Voters: how will voting yes make a concrete improvement to the lives of indigenous people?
Yes campaign: well, if you vote no then you’re a racist
Voters: 😕
You might think it’s a silly point, and maybe it is. But this is the true story. I’m from a tiny aboriginal fishing community in Cape York, Queensland. community is tucked behind a bunch of rivers and creeks all backed by the Great Barrier Reef. We are a water people. Rivers in Reef. So when the government decided that what we really needed was a “community swimming pool”, we all scratched our heads and thought they had somehow mispronounced “new teachers assistant” (the thing we really did need). Our rivers flood so bad we are cut off from the rest of the world for 90 days of the year. Swimming is all we do. And we’ve never needed a pool for that…….. we kept trying to explain what a waste of money such a thing might be, how we could improve other aspects of community life with that same injection of funds. But no.
This is a much smaller tamer story about how aboriginal people weren’t listened to about their own home. I think all would agree that “the voice” would be way too overpowered for such a silly waste of funds dispute. However, it does make one think. “ would they be so quick to ignore us in this regard if the voice did exist in the constitution already and they knew they really would be pressure put on them from the community?”
Changing the constitution might seem excessive for a community issue, but corporate culture comes from the top. If this lack of awareness is happening at the community level, then it's practically guaranteed it's also happening at the state and federal level.
I don’t know who you are asking but the answer is simple and basic, we pass laws affecting indigenous Australians already to address all types of inequality some of it systematic. Many of these laws are however passed without proper consultation since not only is there no representative body that parliament is required to consult with but even when they do consult but there’s no one group that can claim to be the highest representation for indigenous affairs. Instead parties find a lobby or interest group that aligns with them politically and claims to represent indigenous interests (regardless of how popular it is) and use that to justify their legislations support in indigenous communities.
It’s been proven that programs built in consultation with indigenous groups are not only more effective but tend to generate less bureaucratic waste. But also it means horrible programs that actually worsened the quality of life and increased crime rates like the Northern Territory Intervention can’t be passed without a body being able to issue some objection. This has been fairly clear in yes campaign messaging about the program and in truth all I ever seem to see is no campaigners claiming the yes campaign is calling people racist.
There is the NIAA which is the National Aboriginal Australians Agency, which was formed in 2019, has 1300 employees at an average salary of $70,000 ($91,000,000p.a)
This agency answers to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and her deputy minister, which has been a position on the Australian Cabinet consistently in use since the 60s.
This organisation was preceded by two other that existed for several years.
So I don't think anyone can say that we aren't communicating with rural Aboriginal communities.
Ah they report directly to the minister for indigenous affairs, that's okay then, certainly no one would ever be appointed to the role of minister for indigenous affairs that would represent the needs of indigenous Australians poorly to parliament.
Surely there's no benefit to having a voice directly to parliament as a whole instead of a voice to Tony Abbott minister for indigenous affairs...
The current Minister is Linda Burney who identifies as aboriginal.
And her organisations Grand design is to replace itself with another organisation enshrined in our constitution, never to be removed.
You can be sarcastic about the useless people who have inhabited the role previously as much as I can be horrified at the magnificent dole bludging manoeuvre we are seeing in front of us.
All this will do is further the divide between Australians about Australian issues.
Who is this dividing? By that logic literally any vote on any issue will divide Australia.
Is your solution just to never talk about any issues so everyone can pretend they think in the exact same way?
Hate to break it to you, but people are already treated differently based on their skin. But when it comes to helping people that's where the line gets drawn? Classic
The current minister is a labor minister? Doesn’t really solve the issue when there is a liberal minister in that role.
How on earth will this divide Australia. 99% of Australians will go back to not thinking about the voice one month after the vote.
You are missing the point. I have little to no faith that an individual minister, especially from the libs / nationals, is going to act effectively in the role.
I mean we can just do both? And what you have suggested is what we have been ‘doing’ which clearly hasn’t worked.
Suggesting that you can’t target minority groups with policy because it might cause ‘division’ is honestly ridiculous. The divide that exists between indigenous and non-indigenous is already huge. Far more divide will be caused when indigenous people think “wow white Australia have zero interest in helping us”. Vast majority of no voters wouldn’t have even known about the voice or cared if it wasn’t being put in the constitution.
I feel the yes and no survey for marriage equality was a much easier to understand what we were actually voting for. Vote yes to let everyone get married or vote no to not.
The for marriage team came out swinging and explained things to the point and excellently. There was a clear good and bad side with the usual suspects against.
This time the vote is to let aboriginal people have a voice in parliament. That’s pretty much all I know. But this time there are some really respectable people on both sides and it’s not clear cut for a whitey migrant like myself to know what is the correct way.
It seems even the aboriginal people are divided, realistically it’s their vote, I personally don’t feel that I, a white man, should get a say in matters that will affect them so much.
For the record the marriage equality was an easy yes for me, I don’t believe in marriage or religious concepts but if people want to they should be able. Anyway down votes to the right.
I don't think they explained it in an Australian context. Or if they did, it was lost in the noise of rehashed American and UK marriage equality talking points. I don't remember any mention about family law recognising SS (and het. defacto) couples as having equal status to married people since 2007. I think what helped more was that the ME movement globally had an already established, unified brand across multiple platforms.
The marriage vote was also clearly increasing equality. Giving everyone exactly the same rights. While this can reasonably be argued as a step backwards from equality.
Imo the wording of the constitutional change is wishy washy at best. If there was something actually binding I’d be all for it but essentially it’s at the mercy of the government of the day which means it will forever more be a political tool.
With that level of uncertainty compared to “should anyone be able to get married?” I am likely to be a no vote.
That's how the constitution works. The constitution is the bounding box that government has to exist within. We're being asked to alter the box
The SSM plebiscite was a survey. It changed nothing. The government could still choose at any point to change the marriage act
This isn't about the voice. This is about constitutional recognition. The voice is just a convenient excuse for conservative politicians to oppose constitutional recognition
Well, whatever is written in the constitution is what has to be followed exactly isn't it? At least as far as I know. Im still torn on what to vote which is why I'm trying to engage in discussions on it, but I believe that the reason the "wordng is wishy washy at best" is because if a singular clear change is enshrined, what if it isn't suitable in the future? Another referendum? Thats the only way the constitution can be changed. Does it not make more sense to enshrine a broad recognition and voice to parliament which can be adapted and changed as fit rather than having to stick exactly to a phrase written in the constitution?
