In the wake of the delivery of a resounding no to this proposed constitutional change, this article offers a very measured analysis of the problems with the Voice proposal and rejects the simplistic idea that a “no” is simply due to Australians being racist. This article is from before the referendum.
The point was to stop the bullshit of dismantling those similar national Aboriginal orgs each time conservatives wanted to crush them to score a political point. Given their track record of ABOLISHING these bodies, the referendum would have protected them which would already be a material improvement.
That would have been the change. That’s progress. But rather than making them permanent, the No vote has just doomed Australia to the endless cycle of creating an org then getting rid of it each time we switch governments.
Australia already attempts to deliver policies and services for Aborigines but the recent approach has been to involve them in the design and delivery to give better results. That is why these bodies need to exist.
Theres no political will to implement any change that will materially benefit Indigenous people. Liberal politics at its core, this proposal was almost entirely symbolic. Now arguably that is still important, which is part of the reason I still voted yes. But I don’t think this is necessarily such a great loss for progressive politics. As time has gone on I have much more sympathy for progressive No arguments of Lidia Thorpe and co. You can believe that we have this result because 70% of the Australian electorate are racist deplorables beyond salvation but I think that’s not a useful learning from this outcome and it doesn’t help progressive politics at all going forward to operate with that assumption.
We already see at the state level that bodies like this do more than symbolism:
In this article https://theconversation.com/some-states-already-have-indigenous-advisory-bodies-what-are-they-and-how-would-the-voice-be-different-214726, they mention an ACT community housing project for older indigenous Australians was provided in cooperation with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elected Body.
The TSRA manage the fisheries in Torres Strait and many other projects.
On the national level previously ATSIC provided funds for grants and loans and even provided funds for litigating native title claims.
Previous bodies were not symbolic. Yet the No campaign will ALWAYS be trying to trivialize anything an indigenous body could contribute. We know exactly how these pieces of shit operate.
The electorate is being characterized as racist deplorables?
Yet the outcome here is obviously going to result in taking something away from a racial minority (i.e. see the previous indigenous advisory bodies and safely assume the next national body formed without constitutional protection will ultimately be removed again by a conservative election win). That is simply a racist result. Analyzing the material conditions and history, we can make the conclusion without obsessing over the motivations of individual voters.
Yet the proposed voice had none of the powers which those bodies do. This guy actually discusses this point in this interview and makes arguments much better than I can. https://vid.puffyan.us/watch?v=G0kFfqb-63s
Fucking hell. Another No campaigner given national airtime to blather on about progress when they are actually advocating no constitutional protection for a national indigenous body. That’s the opposite of progress. The dumbass said it himself: “There have been bodies before”. Those bodies got destroyed. The referendum was about cementing a voice into the constitution.
To say the voice would have no powers is wrong. Fake news to create the excuse to vote No. There was never a NEED to write what the powers would be for the body IN THE CONSTITUTION.
The point was to create constitutional protection of the existence of a voice. Look at the referendum question:
So there was never any description of what powers and funding and structure the body would have. So how can this guy say it has no powers? The powers would have been up to parliament to create by passing bills and laws. Why would the constitution need to have those details in it? The referendum was to amend the constitution to make sure a body stays permanent.
The No campaign gave all the fuckwits excuses to vote No. You heard a million bullshit excuses. Understand that they only have to obfuscate the issue and scaremonger and trivialize the idea because Aussies are dumb as shit.
Claim it’s just symbolic, then claim it has too much power, claim it is divisive, blah blah blah. All those claims would have depended on parliamentary decisions! The referendum was NOT ABOUT DECIDING THE POWERS OR LACK OF THEM.
Every fucking fossil in politics PRETENDS they are progressive. No one is stupid enough to punt a baby in public. They ALWAYS pretend to care. Read between the lines.
Deeply disappointing, as an outsider to the Murdoch island’s internal discourse narratives, to see Australian members (both here and elsewhere) drink the kool-aid on the propaganda against this referendum and bending over backwards to do online global opinion damage control for their settler colonial state’s latest collective act of ethnic repression.
The conditions of this referendum are completely performative, yes, but it institutionalizes a recognition of the indigenous peoples these settlers have genocided. This would have been a first step. A very small step, but a step still. Voting down the referendum because there should have been better conditions is a hilariously optimistic expectation for the land of White Australia. It’s been two centuries since the establishment of this genocidal settler state, this referendum is the best first step that’s going to be ever condoned from such a population, and apparently even this was a first step too far for these islanders.
The propaganda excuse that the indigenous peoples opposed this themselves, from a cursory search myself, even seems wrong give how the overwhelmingly indigenous districts apparently voted for it.
The only valid reason for opposing this performative first step is that it deprives the Australian state from weaponizing this as self-image propaganda like New Zealand does with its “cutsey” Haka performances to pretend like its some decolonized country for the world. Instead, this referendum further confirms this island is still in the collective grip of the failsons of White Australia.
By telling progressives that the referendum is only performative and then telling conservatives the referendum goes too far, the media brainwashed the public.
Aussies are settlers inherently. They needed excuses to vote No. By raising bullshit arguments unrelated to the actual referendum question, they found one palatable excuse somewhere.
The basic attitude of white Australia towards indigenous recognition and reconciliation is terrible.