, language, culture, education, health, child protection, traditional healing practices, fisheries, wildlife, forestry, environmental protection and policing.”

There is a proviso, that says in the case of an inconsistency, federal or provincial laws prevail. But even with that, a similar treaty in this country would carve out for one group, based on race, a separate set of laws and policies that other groups do not have open to them. In other words, a treaty would divide Australia, not unify it.

What about reparations? In the foreword to Treaty, Mick Dodson says there must be a recognition “that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have been injured and harmed through the colonisation process, and just recompense is owed”. Williams and Hobbs have a stab at estimating the size of possible financial settlements by referring first to the precedent of the settlement between Western Australia and the Noongar people in 2016 that gave the Noongar a package valued at $1.3bn consisting of “a sizeable land base, non-exclusive rights to resources over an extended area, a large and sustained financial contribution from the state government, and enhanced cultural heritage protection”.

More expensively, they point to the Timber Creek decision in 2019 in which “the Ngaliwurru and Nungali peoples were awarded about $2.53m for 53 acts carried out on 1.27sq km of native title land. As there are about 2.8 million sq km of native title holdings across the country, the potential total amount of liabilities will likely be in the billions of dollars.”

If a treaty, with its promise of sovereignty and self-government, accompanied by billions of dollars of reparations, is the main game, how does the voice help? The voice is the enabler because it delivers massive leverage when it comes to negotiating the treaty.

Yes campaigners have tried to distance themselves from Thomas Mayo, a prominent backer of the voice body, who said, in 2021, that the power of the voice was its ability to “punish politicians that ignore our advice” on legislation and funding.

But Mayo’s honesty is refreshing. “We need the power of the Constitution behind us so we can organise like we’ve never organised before,” he said that same year.

“We are sick of governments telling us no; we are sick of governments not listening to our voice. We are going to use the rule book of the nation to force them.”

Even if the government has no legal duty to consult the voice in the absence of a request to do so, the voice can easily create a duty to consult by the simple device of asking to make representations.

The voice need only send a letter on the first day of its existence to every government department, agency or body saying it wishes to make representations on all “matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”. asking for advance notice of all such matters and for the time and resources to consider such matters properly, and thereafter each such government entity will have a constitutional duty to comply.

Once those entities of executive government have complied with that request, the voice will have all the rights conferred by administrative law to ensure their representations are allowed due process and that decisions about them comply with the rigorous standards of administrative law. Failure to do so means any decision that is the subject of a representation may be stopped until litigation about compliance with constitutional and administrative law is completed. In short, the voice can, if it wishes, work to bring the processes of government to a grinding halt.

The activists who dictated the maximalist drafting of the proposed amendment – especially its reference to “executive government” – know this. Those few words will leave the government at the mercy of the voice when it comes to negotiating a treaty.

The lesson is this. A Yes vote in the referendum is not the end of the process but rather the starting gun to a long and divisive treaty negotiation where the voice has the whip hand. This will likely lead to separatism and bitterness, not reconciliation.

So if you are worried about the voice, wait until you see the treaty.

JANET ALBRECHTSEN COLUMNIST

 

[rederob]

This is what I fear -

"The lesson is this. A Yes vote in the referendum is not the end of the process but rather the starting gun to a long and divisive treaty negotiation where the voice has the whip hand. This will likely lead to separatism and bitterness, not reconciliation."​

More baseless scaremongering.
This is where social media removes all semblance of rationality from the referendum question because "no" voters are want to scuttle the vote and make this about them and not the 3% of the population who want to get on an equal footing with non-indigenous people.

 

[JohnDe]

Someone previously made a point that there weren't any elders that were against the voice. Signatories signed on behalf of the elders because their names were printed on the statement, which was obviously against their will and false, is the way I see it.

The dishonesty in all of this is a lost opportunity to do some good, I'm sure most elders want what's best for their people.