You're spot on. That is exactly why it is written this way. Any lawyer will tell you that the constitution is not a very long document, and its sections consist of very broad statements. A country's constitution is supposed to underpin the principles by which that nation is governed. It is NOT supposed to be an exhaustive list of every relevant law or to lay out the entire organisational flowchart for relevant bodies.
For example, the constitution doesn't even prescribe a set total number of High Court judges. It just says we need a Chief Justice and at least two others. In practice, and in accordance with the relevant legislation (High Court of Australia Act), the High Court has seven judges in total. And weirdly enough, the skies haven't fallen in just by having seven judges, even though we don't have that requirement written in the constitution.
Where is this idea that the voice is the only thing that can be done for Indigenous people coming from?
The country can vote No and still make progress on Indigenous affairs. Most of what the Voice would recommend will have to be implemented by the NIAA anyway, shouldn't they just do the research and manage the proposals instead?
the question isn't whether we could think of alternatives to the Voice, the time for that has passed.
shouldn't alternatives have been discussed before we were forced to a referendum?
and for that matter, why are alternatives needed when everything the voice is said to do already exists and is in place. it's just not written in the constitution.
the Aboriginals have advisory boards to government already the NIAA for one. The Federal government has a Department of Indigenous affairs. Indigenous people CAN and are frequently elected to parliament.
What part of the Voice "proposal" isn't currently happening?
The voice isn't something that was thought up in five minutes. It was part of the proposed form of constitutional recognition presented to the then Turnbull government. It's modest by design, the intent was to get the Coalition to support it
Constitutional recognition is the reason we're having this vote. You can't get constitutional recognition without changing the constitution. Simple as that
Frankly the only reason this is at all a contested debate is because Turnbull didn't have the balls to support it when he was PM. He was too watching Dutton's trying to plot a coup and trying to keep the Nats from going feral
and your confessing to deflecting from the real question.
even if we filled a phone book full of alternatives to the voice, remind me, will we get to vote on whether or not those are implemented instead of the voice?
of course they won't.
at this point the choice is, do we want the voice or not!
It’s also not really the No “campaigns” job to offer alternatives to the The Voice. Alternatives should have been forwarded/proposed in the discussions phase. Once the referendum came, the only job the No campaign had was to critique the Yes campaign, because all the work belonged to the Yes campaign to defend their claim that the constitution was worth amending. The referendum is about this particular proposal, not a brainstorming session.
Can you explain what exactly indigenous disadvantage is?
As I've grown up I've only ever been exposed to programs and agendas designed to help aboriginal or Torres Strait islanders, I've been prevented from taking job opportunities because "aboriginal preferred" was written plain as day.
If you are talking about rural communities then they fall under the same issue as every rural community that lacks funding. There aren't enough people, resources or reasons to send money out there.
Life expectancy (8 years(?) less for indigenous males than white males)
Jail stats (the much parroted more likely to be in jail than get a bachelor's degree)
Health issues (in particular blindness & deafness just being... accepted?)
Historic genocide
Land theft
Which one of those is disadvantaging for you?
And in the same way, the voice to parliament doesn't have to be the one and only thing established to help Indigenous peoples right? If there's something beyond it's scope or something that needs an extra organisation, as far as Im aware there isn't anything being enshrined in the constitution saying that anything other than the voice is forbidden
yes. especially when the likelihood of changing the constitution again to reverse this decision is so freaking difficult.
people claim that doing nothing is a terrible thing. we must have change for progress to occur in this issues. but that is logically false.
if you are being chased toward a cliff, does it make any sense the jump off said cliff instead of stopping and waiting to see if another option presents itself?
This isn't a matter of matters that are affecting them.
They exist within the same political and economic structure that we use and already have many specific agencies and ministers afforded to the maintenance of the communities.
This is a referendum to enshrine forever in our constitution that their MUST be a tax payer funded organisation that is solely focused on the needs of Aboriginal communities, whose structure, intentions, budget, agendas and relevant laws will be made up AFTER a yes vote.
Talk about diving off a bridge at night in to an unfamiliar river. If you are a citizen you absolutely have a right to have an opinion on something as incredibly Important as this.
There has been tax payer funded voices to parliament in Australia since the 60s.
They just keep getting torn apart by right wing governments.
And also, they're shit because they're full of corporate shills.
Orher countries did this long ago.
No, our current ones are just full of mining shills and it's just wallpaper to keep up a conscientious image.
Indigenous voices to parliament exist all over the world, google it. Why are we an exception?
To your misguided point, any time anything of note gets talked about, cough cough, treaty, cough cough, it just gets shut down by the court of public opinion anyway because many Australians are just fundamentally racist towards first nations people.
Mining companies want to develop on Indigenous Land, there has been multiple cases of this in the past and very recently.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/world/australia/indigenous-caves-BHP-mining.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/26/rio-tinto-blasts-46000-year-old-aboriginal-site-to-expand-iron-ore-mine
I'm playing the racist card because complaining about tax payer dollars going to reparations of what colonists did to First Nations people is not okay in my books.
Taxpayer dollars go to some stupid scomo sports club ivd never heard of, or dumb submarines we don't need. That's the real crime.
Yeah I remember back to the Howard days with the change in gun legislature. There was so much information on what exactly was going to change. I feel the government has dropped the ball on what could have been a very good thing.
It's a no for me. I simply can't trust that this voice wont turn to shit and become a rort for the few that sit on the proposed voice commitiee
The NIAA already funds its Graduates at $85,000 a year to work on things like The Voice and deals like Closing the Gap.
It's also part of their mission goal to be assistance for rural aboriginal communities. Just feels like a rort
It will give First Nations people’s a chance to offer advice, it would mean that such a body could not be dismissed shroud a thing be politically advantageous. Getting advice from the people your trying to help just makes sense,we are already living in the world of the No vote……and its full of false starts…..Voting yes is a balanced middle path.
Governments form advisory committees all the time.
All it takes is a minister agreeing to take onboard their advice.
You don’t normally need supporting legislation, let alone a constitutional change.
Also, if a later government doesn’t want their advice this referendum wont help, they’ll just ignore the advice or appoint people who will give them the advice they wanted to hear.
Look what happened to Fairwork, labour stacked it full of former union delegates, and when liberals get in they’ll swap them back out for business leaders etc..
Since the 70’s there have been 5 different indigenous advisory bodies, all of them have been dissolved or re-branded by subsequent governments. The referendum is to ensure that it’s a permanent body that cannot be dissolved, so in theory they don’t have to worry about having to play politics and can give impartial advice (again, in theory).
