recognising the original owners of the land in our constitution was really all it was meant to do
Without any detail about how these processes would actually work, this seemingly common sense statement is fraught with danger. This has been rightly recognised by those most likely to encounter legislative change around land management and compulsory engagement with indigenous groups. As you move outwards from inner city suburbs, the percentage of no voters increased and this should not surprise anyone at all…that doesn’t mean country folks are racist or that they don’t care about first nations issues. It means they are far more likely to have been caught up in the absolutely disgusting mess of previous government attempts to put a framework around cultural heritage issues or challenges to private land ownership.
The guarantee of ‘an indigenous voice to parliament’ completely failed to elucidate how this could possibly hope to deal with the fractious state of existing first nations groups who can not and will not work together or settle disputes over borders. Obviously this is a problem originally caused by colonisation and forced encampment, but it’s not easily put to bed. Right now where I live there are heated battles raging over native title claims; over boundaries and which family groups are the rightful representatives of each tribal group. 4 or 5 districts that cannot decide on who is the rightful native title claimant, all with various corporate backing fighting tooth and nail with a view to securing the imagined wealth of being ratified as the original inhabitants of one patch of dirt or another.
This wasn’t some mining company looking to explore for gas or resources…it was a group of people trying to carry out a waterway restoration project. To help undo damage to the land. They were asked to pay 2.5 million dollars to the Whadjuk Aboriginal Corporation for the privilege.
That CEO has since been rightly removed, but you get the picture. There are so many corporate groups out there just rubbing their hands together and hoping to turn this ugly mess into a gravy train. I have first hand experience dealing with these situations and it has been absolutely heartbreaking. White solutions to black problems seems to just lead to more exploitation and fresh wounds.
About 6 months ago we had some cultural heritage training delivered at work just as public discourse around ‘The Voice’ was starting to ramp up heavily. There were about 100 people present across a few sessions and I think they were extremely powerful for some people. Some minds were changed on a few issues and the facilitator was absolutely fantastic. Towards the end of the session I was absolutely shocked when that facilitator who obviously cares deeply about first nations representation told our group that she and her family would be voting against the referendum. Her statement was concise and to the point: “How can a single indigenous voice to parliament represent hundreds of groups who do not agree with one another?”
Obviously she is caught up in the aforementioned ongoing disputes, but I dare say after the heartbreaking presentation about generational trauma inflicted by white settlers trying to solve indigenous issues, she made almost 100 no voters right there.
To be perfectly honest I am completely disgusted by the way this proposal was handled from start to finish. IMO the Labor party has taken the olive branch offered by the Uluru Statement from the Heart and stomped it into the ground for attempted political gain.
They grabbed a divisive wedge issue and took it to a referendum with no real plan for how it was going to work. They failed to illustrate a workable framework or demonstrate what was going to be put in place to compensate private landholders for restrictions placed on development of the land they have purchased.
It feels as though we just set reconciliation back about 40 years, picked the scab from every wound imaginable…and for what? My heart breaks for indigenous Australians right now. They’ve just been told by the entire country that we don’t care about them. That hurts, because there’s simply no way that is the case. Again, our first Australians have been let down by a tone deaf white government that believes so hard that ‘they know best’ that they were prepared to put indigenous people on the gallows with a smile and forced the Australian people to pull the lever by keeping them in the dark and not presenting the full legal framework that would draw from that constitutional change.
Yeah there’s nothing in there anywhere about land rights, it was purely about recognition. I have no idea how the issue got conflated by that nonsense, all I know is it’s being peddled by a bunch of racists. You do seem to genuinely care but imo it just makes this all sadder. I do agree Labour did a horrible job with all this but I still see no good reason for anyone to vote no. It’s all written in the information, and no you don’t need to answer every question before hand, it says in the information that parliament gets to decide the functions, composition and procedures. It had absolutely nothing to do with land rights, there was so much disinformation spread about this and I hate everyone who couldn’t just read it and instead trusted whatever some moron on sky news or facebook said.
It got conflated because there are multiple global examples to where the constitutional change that passed was equally broad and has created a situation where you cannot sneeze in your back garden without first asking a first nations corporation for permission and paying the tithe. I’m not saying that some form of financial reparations should be ruled out, but landing it on the heads of people who purely through accident of birth grow up in a former colony is not going to fly. It ends up in a circular argument every single time. Perhaps the British crown should own their crimes and shoulder the financial burden of making things right? Certainly no questioning the lineage of those responsible there.
No, it’s not broad. Please for the love of christ read: In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:
there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.
Nothing anywhere that would have any say in land rights, it’s a completely separate issue.
the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.
It certainly isn’t specific.
Who will this person be, claiming to represent the interest of 200 distinct language groups? What laws will be made?
It’s little wonder it failed. You and I can’t even agree and it seems like we’re ostensibly on the same side of the issue.
It literally says that parliament will decide, not some random individual, the people we elect to make laws. You seem to have some weird idea of how government works. You’re right it doesn’t mention specific term limits but again, these are decided by parliament. I pasted you the constitutional changes and none of it is unreasonable, I’m not sure how any of it got confused with land rights, or how any of it is worth saying no to.
Who will this person be, claiming to represent the interest of 200 distinct language groups? What laws will be made?
The person you’re talking to thinks those details are irrelevant and we should have voted yes in order to find out. For crying out loud, it’s not even in the constitutional amendment that there needs to be an indigenous person on the Voice lol.
If a community feels their needs will be best represented by a non indigenous person why not let them be elected? It’s probably unlikely but seems like an odd restriction.
They also didn’t tell us how the people would be selected btw. They weren’t necessarily elected, which is yet another problem people had with it. It would no doubt have just been more “jobs for the boys”.