The Uluru statement is militant. It offers no sentence of respect or gratitude to the Australian people. Yet it is hailed by Albanese as warm hearted and generous. He even announced in a memorial lecture in Adelaide recently that it was an invitation extended “to every single Australian in love and grace and patience”.​

​

Meanwhile, their cry of “powerlessness” is a kind of crocodile tear. In the past half-century Aboriginal groups have been handsomely recognised by their acquisition – under the Fraser and Keating governments – of ownership or certain rights and interests in 55 per cent of the Australian land mass. Few Australian voters know this fact. It constitutes one of the largest peaceful transfers of land in the history of the modern world.​

Before we vote on Indigenous voice to parliament, let’s get all our facts in order

The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a vulnerable document. It is sometimes silent when Aboriginal failures are visible, but vocal in condemning Australian people for misdeeds that never happened.
Without doubt, the Indigenous people have had many legitimate grievances about their sufferings and slights ever since British convicts and marines arrived in 1788. Hosts of Aboriginal people were killed in frontier conflict, though the historians’ statistics of death tend to contradict each other. Most Indigenous people died from diseases to which they had no immunity, and such deaths far exceed those suffered in warfare since 1788.

Countless Aboriginal people died from the excessive consumption of alcohol: rum and brandy rather than beer and wine were their temptation. Moreover, most Aboriginal people preferred novel foods such as sugar, flour and mutton rather than the plants they had skilfully gathered during an ingenious way of life that also kept them fit. The sight of so many overweight Aboriginal people today would confound their lean ancestors, if by chance still alive.

The loss of their lands, their “dispossession”, of course created resentment. But Aboriginal leaders tend to think they were the world’s only such sufferers. In fact, the ancestors of most mainstream Australians painfully lost their lands in some faraway era and received no compensation.

Thus in 1066 the Norman Conquest of England and the actual killing or enslavement of so many people, and the raping or castration of others, was probably as devastating as the British conquest of Australia. In contrast, no Aboriginal people were turned into slaves. English people who suffered severely from the consequences of the Norman invasion in 1066 must have outnumbered the Aboriginal people who suffered severely from the conquest of Australia in, say, the 70 years after 1788.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart on display at the National Press Club in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Likewise, ancient Aboriginal people themselves were champions at dispossessing their neighbours, and one day that fact should be taught in Australian schools. In every known part of the world the semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers had been deadly in their tribal warfare.

Inside the Uluru statement, two major accusations are expressed in one pithy sentence: “In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard.” The Aboriginal leaders who met at Uluru believed their kinsfolk were not even deemed worthy of being counted – until the referendum of 1967 raised their political status. Anthony Albanese himself, while understandably basking in his political honeymoon, affirmed this accusation, and continues to do so in parliament. If true, the accusation is a serious blemish on the Australian nation during the past century and a half. But it is not true.

In his many overseas trips Albanese has performed calmly and courteously. But at home, on the question that is now his very first priority, he seems sometimes to be at sea. It is fair to say he went overboard when in the Marrickville town hall on October 14 last year he told a packed gathering that Australia since 1788 had a “brutal” history, full stop. We all make unwise or sweeping statements from time to time.

Albanese’s favourite message is that Australia is “the world’s oldest living culture”. But New Guinea was occupied by human beings at about the same time as – or earlier than – Australia, and accordingly it also might be the world’s oldest living culture. Aboriginal people on the whole now have the higher quality of life, but wide is the gap between most city and big-town residents and that minority struggling in the outback communities. Closing the Gap has several meanings.

We learned how determined Albanese was when he affirmed, alongside the Uluru statement, that Aboriginal people were crippled by “powerlessness”. Now he is scaling the Mount Everest of Australian politics by seeking a drastic change to Australia’s Constitution. Thereby he will empower Indigenous people and simultaneously reduce the power of the great majority of Australians. But what if the Uluru statement, with its errors and omissions, does not justify an upheaval in Australia’s democratic system?