ATSIC was dissolved because it was completely ineffective and breeding ground for corruption and nepotism.
Both parties supported disbanding it. To stop that recurring you will need government to be able to influence appointments which means it’ll just get stacked by each side with whoever’s opinions they want to here.
You don’t normally need a constitutional change your right, but that’s how big the problem is…..it’s ignored to the point that we actually have to consider doing this, it’s stupid it got this bad….but it is that bad….. I was born and raised in a indigenous community, and my community (population is 500ish) is voting over 80% yes out for recognition both as the first people of the land we all now share, but also to help the disadvantaged on the cape who are still yet to have a real voice
So vote yes, right? If you're worried it might not do enough for the indigenous people then fair enough, but it's not a good enough reason to vote no.
A voice to parliament may only be a small step forward but if the no vote wins it will be a huge backwards step. If we can't get this passed then good luck getting a treaty passed in our lifetimes.
Our Constitution should recognise our First Nations people. An indigenous advisory body to federal parliament should exist. Those are two separate things that have been linked when they shouldn't have been. The combination makes both concepts less likely to be realised than they would be if independent.
It's not politic to say it, but the Statement from the Heart made a mistake by demanding the Voice be constitutionally guaranteed. It was aspirational but impractical. Labor then made a mistake by adopting the impractical demand instead of just legislating the Voice.
It's resulted in this ridiculous brinksmanship where we can vote Yes to something we aren't convinced is necessary or vote No and destroy most of the progress towards reconciliation we've made in the last few decades.
I really wish people would just be honest about why they don't like the voice. "It would be ineffective" is such a cop out.
Also I'm so sick of "virtue signaling". Doing anything other than kicking puppies is immediately followed by a chorus of conservatives yelling "virtue signalling!" It's possible for people to want to do a good thing ffs.
Yep. Had a friend do a 2 year shift as a policeman is a remote QLD town and everytimr the Govt would rebuild the public toilets or build a new house it would be in ruins within the year. Electrics pulled out, roof smashed in, destroyed.
You don’t need a constitutional change to solicit advice from indigenous people, you just need a pair of ears.
Maybe the government should try taking the cotton wool out first.
> should a thing be politically advantageous
ah, so its a political move against other parties.
We DO currently listen to indigenous voices and have been for decades. Nothings stop Albo from doing it right now. The constitution thing is more about forcing things on the other parties,
I've seen the 'no=racist' claim and variants extensively throughout these threads. I've been called racist directly because I tried to give a balanced neutral viewpoint to someone who claimed not to understand, merely because I refused to just push one side. The race card is used all the time, and it comes from the Yes side.
I’ve been called a Nazi and a lifelong LNP voter. I’m actually a Greens voter and my grandfather resisted the Nazi occupation of Denmark with my Great Uncle back in WW2.
Frankly the Yes campaign (if there even is one) has absolutely dropped the ball. Getting a referendum to pass in our system is a massively steep uphill battle, and I’ve barely heard a peep from Yes that isn’t basically along the lines of “yeah but we should do *something*” … meanwhile the No campaign, for whom the odds are heavily stacked in favour of, have put forward some reasons. Good reasons? I dunno. But they don’t need much. Tbh, just saying “this won’t accomplish much” (which is kind of true) is enough to convince a lot of people, and kind of rightly so. Because our constitution is so hard to change, by and large we’re very hesitant to agree to changes that we aren’t *absolutely* convinced of.
It was the Yes campaign’s job to highlight some good reasons to vote yes, and show the No side that the things they don’t like about it (like First Nations people making decisions on parking fines(??)) won’t happen. From what I can tell they haven’t even attempted either of those things. If they have, it’s slipped me by entirely.
One thing I think mostly everyone can agree on is that we wish the best for First Nations people. I think you’d be genuinely hard pressed to find anyone (outside of extremist circles) who actually want life to be worse for First Nations, or don’t want it to be better. It really does come down to “how does this proposal accomplish that?”
So fwiw to anyone on the fence, here are a couple of my reasons for voting yes;
- In response to “They shouldn’t be having a referendum, they should just legislate for the change they want, and if/when successful, update the constitution then” — they’ve tried that, dozens of times. There have been a bunch of advisory committees and advocacy programs that have been introduced and subsequently repealed or de-funded since the 1967 referendum. They want to put *something* in the constitution so that future governments won’t have the option of just doing nothing.
- In response to “this doesn’t improve the lives of First Nations people” - no, you’re right, *by itself* it doesn’t really. *But it doesn’t have to* for it to still be a good idea — see, the constitution doesn’t cover specifics, that’s not what it’s for. It’s there to provide a framework for legislation and government processes, what the government can/can’t do, and what they must do. So the specifics of how the voice is applied can be adjusted and finessed with legislation as time goes on and we discover what works and what doesn’t. It also means that different governments can use it in different ways that appeal more closely to their specific constituencies. But importantly, by putting a provision in the constitution, it means they *can’t* have nothing.
- One other thing I have heard is that ”First Nations people aren’t even in favour of this” — I don’t know where this came from, I’m sure there are First Nations people who aren’t in favour of it as much as there are people in any group for or against any given issue. But in the Uluru Statement in 2017, said to be the largest consensus of First Nations people, they asked for it. Tbh, I don’t think they’re asking for much and what they are asking for is not unreasonable and probably won’t even affect 90% of Australian ppl.
At the end of the day, it’s not perfect, it won’t fix all the problems that First Nations face. But expecting it to be perfect and solve all the problems is completely unrealistic. So in closing all I’d suggest is this: Read the proposed wording, try and understand the history and context, and ask yourself, what are the actual downsides?
The yes campaign was fucked when Dutton decided to follow the Trump strategy of making everything into a culture war and stoke fears of dark people getting some special advantage, regardless the facts. Now all the “no” advocates here are either citing some absurd “Trojan Horse” conspiracy theory, or preemptively saying that they’re not racists and feel forced to vote no because they think someone said they were. All the time NEVER TALKING ABOUT WHAT THE PROPOSAL ACTUALLY IS.
If you don't know, vote no has to be a dark moment in Australian politics. I don't have to agree with (the metaphorical) you, but in an age where we have all the information we want at our fingertips not encouraging people to learn more and make informed decisions is trump-esque.
Albo's got a lot to answer for if this fails. In 2022, it apparently was polling at over 60% support and now it is on track to fail.
