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The Voice

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Read this SP help you brush up on history and get over what the cost is

. Elder details the massacres and maltreatment of Aborigines since 1788 and the impact these atrocities had on the Indigenous populations. He ends his last chapter with this statement: “The blood of tens of thousands of Aborigines killed since 1788, and the sense of despair and hopelessness which informs so much modern day Aboriginal society, is a moral responsibility all White Australians share. Our wealth and lifestyle is a direct consequence of Aboriginal dispossession. We should bow our heads in shame” (Elder 1988:200).


 
sptrawler said:
Do you think the smartest people in the public service haven't looked at every avenue and canvassed them already with the local aboriginal communities and their elders?
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That's not how the public service works!
When I worked in ATSIC there was very little consultation as they all thought they knew better!

Quite separately, you only need to look at the lengths public servants and their Ministers go to misrepresent reality, as we recently discovered via PWC. So on topic, in 2021 a detailed review of progress on recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody showed a significant number of key recommendations still had not been implemented 30 years later.
The Voice aims to hold the government to their commitments and will be able to do that through their higher profile.
What's been missing, and why there's a resounding call for the Voice, has been grass roots feedback that's taken seriously. Local communities are tired of spin and empty promises from politicians... and then being powerless to get inaction to the attention of anyone who cares.

It's nearly impossible for the Voice to fail to make a difference. But don't expect miracles. Overcoming systemic disadvantage is a generational challenge at best.
 
Plenty of white Australians have lost their lives in wars, to protect and save Australia and its inhabitants also, just in case you think they haven't done anything.
Our wealth and lifestyle is the result of your forefathers, if they had adopted the aboriginal way of life do you think Australia would have the lifestyle we have now, it's a bit sad that even those on welfare have such little regard for the people before them that sacrificed so they can enjoy something.
I suppose if you feel so responsible for what happened in 1788, you could always donate your place to Aboriginal housing, you never know it might make you feel better, I would certainly be impressed.
 
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Yeah unfortunately you missed the point you cannot see the difference?
 
IFocus said:
Yeah unfortunately you missed the point you cannot see the difference?
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The difference is I know that blaming and shaming people isn't going to get the Yes vote anywhere, most people know that welfare in Australia isn't racially based and in a lot of countries around the World there isn't welfare.
So trying to shame people by BSing them isn't going to win anyone over.
Giving them a "Voice" in the constitution, is it going to stop the crime, the stealing, the blatant damage, the street violence, the atrocious behaviour in the settlements, until there is a commitment from them it is just another white mans feel good gesture.
As usual.
Anyway it will be what it will be, maybe they should have a referendum of the aboriginals first and find out what they want, rather than what the Canberra ones want.
 
There wouldn't be a single non-indigenous person in Australia who hasn't had the lands of their ancestors invaded, and experienced massacres in one form or another at some point in history.

Us indigenous English have had several waves of them so why should the indigenous have special consideration of for that.

@IFocus thanks people should brush up on their Aboriginal history. I say Ifocus should brush up on world history.

I'm not saying it's right or trying to justify in anyway but it's just what happens and has happened.

One also wonders about intertribal warfare and massacres, as has happened in every other continent on the planet. If I remember correctly, there is evidence of that on this continent too.

Price et al, still have the best approach.
 
How do you know?
I have lived in several towns where whites were the minority and things ran pretty well. About the only problems that occurred were in some government provided "aboriginal housing" that were many rooms short for the comparatively large families.
You must think indigenous people were always as you state, but I know that's not true.

What I also know is that the status quo has proven not to be effective in addressing their present situation.
I don't understand a defeatist mentality, where the victims of government policy failure are also blamed for their problems. As I said, the Voice stands a chance of making make a difference where all else has failed. But while there is entrenched victim blaming, excuse making, lying, and misinformation the chances of the referendum getting up are not good.
 

Nope wrong answer ?
 