The Uluru statement is militant. It offers no sentence of respect or gratitude to the Australian people. Yet it is hailed by Albanese as warm hearted and generous. He even announced in a memorial lecture in Adelaide recently that it was an invitation extended “to every single Australian in love and grace and patience”.

A disciple of Bruce Pascoe, Albanese admires his nonsensical Dark Emu theory. Pascoe believes Aboriginal Australia was the first real democracy in the world and for 80,000 years a haven of peace and prosperity. Albanese believes this utopia – in fact, it never existed – can in some ways be honoured if Indigenous people are compensated with special powers and rights.

Parliament in its recent debate did nothing to validate the Uluru accusation that mainstream Australians had refused for generations even to count Aboriginal people. In fact, these proud people were being counted before any one of us was born.

We can appreciate the sense of hurt in young, politically active Aboriginal people when they hear the myth that they, their parents and grandparents had not been deemed worthy of being counted in a census. More insulting, the young are led to believe that the sheep had been counted regularly – as undoubtedly they were – but not the Aboriginal people.

In parliament last month Tanya Plibersek mistakenly announced, in an otherwise informative address, that in 1901 the “Aboriginal people weren’t counted in the census or commonly allowed to vote”. Her ministerial colleague Catherine King told parliament that Aboriginal people – in the words of one informant – were powerless “simply because we were never identified as humans”. That can’t be true.

Day by day, all shoppers at Coles supermarkets receive on their printed receipts a highly selective message based on Uluru. The directors of Coles Group do not seem to realise that, through the years, their own executives – in recommending places where the next dozen stores might or might not be opened – must have known where most Aboriginal people lived.

Linda Burney, born in a small Riverina township, is deservedly praised for making her way from a humble Aboriginal home to become a cabinet minister in Sydney and now in Canberra. But she has mistakenly insisted that as a young girl she was never in a census. “The notion that you weren’t worthy of being counted was very painful,” she exclaimed in July 2017. She once misinformed parliament that until the age of 10 she was not even a citizen. Instead, she claimed she was merely ranked under “the flora and fauna act” of NSW. Such a policy did not exist.

The first census to be conducted by commonwealth officers was in 1911, and the federal attorney-general instructed them to count “full-blood Aboriginals”. Understandably, the officers had to retreat when they reached remote areas where local inhabitants had seen no white person or heard a word of English. But tens of thousands of Aboriginal people were actually counted, often with enormous effort, in the accessible regions.

For a logical but slightly complicated reason, they were not – after the actual counting – included in the final tally of population. For instance, in apportioning a share of the federal customs revenue to each state, the smallish Aboriginal populations were not “reckoned” when finalising the payments to each state. Helen Irving’s book To Constitute a Nation neatly explains the reasons and the practice.

Today, visitors to the National Museum in Canberra are informed that not until 1971 were “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples counted in the Australian census”. On the contrary, they had been counted in every federal census since 1901, and counted moreover in the face of obstacles confronted by few other national statisticians. Thus the state officials then in charge of that 1901 census specifically counted them. They set up a special category that comprised “full blood Aboriginals” and those “nomadic half castes” who were living with them. In the five mainland states they totalled 41,389. An even larger number could not be counted, being nomadic and too far distant.

There were precise censuses even before 1901, thus contradicting Albanese and the Uluru leaders. For example, South Australia, holding a census on Sunday, April 2, 1871, recorded the exact districts and towns where more than 5000 Aboriginal men and women lived.

Eye-opening was the census held on the same Sunday in gold-rich Victoria, where 731,528 people of all races were counted. Conducted by Henry Hayter, the census commanded respect from leading overseas statisticians. The main results were in the hands of parliamentarians barely two months later – a feat that is unimaginable in the age of fast computers.

Of those Victorian officials who took part in the detailed census, 918 went on horseback and 650 on foot. They investigated remote townships, huts and tents where only one or two Aboriginal people could be found. That the tally of these people had fallen since Victoria’s previous census in 1861 was evident, and it would continue to fall.