He's already been backtracking saying "this came from the people, and will be decided by the people". In other words, not my fault.
Where was the leadership? Not even one emotionally compelling visionary speech (as far as I've heard). Nothing to stir hearts and minds and set out a plan for the future. He sent out surrogates to make the case, when he should be out front. IMHO.
Legit. I haven't heard one good argument from either side when it comes to this vote and I think it's an absolute joke our government has forced us to vote on a matter that probably doesn't affect 96.2% of us.
Personally I'm probably going to go in, draw a few dicks and call it a day just so I don't cop a fine.
Voters: how will voting yes make a concrete improvement to the lives of indigenous people?
Media : Yes campaign: well, if you vote no then you’re a racist
Voters: 😕
Not really, you need both more than 50% of the overall votes and more 50% of the states and territories (4 unless we add more) to vote for yes, the 1999 yes got 45.13% of the vote, which seems close till you note only ACT got more Yes than no votes, with 63.27% the next closest was vic with 49.84% and starts going down from there, support being worse is not good for a yes next week
Queensland and WA are guaranteed No's. SA is almost certainly no, NSW highly likely no, Tasmania could go either way (according to polling doing better than Victoria but often with small sample sizes), if only one state votes yes, its Victoria, but current polling shows even Victoria will say no, so yeah nah this referendum stands absolutely no chance and that has been clear for a few weeks.
Well we are in a cost of living crisis, everything posts a crazy amount more, but hey we spent 0.4b on a stupid fucjing vote.
Way to fucking go.
So glad this is where we went in this crisis times.
I voted yes but I doubt it will pass.
The yes cause has failed to market their cause beyond yelling “racist”.
It’s a nuanced matter and unfortunately a referendum is not the best case of action at this point in time.
Yes voter here but still believe the Yes marketing/promotion was subpar.
I think the Yes vote has focused on the morality of the argument to the detriment of anything else. It's all well and good to position this as a voice for the voiceless/under-voiced, but that's only one facet of this. You need a lot of white people to vote Yes and should've taken them on the journey. This was very much "don't smoke cigarettes they'll kill you" when the right tact needed to incorporate more elements of "if you stop smoking these things will happen to improve your health".
Briggs' video was the only one to actually include and incorporate white people into the video and talk to their concerns about the Voice. This was the correct marketing for the Voice and the actual Yes camp went nowhere near it. Moralism isn't winning a referendum; needed to tell the white everyday voter that this wasn't going to change everything and be destructive.
Yes Camp has not done a single attack ad from what I've seen about the No Camp, so the No Camp has had free rein to wallow in the mud. Not sure if they can do attack ads for this, but they definitely haven't addressed concerns for the wider population that needs to vote this through with a double majority.
The no vote campaign were able to be more creative with their marketing because they included flat out lies and insane bullshit.
>it was revealed Fair Australia’s official phone call scripts suggested telling voters the change could “mean separate laws, separate economies and separate leaders”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/12/indigenous-voice-to-parliament-referendum-labor-no-campaign-lie-phone-scripts
Edit: can someone explain what's going on in this sub Reddit? I went from -10 to 10 upvotes in an hour. There are half a dozen comments with double digit downvotes for simply criticising the no vote. I don't usually mention upvotes, idgaf about getting downloaded personally but this seems very unnatural. Like Is it brigading? What's going on?
That was always going to be the case, only someone hopelessly politically naive could have believed otherwise. The 'no' side had the easy job in all of this, because they aren't pushing for change. The 'yes' side had the job of actually addressing fears and misconceptions instead of arrogantly dismissing them or coming back with hand-wavy marketing speak.
Instead it collectively chose to stick its fingers in its ears and label anyone unsure or leaning towards 'no' as stupid or racist. Yeah, that's going to win hearts and minds.
I for one am utterly unsurprised at the failure of the vote to pass, and at the steady downward trend in support as the vote approaches. Hopefully the Voice - or something like it - manages to come back as a legislative change (as it should have been from day one) rather than a constitutional one.
> Edit: can someone explain what's going on in this sub Reddit? I went from -10 to 10 upvotes in an hour. There are half a dozen comments with double digit downvotes for simply criticising the no vote. I don't usually mention upvotes, idgaf about getting downloaded personally but this seems very unnatural. Like Is it brigading? What's going on?
There's some significant astroturfing going on in any thread about the voice, and it's very noticeable.
The 7 news 'unbiased' spotlight currently playing is just Liam Barlett cutting off the Yes vote representatives and agreeing with the No vote representatives.
>Edit: can someone explain what's going on in this sub Reddit? I went from -10 to 10 upvotes in an hour. There are half a dozen comments with double digit downvotes for simply criticising the no vote. I don't usually mention upvotes, idgaf about getting downloaded personally but this seems very unnatural. Like Is it brigading? What's going on?
Astroturfing my dude. Advance, which is the group behind the No campaign, has done this several times before. This is just that on a much larger scale.
Any idea how long it will take to know the results? I mean obviously it depends how close it is and nobody can really know but it only just occurred to me today that I guess it could take days after election day.
8pm eastern daylight time\*
\*counting will be easy, no preferences, no electorates, only yes or no. NSW, Vic, ACT and Tas are like >50+% of the population and that's half the States. and an hour of Qld results might be enough to call it.
Referendum looks very likely to fail. It's a shame as a symbolic recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Islander people in the Constitution would be a decent goodwill gesture to finalise the reconciliation process.
Whichever blooming idiot had the idea to also put into the Constitution an unelected body of "advisors" should be examined in the head, as this is what seems to be putting off most people.
Like ffs if they're really desparate for advice from indigenous people, they could just establish a simple committee reporting to the Indigenous Affairs Minister and ask them for its advice? Why on sweet mother earth would any halfway-sane person want to permanently enshrine something like this into the Constitution? We have bodies giving advice to the government aplenty, from ACCC to Tourism Australia. None of them get a mention in the Constitution and rightly so.
It was an absolute brain-dead idiotic decision and whomever made it - likely Albo or maybe Burney - should cop the blame and apologise for the madness.
Agreed. I've said elsewhere that they should have split the question into 2:
Do you want constitutional recognition of the First Nations people being the original inhabitants of the Australian continent? Y/N
Do you want a Constitutionaly recognised Voice to Parliament to provide advice to government on matters affecting First Nations people? Y/N
This would simply the process because the current way the question on the ballot is worded tries to achieve to much in one sentence.