This is a really important point. It seems that Aboriginals don't understand the general history of the World and even their own history. Maybe because they haven't read it, or it was never recorded. Humans have invaded and dispossessed other humans for thousands of years. It's only really been since the Peace of Westphalia that borders were somewhat respected but not even generally accepted until the late 1800s. If there was any documented Aboriginal history I'm sure we'd see boundaries between tribes changing radically over time with some tribes wiped out completely. There's a complete lack of perspective here.
 
Well I'm not going to have a pissing contest on that, but I doubt that you have spent any more time in remote and regional towns and settlements than I have.
So I actually think that comment is pointless.

Government policy failure isn't isolated to indigenous people and their issues, similar issues prevail through the drug addled underclass of white homeless and destitute toothless people, should they also be included as it is a growing number that has even poorer representation than the indigenous.
They also are ostracised and rejected by society and are the victims of abuse on the streets, are unemployable and are the focus of victim blaming.
Do they also need a voice to parliament? currently there are no ministers for drug addled, socially dysfunctional outcast members of society, who live under bridges and carry all their worldly possessions in a shopping trolley.
Lets be honest, they weren't here in 1788 either, are they less deserving?
 
IFocus said:
Read this SP help you brush up on history and get over what the cost is
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I don't know if my memory serves me correctly, but I think it was you @IFocus (and @SirRumpole may be able to confirm it) that back in about 2010, I had a disagreement as to how Kevin Rudd's splash of cash after the GFC was focused.

From memory I said it was crazy to send out all that stimulus to people to buy Chinese plasma T.V's from Harvey Norman, he should have used the stimulus to compensate the aboriginals for dispossession of their land and then the money could have improved their situation and been spent in Australia.

Now we have history repeating, you are on the Labor hymn sheet and I'm saying it is just another brain fart.

Can't wait to se how it pans out, probably the same as the clean energy brain fart, great ideas stuffed up by pizz poor implementation.
Time will tell, but that's a bit of our living memory, that is still growing.
In 1981 I was in Wiluna and there was a 6' high cyclone fence with three strands of barbed wire, I asked the headmaster are they having troubles with break ins, he said it is to actually stop the kids leaving the school.
So to say this is ground breaking is nonsense.
 
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That comment probably nails it, our systems have constantly failed, so we want to put in another impotent step to reinforce the previous failures.
What is the abbreviation of stupidity? doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

Just another BS brain fart, the aboriginals are the only sector of the Australian population with a positive birth rate, the sooner it really gets sorted the better IMO and having a voice to vent ain't going to change anything. Just puts Albo up there with Kev as a BS artist.

Avoiding the obvious and enshrining demands into the constitution, kicks the can down the road and makes our grandkids slaves to future claims, for past misdemeanors.

Hang on, I didn't think we still had slavery, there you go, even slavery manifests itself in different ways. ?
 
sptrawler said:
Government policy failure isn't isolated to indigenous people and their issues,
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Who said they were?
The point here is that despite a supposed dedicated commitment to Closing the Gap over an extended period of time, policy after policy has failed.

Your "whataboutism" and victim blaming is typical of those who cannot find legitimate fault with the Voice so look for excuses and distractions.
 

Maybe some indigenous people want policies to fail , otherwise they would have to thank the white man for improving their circumstances.
 
SirRumpole said:
Maybe some indigenous people want policies to fail , otherwise they would have to thank the white man for improving their circumstances.
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You should tell that to the thousands who die younger than they would have had they been non-indigenous.
Your racism is getting worse each post.
 
rederob said:
You should tell that to the thousands who die younger than they would have had they been non-indigenous.
Your racism is getting worse each post.
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Obviously the grass roots people want better conditions but some of the leaders would lose power if policies actually worked and the leaders have the most say now and even if the Voice referendum passes.
 
Good points here from Anthony Dillon

 
Most remote communities don't want to listen to white government, of course it's going to fail. I've spent over 10 years working in remote Australia, their own type ostracises most young people that want an education, they can't tell them not to buy alcohol which causes most of the community domestic violence, then they want jobs to come to them but won't relocate to find work. If you can't take constructive criticism you can't better yourself.
 
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