Will people in the Northern Territory have their vote counted as if it were a state or just to the total national amount?
Am I the only one here who thinks they could’ve made actual change if they became a state (more senators, can contribute to a referendum)?
The voice is very close to a lobby group’s position in Canberra. I can’t remember when Indigenous issues were in the top 3 most important during an election, so what’s stopping the government by just ignoring them?
No vote is “wasted”. That happens in some other election systems (e.g. the United States) but it doesn’t happen here.
Gerrymandering is an issue in Australia, and also the territories have less representation than a proper state (not just NT - we have ten Territories in Australia, mostly off shore islands). But there’s none of that for a referendum - it’s a straight count of votes.
The way we structure our democracy with territories makes sense for the other nine territories. We shouldn’t change that, instead we should make the NT a state. I’m sure it’ll happen one day, when there are more people living there. Have you been to the NT? Most of the state barely even has water and roads, and I suspect building those would be even more difficult if it was managed locally instead of with help from the much larger and better funded federal government.
The voice is very close to a lobby group’s position in Canberra. I can’t remember when Indigenous issues were in the top 3 most important during an election, so what’s stopping the government by just ignoring them?
The voice is something leaders within Australia’s indigenous community have asked for, as the next step in reconciling this country with the indigenous nations that have ruled here for tens of thousands of years and have never legally relinquished their authority to the Australian government that summarily took over relatively recently (practically yesterday, in the history of the indigenous Australians).
It’s just one small step, and it’s not intended to be a silver bullet that fixes everything, and in fact it won’t change much at all. But it will improve some small things and more importantly it will signify that we, as a country, care about the broader issue at hand and want to fix it. The symbolism for the voice is very powerful and I will be voting yes to the voice.
deleted by creator
One minute in they’re claiming the ‘No’ supporters are falsely claiming a Voice would give special rights to a specific race.
It is literally an amendment to the Constitution to create an advisory body dedicated to supporting a specific race. Whether you agree with affirmative action or not, people aren’t bloody stupid. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then I don’t need an alleged “independent expert’s” ackchyually to tell me it’s something else.
I am so over this. Can we have the referendum already? Then we can have the stupid referendum about becoming a republic, and maybe then we can start thinking about all the people who can’t afford food or shelter.
It’s not a voice based on race, this is the biggest fallacy. It’s a voice for people who are traditional owners of a land that was never ceded.
Is not because they’re aboriginal, it’s because they were here first.
deleted by creator
Notice how they continually refer to “rights” as if they are careful to only address that word specifically. I wonder what their response would be if the question was whether the Voice would be giving unfair representation to Australian citizens of a particular background.
As they point out, other bodies makes representations to Parliament, but none of those required a constitutional amendment yet they seem sufficiently represented.
I think more needs to be done when it comes to First Nations people and closing the gaps but just can’t get past the fact of allowing a group based on race to hold a position in parliament without being voted in each term by Australian voters.
Except they’re not in Parliament. The Voice is a body that can make submissions to Parliament; they don’t get to make the decisions. Parliament is still made up of elected representatives.
They’re not in parliament; literally all this does is mandate that their lobby group exist, not that anyone has to listen to them… it’s not exactly a big ask
It’s not a voice based on race, this is the biggest fallacy. It’s a voice for the traditional owners of a land that was never ceded.
Is not because they’re aboriginal, it’s because they were here first.
See analogy above re ducks and quacks
It’s nonsense mate, just because you say it a little louder doesn’t make it any truer.
I can do analogies as well,
Let’s give a special privalege to all fruit that are really high in potassium.
No it’s unfair to give bananas special treatment just because they’re yellow!