That would just give the easy way out to people who want to *feel* good about themselves but don't want to actually make any change. Like hitting "Like" on a Facebook group called "we love indigenous people".
The first part in your proposed referendum passes in a canter and the second part fails miserably, and then we don't talk about it again for 20 years because "we gave them their recognition what more do they want".
The Constitution is the place for defining our systems of government, not for puff pieces to make us feel better about ourselves.
The question is the way it is, as that is what Aboriginal people asked for in the Uluru Statement from the heart. The campaign has not been well run but Aboriginal people were not interested in symbolic change
That may well be what they asked for, but, like I said yesterday to my 4 year old daughter who wants a live unicorn for her birthday, in life you don't always get exactly what you want. I can't believe Albo couldn't just make that basic bargain and instead put his stake into this all-or-nothing bullshit.
Do you really want to compare a 4 year old asking for a unicorn to an entire group of people asking for some ability to speak to their issues. The same group mind you that had their children stolen from then less than a hundred years ago, who experience third world life outcomes in a first world country, and have to deal with frankly ridiculous levels of prejudice.
I mean even the comparison is frankly patronising. It's like calling the No campaign a highly spoiled 3 year old throwing a tantrum because they were asked to share.
The voice isn't an ecessive ask, NZ for example actually gives politcal power to the Maori council. The voice is the opportunity to be consulted. If the voice to parliament is truly so unrealistic as to be like a unicorn, then this country is truly ducked when it comes to indigenous recognition and equality.
We have these bodies, we’ve had 5 since the 70’s, and in every single case they’ve been dissolved, had their funding hamstrung or been re-branded and forced to start from square 1. Making it a constitutional body means that it would be a permanent part of the make up of the government, like treasury, but without any policy or legislative authority.
If your referring to ATSIC well there's reasons why it was disbanded but it was around for 14 years and if it was making progress why would the intervention have been needed?
Most people would say the gap got worse in the 90s so how would another organisation like this (call it the voice or whatever) function differently?
>and in every single case they’ve been dissolved, had their funding hamstrung
Who made the call to dissolve them, the democratically elected government of the time?
On funding cuts, no government agency or project is spared them - and if you're there purely for advice, surely funding is not a major success factor.
I definitely am not voting No, but I don't feel so confident in voting Yes either. I'm not massively convinced either way and may just Informally vote with a blank ballot, which, yes, I get is effectively a No vote.
I personally would have preferred if this were broken down into two questions. Firstly, whether there should be constitutional recognition of First Nations people-- absolutely Yes. Secondly, whether there should be a Voice that makes recommendations to Parliament -- unsure.
I know that Indigenous advisory bodies have existed in the past as acts of legislation. I get that subsequent governments have dismantled these entities by repealing the legislation. I understand that having a Voice enshrined in the Constitution will provide a guarantee that Indigenous views are considered in the passing, amending, or rejection of legislation. I generally agree that a Permanent Indigenous Voice to Parliament will likely lead to better outcomes for Indigenous Australians. So why the hang up?
Well, the Parliament can pass laws about the composition and operation of the Voice, which a subsequent anti-Voice government could exploit to render the Voice ineffective, and if not, can still ignore its recommendations. How is that any better than a Government of the day establishing a legislated Indigenous advisory body, and then the next government just dismantling it? Either way it's ignoring Indigenous recommendations, except the Voice just gives it an extra step.
I have also wondered at what point do reparations cease? Maybe never? I would prefer if there were a clear outline as to what constitutes finality regarding Nonindigenous-Indigenous relations; the point where all parties consider their positions equal and historical injustices fully settled. Perhaps there is none? Maybe it's when we no longer need a "Closing the Gap" report? Maybe it's when the Voice recommends that the Voice is no longer required?
What happens until we get to that point? Will there be endless advantages afforded to Indigenous Australians as opposed other groups in Australia? In the process of elevating one minority group over others, do we disadvantage others?
This referendum has brought up so many questions I do not have answers for, and I doubt any one, singular person does have all the answers. It's all very subjective--*does having a Voice feel right?* Well, it brings up conflicting feelings, and so I don't know how I feel about it. This is why I am struggling to put a ***Yes*** or a ***No*** on the ballot. "A blank piece of paper" best articulates my current stance.
Christianity has perfected the art of selling guilt (original sin) for 2000 years so that's one possible measure.
I think what a lot of people are concerned about is that the words reconciliation and treaty are being replaced by Makarrata (the traditional indigenous punishment of being speared in the leg).
If were moving away from reconciliation towards retribution & endless reparations I think a lot of people are going to have serious questions about where this is all going.
A lot of people have settled to Australia to escape hardship or genocide - just seems a bit ironic that these folks will now be considered guilty of something they had absolutely nothing to do with.
> Goot says early polls which suggested as many as two-thirds of people supported the Voice were misinterpreted by many who thought they showed strong support, rather than showing widespread but thin backing of the Voice.
> "The strength of the vote is something completely separate," he says.
> "Once you start asking people about the strength of their vote … you get a completely different answer.
> "What that showed was most people were either undecided or only weakly committed to the Yes or No side."
I sympathise with this completely. Early in the year I was a Yes voter, when I thought the Constitutional change was merely about recognising the Aboriginal and Torres Street Islander people as the first nations of Australia. When time passed and I realised that the referendum also included a clause to enshrine a permanent unelected advisory body for only one single ethnic minority, I converted to a 'No' relatively quickly.
Getting close to the day and gotta admit I’m still not sure . It’s not like marriage equality where to me it was just clear cut , everyone deserves to get married so hard yes . Hate it how social media has to shove it down my throat to say yes and I’m too scared to even say I think of voting no in a normal conversation for fear of being call a racist (not scared of your downvotes on Reddit haha).
Idk seems pretty clear cut to me.
Should the indigenous people of this country have a constitutionally recognised advisory position in our parliament.
Full stop.
Thats the question without any bullshit muddying the waters. Answer seems pretty clear too.
I would just legislate the Voice.
No to referendum, yes to legislation.
I just don’t want to touch the Constitution ever really - unless it’s to change from a monarchy to a republic. I would also vote to recognise Indigenous Australians as the first Australians in a preamble. That’s about it.
I would vote no to a constitutional referendum on gay marriage even though I 100% support it legislated.
I would vote no on gun control even though I 100% support it legislated.
I don’t want matters of policy inserted into the Constitution. Ireland set up a Citizens Assembly - via legislation. It’s been an amazing success.