Without any detail about how these processes would actually work, this seemingly common sense statement is fraught with danger. This has been rightly recognised by those most likely to encounter legislative change around land management and compulsory engagement with indigenous groups. As you move outwards from inner city suburbs, the percentage of no voters increased and this should not surprise anyone at all…that doesn’t mean country folks are racist or that they don’t care about first nations issues. It means they are far more likely to have been caught up in the absolutely disgusting mess of previous government attempts to put a framework around cultural heritage issues or challenges to private land ownership.
The guarantee of ‘an indigenous voice to parliament’ completely failed to elucidate how this could possibly hope to deal with the fractious state of existing first nations groups who can not and will not work together or settle disputes over borders. Obviously this is a problem originally caused by colonisation and forced encampment, but it’s not easily put to bed. Right now where I live there are heated battles raging over native title claims; over boundaries and which family groups are the rightful representatives of each tribal group. 4 or 5 districts that cannot decide on who is the rightful native title claimant, all with various corporate backing fighting tooth and nail with a view to securing the imagined wealth of being ratified as the original inhabitants of one patch of dirt or another.
This is where it ends up:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12304769/Perth-tree-planting-event-axed-Aboriginal-corp-demands-2-5M-approval.html
This wasn’t some mining company looking to explore for gas or resources…it was a group of people trying to carry out a waterway restoration project. To help undo damage to the land. They were asked to pay 2.5 million dollars to the Whadjuk Aboriginal Corporation for the privilege.
That CEO has since been rightly removed, but you get the picture. There are so many corporate groups out there just rubbing their hands together and hoping to turn this ugly mess into a gravy train. I have first hand experience dealing with these situations and it has been absolutely heartbreaking. White solutions to black problems seems to just lead to more exploitation and fresh wounds.
About 6 months ago we had some cultural heritage training delivered at work just as public discourse around ‘The Voice’ was starting to ramp up heavily. There were about 100 people present across a few sessions and I think they were extremely powerful for some people. Some minds were changed on a few issues and the facilitator was absolutely fantastic. Towards the end of the session I was absolutely shocked when that facilitator who obviously cares deeply about first nations representation told our group that she and her family would be voting against the referendum. Her statement was concise and to the point: “How can a single indigenous voice to parliament represent hundreds of groups who do not agree with one another?”
Obviously she is caught up in the aforementioned ongoing disputes, but I dare say after the heartbreaking presentation about generational trauma inflicted by white settlers trying to solve indigenous issues, she made almost 100 no voters right there.
To be perfectly honest I am completely disgusted by the way this proposal was handled from start to finish. IMO the Labor party has taken the olive branch offered by the Uluru Statement from the Heart and stomped it into the ground for attempted political gain.
They grabbed a divisive wedge issue and took it to a referendum with no real plan for how it was going to work. They failed to illustrate a workable framework or demonstrate what was going to be put in place to compensate private landholders for restrictions placed on development of the land they have purchased.
It feels as though we just set reconciliation back about 40 years, picked the scab from every wound imaginable…and for what? My heart breaks for indigenous Australians right now. They’ve just been told by the entire country that we don’t care about them. That hurts, because there’s simply no way that is the case. Again, our first Australians have been let down by a tone deaf white government that believes so hard that ‘they know best’ that they were prepared to put indigenous people on the gallows with a smile and forced the Australian people to pull the lever by keeping them in the dark and not presenting the full legal framework that would draw from that constitutional change.
It’s fucking gross.
Yeah there’s nothing in there anywhere about land rights, it was purely about recognition. I have no idea how the issue got conflated by that nonsense, all I know is it’s being peddled by a bunch of racists. You do seem to genuinely care but imo it just makes this all sadder. I do agree Labour did a horrible job with all this but I still see no good reason for anyone to vote no. It’s all written in the information, and no you don’t need to answer every question before hand, it says in the information that parliament gets to decide the functions, composition and procedures. It had absolutely nothing to do with land rights, there was so much disinformation spread about this and I hate everyone who couldn’t just read it and instead trusted whatever some moron on sky news or facebook said.
It got conflated because there are multiple global examples to where the constitutional change that passed was equally broad and has created a situation where you cannot sneeze in your back garden without first asking a first nations corporation for permission and paying the tithe. I’m not saying that some form of financial reparations should be ruled out, but landing it on the heads of people who purely through accident of birth grow up in a former colony is not going to fly. It ends up in a circular argument every single time. Perhaps the British crown should own their crimes and shoulder the financial burden of making things right? Certainly no questioning the lineage of those responsible there.
No, it’s not broad. Please for the love of christ read: In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:
there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.
Nothing anywhere that would have any say in land rights, it’s a completely separate issue.
It certainly isn’t specific.
Who will this person be, claiming to represent the interest of 200 distinct language groups? What laws will be made?
It’s little wonder it failed. You and I can’t even agree and it seems like we’re ostensibly on the same side of the issue.
It literally says that parliament will decide, not some random individual, the people we elect to make laws. You seem to have some weird idea of how government works. You’re right it doesn’t mention specific term limits but again, these are decided by parliament. I pasted you the constitutional changes and none of it is unreasonable, I’m not sure how any of it got confused with land rights, or how any of it is worth saying no to.
The person you’re talking to thinks those details are irrelevant and we should have voted yes in order to find out. For crying out loud, it’s not even in the constitutional amendment that there needs to be an indigenous person on the Voice lol.
If a community feels their needs will be best represented by a non indigenous person why not let them be elected? It’s probably unlikely but seems like an odd restriction.
They also didn’t tell us how the people would be selected btw. They weren’t necessarily elected, which is yet another problem people had with it. It would no doubt have just been more “jobs for the boys”.