Four out of every 10 of the Victorian Aboriginal men said they were following a paid occupation; and that was a higher proportion than can be found in many remote Aboriginal settlements today. In Victoria, two of every five Aboriginal children of school age could read but fewer could write. Five Aboriginal adults were recorded as blind, and seven were over the age of 70, according to the census teams.

Hayter was meticulous. In the big printed edition of the census report he added a minor correction to the tally of 61,000 “Chinese and Aborigines” who had been separately counted: please “take 1 from the males and add 1 to the females”. Generally, the Aboriginal populations had considerably more males than females.

Across the globe most people alive in 1871 had not yet been counted officially. It is therefore remarkable that Aboriginal people in various towns and regions of Australia were systematically counted.

Other of our censuses were held before 1871, the year Albanese’s own ancestral land of Italy held its first nationwide census. One generation later, in 1897, the initial census in Russia’s vast empire at last enumerated famous individuals such as Finnish composer Jean Sibelius and Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Unfortunately, the allegation – “a people not worth counting” – is now endorsed by some of the biggest business houses, by the football leagues and even by universities that are world-ranked for their research.

The leaders at Uluru insisted that their people had been powerless for generations This lament is also far-fetched.

In stressing the “torment of our powerlessness”, they did not know that in the late 1850s, in the three populous Australian colonies, most Aboriginal men were allowed to vote. This was a momentous event: most of Europe’s tens of millions of men had not yet won the right to vote. Indeed, a forgotten man of Aboriginal and convict ancestry won the rural seat of Young in NSW in 1889.

The crowd on the south side of Grenfell Street, Adelaide, watching the posting of the South Australian colonial election results outside The Register newspapers office in April 1896.

Another landmark – unknown to Uluru – was a general election held in 1896 in South Australia. This was probably the first government in the world to allow women not only to vote but also to stand for parliament. New Zealand women already had the first right but not the second.

In this same 1896 election in South Australia, even more revolutionary was the sight of Aboriginal women attending the polling booth. Martin Luther King might well have shaken his head in surprise if he had known of it.

Just pause and ponder for one minute: South Australia’s innovation occurred when 99 per cent of the women in the world did not have a vote. In renowned cities such as Paris, Berlin, London, New York, St Petersburg, Tokyo and Beijing, not one woman had the privilege now exercised by female Aboriginal voters in South Australia. Five years later in the first federal election various Aboriginal women must have voted – an election in which no white woman in the four eastern states was entitled to vote. These triumphs contradict the Uluru manifesto.

Indigenous people hope to gain a major say in shaping a beneficial treaty with the Australian nation; they demand a truth-telling tribunal dominated by the Indigenous; and they call for the right at times to influence vital spheres such as foreign policy. They will also break the golden rule of democracy: one person, one vote.

Meanwhile, their cry of “powerlessness” is a kind of crocodile tear. In the past half-century Aboriginal groups have been handsomely recognised by their acquisition – under the Fraser and Keating governments – of ownership or certain rights and interests in 55 per cent of the Australian land mass. Few Australian voters know this fact. It constitutes one of the largest peaceful transfers of land in the history of the modern world.

Historian Geoffrey Blainey is the author of more than 40 books. His recent memoir is called Before I Forget (Penguin).

 

[TimeISmoney]

I can donate to your psyche appointment if you like.
FYI courts can only decide upon laws, and "sovereignty" is a concept, not a law.

You should join @SirRumpole in the closet. Just ask @JohnDe for the keys.

I don't understand why 'the voice' if only claiming to be an indigenous advisory group to parliament would need to amend the Australian constitution to be in existence.

The sovereignty of the land is held under the governor general on behalf of the British king, they're more or less are the ruler of the land and this is achieved by the constitution. The constitution is a document that gives the government and people certain powers with the law in Australia, like making new laws and amending them. They honestly lost my vote at this point, the constitution is something that shouldn't be tampered with. Does this mean under the human rights act that every minority group in Australia needs to amend the constitution to advise the government in Australia, do you see where it's all heading?