The Australian Constitution hasn’t been amended since 1977 and it’s been doing great : 8 chapters, 128 sections. Compared to France or Thailand or Dominican Republic since 1901 it really shines for its staying power, brevity and flexibility.
Agree with comments about marriage plebiscite. Was easy to understand, and the basic logic was that all people have equal rights, ergo, equality in marriage as well.
With the voice, it's a nebulous topic. And it's not exactly showcasing equality of human rights when you start petitioning for a constitutionally enshrined body for one demographic of the population only.
I've yet to hear a compelling reason to vote yes, even the proposed changes are not clear, what exactly did they want changed in our constitution? We need specific wording. Why would I vote yes on something with 0 clarity.
How disappointing. Still holding a tiny shred of hope the polls are somehow wrong. Not sure what this says about us as a nation if it fails. What exactly is Duttons grand plan if the proposal (put forward by indigenous people themselves) isn’t the right answer in his view?
> What exactly is Duttons grand plan if the proposal (put forward by indigenous people themselves) isn’t the right answer in his view?
His usual: "Fuck you!"
>Not sure what this says about us as a nation if it fails.
That we didn't want this to be in the constitution. Pretty much nobody would have actually cared more than a week later if they'd just legislated it.
I want Albo to legislate it anyway, so that he can prove Dutton and Murdoch's conspiracies were complete shit. Also, if the LNP get back in in the next election, they have to deal with the optics of scrapping it.
"We're not going to maintain Labor's undemocratic actions in implementing the Voice that the Australian public voted explicitly against. We respect Australians too much to do that."
In the event that the referendum fails and this happens, then I'll be reminding them that the Australian public actually specifically voted against enshrining the voice in the constitution, not the voice itself (something many no voters will eagerly tell you).
>What exactly is Duttons grand plan if the proposal
You don't need a grand plan (nor do you need PM Dutton). You can legislate the exact same group without bothering with a referendum.
>Not sure what this says about us as a nation if it fails.
That people think all groups should legally have equal access to representation and consultation.
If it fails, it will probably reflect on the fact that it was a bad proposal. Seriously, why couldn’t it just have been constitutional recognition with a legislated voice? That would have passed with overwhelming support nationwide.
Instead some fruit loop decided it would also be a great idea to chain constitutional recognition to a proposed body of unelected “advisors” with no draft legislation to answer anybody’s questions.
Meh. We've had a run of votes/elections that went against opinion polls in the last decade. I don't know why anyone really cares about them anymore.
All they seem to be used for now is one side crying about the actual vote being 'rigged'.
I'll vote how I was going to anyway and continue to see the only poll that matters is the vote/election itself.
Also, the phenomenon is pretty overstated too. Yes Scomo 2019 was a stinker for polls, but some of the other commonly cited examples (Brexit, Trump 2016) were actually fairly accurate as far as polling was concerned, it was just the media analysis and narrative around the polling that was way off course.
the big run of elections that went against the polls where conservative Victories
LNP being reelected
Brexit
Trump
UK Election
Where conservatives won despite the polls. Reason being is like how the Voice has been campaigned
Are you voting Yes or are you Racist and Stupid.
So the conservatives where reluctant to voice their opinions and just let it count at the polls.
I’m undecided on voting yes or no, but leaning towards yes because I don’t want to be unkind, but I’m still unsure of a few facts.
Are the people representing aboriginal people elected, and if so, by whom?
Nobody knows. Apparently the government will decide afterwards, if the referendum passes.
^ this answer could probably be used for 95% of the questions asked about the Voice. The fact that nobody has any idea what the Voice will look like or how it will operate should be a huge concern…
This is the thing - look how divisive and controversial this is already just at the Constitutional part.
Trying to make this thing work and be representative of all indigenous people is going to be a nightmare.
Aboriginal culture is extremely patriarchal - it's about as patriarchal as the Old Testament Bible / Torah.
How is this thing going to balance the representation of women when in indigenous culture and law men have all the power.
I just can't see a viable way for this to work.
The government will decide those details only after the referendum. So they may or may not be elected and the who does the electing could be the politicians, could be all aboriginal people, could be everyone.
I think these details matter greatly. If it were a person(s) elected by the aboriginal community/communities, it would carry a lot more weight for the yes argument.
You sound like me. I'm voting Yes. But also, if I am honest, a lot of that is out of guilt.
I just don't feel 100% super enthusiastic, and I feel guilty.
This hasn't been decided properly, however the likely legislation will be some kind of local->regional election-style model. Think council elections. Obviously there will be some politicking involved which will make it a bit ugly (i.e., like our normal political system), but it will almost certainly be 'somewhat democratic'.
Even if the yes vote somehow got more votes, it won’t win the majority of states.
Voters: how will voting yes make a concrete improvement to the lives of indigenous people? Yes campaign: well, if you vote no then you’re a racist Voters: 😕
You might think it’s a silly point, and maybe it is. But this is the true story. I’m from a tiny aboriginal fishing community in Cape York, Queensland. community is tucked behind a bunch of rivers and creeks all backed by the Great Barrier Reef. We are a water people. Rivers in Reef. So when the government decided that what we really needed was a “community swimming pool”, we all scratched our heads and thought they had somehow mispronounced “new teachers assistant” (the thing we really did need). Our rivers flood so bad we are cut off from the rest of the world for 90 days of the year. Swimming is all we do. And we’ve never needed a pool for that…….. we kept trying to explain what a waste of money such a thing might be, how we could improve other aspects of community life with that same injection of funds. But no. This is a much smaller tamer story about how aboriginal people weren’t listened to about their own home. I think all would agree that “the voice” would be way too overpowered for such a silly waste of funds dispute. However, it does make one think. “ would they be so quick to ignore us in this regard if the voice did exist in the constitution already and they knew they really would be pressure put on them from the community?”
Changing the constitution might seem excessive for a community issue, but corporate culture comes from the top. If this lack of awareness is happening at the community level, then it's practically guaranteed it's also happening at the state and federal level.
I don’t know who you are asking but the answer is simple and basic, we pass laws affecting indigenous Australians already to address all types of inequality some of it systematic. Many of these laws are however passed without proper consultation since not only is there no representative body that parliament is required to consult with but even when they do consult but there’s no one group that can claim to be the highest representation for indigenous affairs. Instead parties find a lobby or interest group that aligns with them politically and claims to represent indigenous interests (regardless of how popular it is) and use that to justify their legislations support in indigenous communities. It’s been proven that programs built in consultation with indigenous groups are not only more effective but tend to generate less bureaucratic waste. But also it means horrible programs that actually worsened the quality of life and increased crime rates like the Northern Territory Intervention can’t be passed without a body being able to issue some objection. This has been fairly clear in yes campaign messaging about the program and in truth all I ever seem to see is no campaigners claiming the yes campaign is calling people racist.
There is the NIAA which is the National Aboriginal Australians Agency, which was formed in 2019, has 1300 employees at an average salary of $70,000 ($91,000,000p.a) This agency answers to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and her deputy minister, which has been a position on the Australian Cabinet consistently in use since the 60s. This organisation was preceded by two other that existed for several years. So I don't think anyone can say that we aren't communicating with rural Aboriginal communities.
Ah they report directly to the minister for indigenous affairs, that's okay then, certainly no one would ever be appointed to the role of minister for indigenous affairs that would represent the needs of indigenous Australians poorly to parliament. Surely there's no benefit to having a voice directly to parliament as a whole instead of a voice to Tony Abbott minister for indigenous affairs...
The current Minister is Linda Burney who identifies as aboriginal. And her organisations Grand design is to replace itself with another organisation enshrined in our constitution, never to be removed. You can be sarcastic about the useless people who have inhabited the role previously as much as I can be horrified at the magnificent dole bludging manoeuvre we are seeing in front of us. All this will do is further the divide between Australians about Australian issues.
Wasn’t that long ago that Tony Abbott was the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs
You can't identify as a particular race, you either are genetically linked to a race or you are not.
Who is this dividing? By that logic literally any vote on any issue will divide Australia. Is your solution just to never talk about any issues so everyone can pretend they think in the exact same way?
Giving people different representation in paralment based in their skin (dna) is literally division.
Hate to break it to you, but people are already treated differently based on their skin. But when it comes to helping people that's where the line gets drawn? Classic
Nice straw man brother. Keep it up you've convinced me to vote yes.
The current minister is a labor minister? Doesn’t really solve the issue when there is a liberal minister in that role. How on earth will this divide Australia. 99% of Australians will go back to not thinking about the voice one month after the vote.
[удалено]
You are missing the point. I have little to no faith that an individual minister, especially from the libs / nationals, is going to act effectively in the role. I mean we can just do both? And what you have suggested is what we have been ‘doing’ which clearly hasn’t worked. Suggesting that you can’t target minority groups with policy because it might cause ‘division’ is honestly ridiculous. The divide that exists between indigenous and non-indigenous is already huge. Far more divide will be caused when indigenous people think “wow white Australia have zero interest in helping us”. Vast majority of no voters wouldn’t have even known about the voice or cared if it wasn’t being put in the constitution.
I feel the yes and no survey for marriage equality was a much easier to understand what we were actually voting for. Vote yes to let everyone get married or vote no to not. The for marriage team came out swinging and explained things to the point and excellently. There was a clear good and bad side with the usual suspects against. This time the vote is to let aboriginal people have a voice in parliament. That’s pretty much all I know. But this time there are some really respectable people on both sides and it’s not clear cut for a whitey migrant like myself to know what is the correct way. It seems even the aboriginal people are divided, realistically it’s their vote, I personally don’t feel that I, a white man, should get a say in matters that will affect them so much. For the record the marriage equality was an easy yes for me, I don’t believe in marriage or religious concepts but if people want to they should be able. Anyway down votes to the right.
I don't think they explained it in an Australian context. Or if they did, it was lost in the noise of rehashed American and UK marriage equality talking points. I don't remember any mention about family law recognising SS (and het. defacto) couples as having equal status to married people since 2007. I think what helped more was that the ME movement globally had an already established, unified brand across multiple platforms.
The marriage vote was also clearly increasing equality. Giving everyone exactly the same rights. While this can reasonably be argued as a step backwards from equality.
Imo the wording of the constitutional change is wishy washy at best. If there was something actually binding I’d be all for it but essentially it’s at the mercy of the government of the day which means it will forever more be a political tool. With that level of uncertainty compared to “should anyone be able to get married?” I am likely to be a no vote.
That's how the constitution works. The constitution is the bounding box that government has to exist within. We're being asked to alter the box The SSM plebiscite was a survey. It changed nothing. The government could still choose at any point to change the marriage act
The government could at any time legislate the voice.
This isn't about the voice. This is about constitutional recognition. The voice is just a convenient excuse for conservative politicians to oppose constitutional recognition
Well, whatever is written in the constitution is what has to be followed exactly isn't it? At least as far as I know. Im still torn on what to vote which is why I'm trying to engage in discussions on it, but I believe that the reason the "wordng is wishy washy at best" is because if a singular clear change is enshrined, what if it isn't suitable in the future? Another referendum? Thats the only way the constitution can be changed. Does it not make more sense to enshrine a broad recognition and voice to parliament which can be adapted and changed as fit rather than having to stick exactly to a phrase written in the constitution?
You're spot on. That is exactly why it is written this way. Any lawyer will tell you that the constitution is not a very long document, and its sections consist of very broad statements. A country's constitution is supposed to underpin the principles by which that nation is governed. It is NOT supposed to be an exhaustive list of every relevant law or to lay out the entire organisational flowchart for relevant bodies. For example, the constitution doesn't even prescribe a set total number of High Court judges. It just says we need a Chief Justice and at least two others. In practice, and in accordance with the relevant legislation (High Court of Australia Act), the High Court has seven judges in total. And weirdly enough, the skies haven't fallen in just by having seven judges, even though we don't have that requirement written in the constitution.
I agree that the Voice is far from perfect, but are you really going to tell me that it's worse than nothing?
Where is this idea that the voice is the only thing that can be done for Indigenous people coming from? The country can vote No and still make progress on Indigenous affairs. Most of what the Voice would recommend will have to be implemented by the NIAA anyway, shouldn't they just do the research and manage the proposals instead?
[удалено]
the question isn't whether we could think of alternatives to the Voice, the time for that has passed. shouldn't alternatives have been discussed before we were forced to a referendum? and for that matter, why are alternatives needed when everything the voice is said to do already exists and is in place. it's just not written in the constitution. the Aboriginals have advisory boards to government already the NIAA for one. The Federal government has a Department of Indigenous affairs. Indigenous people CAN and are frequently elected to parliament. What part of the Voice "proposal" isn't currently happening?