 

[rederob]

I don't understand why 'the voice' if only claiming to be an indigenous advisory group to parliament would need to amend the Australian constitution to be in existence.

I agree that you do not understand.
You should join @SirRumpole and a few others here in a study group to learn about why and how the Voice came about.

The sovereignty of the land is held under the governor general on behalf of the British king,

Although we are a constitutional monarchy, we are a sovereign nation.
That means our Parliament makes the laws, and our Constitution provides the framework for our system of government.
Sovereignty per se is relegated to concepts of where power lies in its various spheres. As there are no laws specific to sovereignty our High Court will never be troubled by claimants.

They honestly lost my vote at this point, the constitution is something that shouldn't be tampered with.

Constitutions are not Bibles. They are living documents that need to change with the times. For example, if the British got rid of the monarchy why then would we retain a reference to the King?

Does this mean under the human rights act that every minority group in Australia needs to amend the constitution to advise the government in Australia, do you see where it's all heading?

You really are confused: read my first sentence!

 

[JohnDe]

I don't understand why 'the voice' if only claiming to be an indigenous advisory group to parliament would need to amend the Australian constitution to be in existence.

The sovereignty of the land is held under the governor general on behalf of the British king, they're more or less are the ruler of the land and this is achieved by the constitution. The constitution is a document that gives the government and people certain powers with the law in Australia, like making new laws and amending them. They honestly lost my vote at this point, the constitution is something that shouldn't be tampered with. Does this mean under the human rights act that every minority group in Australia needs to amend the constitution to advise the government in Australia, do you see where it's all heading?

Take this into account "In the past half-century Aboriginal groups have been handsomely recognised by their acquisition – under the Fraser and Keating governments – of ownership or certain rights and interests in 55 per cent of the Australian land mass. Few Australian voters know this fact. It constitutes one of the largest peaceful transfers of land in the history of the modern world"

Before we vote on Indigenous voice to parliament, let’s get all our facts in order
GEOFFREY BLAINEY

 

[wayneL]

Nothing to do with the voice on the face of it, but.....

 

[Sean K]

I think the referendum is going to have to be postponed. It's dying.

Veteran Aboriginal activist Michael Mansell is urging Anthony Albanese to cancel the voice referendum in the face of falling support and instead legislate an advisory body and start treaty talks.

Mr Mansell, who is chair of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania, told The Weekend Australian the Prime Minister should drop the referendum and negotiate with “progressive” voice opponents on alternatives.

The lawyer and leading advocate for Indigenous Tasmanians since the 1970s said these could include legislating a voice, Aboriginal-designated parliamentary seats and a national treaty and truth-telling process.

 

[Smurf1976]

I think you are confused here.
"Trust me" = Dutton?
Or Albanese?
It cannot be both.

Albanese is taking a "trust me" approach in asking the public to vote the Voice in a referendum then leaving parliament to sort out the details. He being the person of relevance as the current Prime Minister and the highest profile advocate for the "Yes" argument.

Why can't we have parliament give us the full details first then we'll have the referendum?

Please don't anyone tell me it's due to administrative efficiency or anything like that. That's an excuse not a reason given the importance of the issue.

In any other situation where someone's seeking approval over a matter of significance that's how it works unless they have a sufficiently high degree of trust in the individual(s) involved. For most though well the boss, bank, parent, , client, local council or whoever's giving approval wants all the details up front before they decide yes or no.

If it wasn't for that detail, the "yes" case would be an easy win assuming the details are in fact acceptable to the majority of Australians. It's the secrecy combined with the lack of trust in politicians generally that's fuelling the "no" side.

 

[Smurf1976]

Incorrect.
Your points were not in any way relevant to what the Voice is proposed to be and what it would do.

They are however very relevant to the problem that it's being proposed by government in a manner that asks the voters to trust government with the details.

That idea doesn't work when politicians are literally the least trusted profession in society.

What's on the mind of many is the idea that the referendum is passed, the Yes case wins, then parliament promptly changes the details to something substantially different to what people thought they'd voted for. Bait and switch, that's what's on the minds of many.

There's also the broader political implications. There's a very real risk government blows itself up over this in my view. If I were them then I'd be pursuing policies that aim to unite the Australian people and which make it extremely clear the Australian government stands firmly behind Australia and Australians regardless of the details. That's what's missing at the moment - trust and unity. Fix that first then we have a much easier path forward for the rest.

 

[rederob]

Albanese is taking a "trust me" approach in asking the public to vote the Voice in a referendum then leaving parliament to sort out the details. He being the person of relevance as the current Prime Minister and the highest profile advocate for the "Yes" argument.

That is not a valid argument as it's what the Voice can do that is relevant. All you are doing is believing a distraction is relevant because you have not worked out that these "details" can not only be settled by Parliament, but will be constantly subject to change by Parliament. The other fact here is that it was a very deliberate decision of the Referendum Council - another bipartisan body - to keep the question simple and not go down the path of the problematic question put on the "republic" referendum.

Why can't we have parliament give us the full details first then we'll have the referendum?

See above. But also remember the framework has been laid out in the comprehensive report by Calma and Langton which you appear not to have read, so this is no different to any proposition the Parliament approves in the course of normal business where a budget allocation has been made.

Please don't anyone tell me it's due to administrative efficiency or anything like that. That's an excuse not a reason given the importance of the issue.

The important issue is not how it operates, it's what it does. What it does is provide advice, and cannot be more simple to understand.
You are now getting heavily into the "excuse" camp and indulging in distraction, because what is much more important is what the existing machinery of government does with this advice. Remember that every single lobby group is constantly providing advice to government and all departments already have a framework to deal with it.

In any other situation where someone's seeking approval over a matter of significance that's how it works unless they have a sufficiently high degree of trust in the individual(s) involved. For most though well the boss, bank, parent, , client, local council or whoever's giving approval wants all the details up front before they decide yes or no.

Another case of false equivalence. We already have hundreds of bodies giving advice to government, and government responding. Why can't you explain what is different with the Voice by way of example?
You need to look closely at the questions you are putting because they simply are not valid.

If it wasn't for that detail, the "yes" case would be an easy win assuming the details are in fact acceptable to the majority of Australians. It's the secrecy combined with the lack of trust in politicians generally that's fuelling the "no" side.

In fact it's people who look for distractions that are fuelling the "no" vote.
Your claim of "secrecy" is more a reflection of wilful ignorance.

 

[SirRumpole]

We already have hundreds of bodies giving advice to government, and government responding.

How many of them are publicly funded and guaranteed to be permanent by the Constitution ?

 

[rederob]

They are however very relevant to the problem that it's being proposed by government in a manner that asks the voters to trust government with the details.
That idea doesn't work when politicians are literally the least trusted profession in society.

The referendum is not a "problem".
In fact it's the very opposite as it seeks to redress systemic disadvantage.
As I said in my reply above, there are details of how the Voice can operate to provide advice if you care to look. But the key to the Voice is the response of agencies that get that advice. I repeat that there is a well established framework in all government agencies for handling "advice" so that level of detail seems unnecessary.

What's on the mind of many is the idea that the referendum is passed, the Yes case wins, then parliament promptly changes the details to something substantially different to what people thought they'd voted for.

As I said, "no" voters are relying on distraction, misinformation and lies. Anyone who has a clue would know that Parliament can and does change policies throughout the year, but the Constitutional change is only relevant to the issue of recognising first nations peoples.

There's also the broader political implications. There's a very real risk government blows itself up over this in my view. If I were them then I'd be pursuing policies that aim to unite the Australian people and which make it extremely clear the Australian government stands firmly behind Australia and Australians regardless of the details. That's what's missing at the moment - trust and unity. Fix that first then we have a much easier path forward for the rest.

You cannot fix ideology.
How do you overcome bigots like Dutton who has a track record of ignoring the plight of indigenous people, and gaslights a previous bipartisan approach?
How do people who prefer to focus on irrelevances ever get convinced that they are not looking in the right direction?
Why are people who will never be affected by the Voice - some 97% of the population - unwilling to consider how it stands to make a significant difference to the lives of indigenous people?
This referendum was never going to be divisive until certain self interests decided to make it so.
To suggest it's about "trust" is, imho, a convenient distraction at best, and more likely a poor reading of the realities of Australian politics and the role of conservative media.

 

[TimeISmoney]

Albanese is taking a "trust me" approach in asking the public to vote the Voice in a referendum then leaving parliament to sort out the details. He being the person of relevance as the current Prime Minister and the highest profile advocate for the "Yes" argument.

Why can't we have parliament give us the full details first then we'll have the referendum?

Please don't anyone tell me it's due to administrative efficiency or anything like that. That's an excuse not a reason given the importance of the issue.

In any other situation where someone's seeking approval over a matter of significance that's how it works unless they have a sufficiently high degree of trust in the individual(s) involved. For most though well the boss, bank, parent, , client, local council or whoever's giving approval wants all the details up front before they decide yes or no.

If it wasn't for that detail, the "yes" case would be an easy win assuming the details are in fact acceptable to the majority of Australians. It's the secrecy combined with the lack of trust in politicians generally that's fuelling the "no" side.

Changing the constitution without facts can be ambiguous and not just that, it's discriminatory against every other Australian to give one group a biased advantage in their so called advocacy. Our legislative system is meant to make things fair for everyone. There is only one reason why they're quiet on the constitutional changes they want to make, it's like a modern day trojan horse.

Anyone in Australia can give a speech in local council chambers as a special interest group within reason, any special interest group can be represented by an MP and or cabinet member. What they're saying is just pure rubbish because there is a lot more to this story. You can't hold current day councils and governments in contempt for what happened over 200 years ago. Only people that have something to gain and loonies would vote yes to this.

 

[SirRumpole]

Why are people who will never be affected by the Voice - some 97% of the population - unwilling to consider how it stands to make a significant difference to the lives of indigenous people?

I don't think it's clear that non indigenous people will not be affected by the Voice.

If the WA legislation on aboriginal heritage can be accepted by a virtue signalling government then who knows how far this sort of idea will spread, and landholders may be deprived of the beneficial use of their own property.

The risk to the majority is high in my opinion.

 

[sptrawler]

I don't think it's clear that non indigenous people will not be affected by the Voice.

If the WA legislation on aboriginal heritage can be accepted by a virtue signalling government then who knows how far this sort of idea will spread, and landholders may be deprived of the beneficial use of their own property.

The risk to the majority is high in my opinion.

My son came up from Collie this morning to bring one of the grandkids for the school holidays, I casually asked him how people are taking the 'Voice' and the new aboriginal heritage news, he said in the works lunchroom everyone is going ballistic.
So with Collie being a really 100% strong Labor seat, that's an interesting reaction, it may backfire on Labor a lot worse than they expect.
Time will tell, maybe everyone will settle down, maybe they wont, the 'voice' is probably going to be a good indicator of how Albo is travelling.

 

[SirRumpole]

My son came up from Collie this morning to bring one of the grandkids for the school holidays, I casually asked him how people are taking the 'Voice' and the new aboriginal heritage news, he said in the works lunchroom everyone is going ballistic.
So with Collie being a really 100% strong Labor seat, that's an interesting reaction, it may backfire on Labor a lot worse than they expect.
Time will tell, maybe everyone will settle down, maybe they wont, the 'voice' is probably going to be a good indicator of how Albo is travelling.

Might be best for him electorally to ditch The voice if its obvious its not going to pass and get back to bread and butter issues like cos t of living.

Only thing us I don't know if he can drop the referendum once the enabling Bill gas been passed.