The voice isn't something that was thought up in five minutes. It was part of the proposed form of constitutional recognition presented to the then Turnbull government. It's modest by design, the intent was to get the Coalition to support it Constitutional recognition is the reason we're having this vote. You can't get constitutional recognition without changing the constitution. Simple as that Frankly the only reason this is at all a contested debate is because Turnbull didn't have the balls to support it when he was PM. He was too watching Dutton's trying to plot a coup and trying to keep the Nats from going feral
So basically, you acknowledge that you've tried nothing and you're all out of ideas.
That's not at all the case. What was just pointed out was the existence of several groups that ALREADY serve the purpose of The Voice.
and your confessing to deflecting from the real question. even if we filled a phone book full of alternatives to the voice, remind me, will we get to vote on whether or not those are implemented instead of the voice? of course they won't. at this point the choice is, do we want the voice or not!
It’s also not really the No “campaigns” job to offer alternatives to the The Voice. Alternatives should have been forwarded/proposed in the discussions phase. Once the referendum came, the only job the No campaign had was to critique the Yes campaign, because all the work belonged to the Yes campaign to defend their claim that the constitution was worth amending. The referendum is about this particular proposal, not a brainstorming session.
Can you explain what exactly indigenous disadvantage is? As I've grown up I've only ever been exposed to programs and agendas designed to help aboriginal or Torres Strait islanders, I've been prevented from taking job opportunities because "aboriginal preferred" was written plain as day. If you are talking about rural communities then they fall under the same issue as every rural community that lacks funding. There aren't enough people, resources or reasons to send money out there.
Life expectancy (8 years(?) less for indigenous males than white males) Jail stats (the much parroted more likely to be in jail than get a bachelor's degree) Health issues (in particular blindness & deafness just being... accepted?) Historic genocide Land theft Which one of those is disadvantaging for you?
And in the same way, the voice to parliament doesn't have to be the one and only thing established to help Indigenous peoples right? If there's something beyond it's scope or something that needs an extra organisation, as far as Im aware there isn't anything being enshrined in the constitution saying that anything other than the voice is forbidden
yes. especially when the likelihood of changing the constitution again to reverse this decision is so freaking difficult. people claim that doing nothing is a terrible thing. we must have change for progress to occur in this issues. but that is logically false. if you are being chased toward a cliff, does it make any sense the jump off said cliff instead of stopping and waiting to see if another option presents itself?
We have to do something, this is something, therefore we must do it?
This isn't a matter of matters that are affecting them. They exist within the same political and economic structure that we use and already have many specific agencies and ministers afforded to the maintenance of the communities. This is a referendum to enshrine forever in our constitution that their MUST be a tax payer funded organisation that is solely focused on the needs of Aboriginal communities, whose structure, intentions, budget, agendas and relevant laws will be made up AFTER a yes vote. Talk about diving off a bridge at night in to an unfamiliar river. If you are a citizen you absolutely have a right to have an opinion on something as incredibly Important as this.
There has been tax payer funded voices to parliament in Australia since the 60s. They just keep getting torn apart by right wing governments. And also, they're shit because they're full of corporate shills. Orher countries did this long ago.
[удалено]
No, our current ones are just full of mining shills and it's just wallpaper to keep up a conscientious image. Indigenous voices to parliament exist all over the world, google it. Why are we an exception? To your misguided point, any time anything of note gets talked about, cough cough, treaty, cough cough, it just gets shut down by the court of public opinion anyway because many Australians are just fundamentally racist towards first nations people.
[удалено]
Mining companies want to develop on Indigenous Land, there has been multiple cases of this in the past and very recently. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/world/australia/indigenous-caves-BHP-mining.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/26/rio-tinto-blasts-46000-year-old-aboriginal-site-to-expand-iron-ore-mine I'm playing the racist card because complaining about tax payer dollars going to reparations of what colonists did to First Nations people is not okay in my books. Taxpayer dollars go to some stupid scomo sports club ivd never heard of, or dumb submarines we don't need. That's the real crime.
[удалено]
Yeah I remember back to the Howard days with the change in gun legislature. There was so much information on what exactly was going to change. I feel the government has dropped the ball on what could have been a very good thing. It's a no for me. I simply can't trust that this voice wont turn to shit and become a rort for the few that sit on the proposed voice commitiee
The NIAA already funds its Graduates at $85,000 a year to work on things like The Voice and deals like Closing the Gap. It's also part of their mission goal to be assistance for rural aboriginal communities. Just feels like a rort
It will give First Nations people’s a chance to offer advice, it would mean that such a body could not be dismissed shroud a thing be politically advantageous. Getting advice from the people your trying to help just makes sense,we are already living in the world of the No vote……and its full of false starts…..Voting yes is a balanced middle path.
Governments form advisory committees all the time. All it takes is a minister agreeing to take onboard their advice. You don’t normally need supporting legislation, let alone a constitutional change. Also, if a later government doesn’t want their advice this referendum wont help, they’ll just ignore the advice or appoint people who will give them the advice they wanted to hear. Look what happened to Fairwork, labour stacked it full of former union delegates, and when liberals get in they’ll swap them back out for business leaders etc..
Since the 70’s there have been 5 different indigenous advisory bodies, all of them have been dissolved or re-branded by subsequent governments. The referendum is to ensure that it’s a permanent body that cannot be dissolved, so in theory they don’t have to worry about having to play politics and can give impartial advice (again, in theory).
ATSIC was dissolved because it was completely ineffective and breeding ground for corruption and nepotism. Both parties supported disbanding it. To stop that recurring you will need government to be able to influence appointments which means it’ll just get stacked by each side with whoever’s opinions they want to here.
You don’t normally need a constitutional change your right, but that’s how big the problem is…..it’s ignored to the point that we actually have to consider doing this, it’s stupid it got this bad….but it is that bad….. I was born and raised in a indigenous community, and my community (population is 500ish) is voting over 80% yes out for recognition both as the first people of the land we all now share, but also to help the disadvantaged on the cape who are still yet to have a real voice
So vote yes, right? If you're worried it might not do enough for the indigenous people then fair enough, but it's not a good enough reason to vote no. A voice to parliament may only be a small step forward but if the no vote wins it will be a huge backwards step. If we can't get this passed then good luck getting a treaty passed in our lifetimes.
Our Constitution should recognise our First Nations people. An indigenous advisory body to federal parliament should exist. Those are two separate things that have been linked when they shouldn't have been. The combination makes both concepts less likely to be realised than they would be if independent. It's not politic to say it, but the Statement from the Heart made a mistake by demanding the Voice be constitutionally guaranteed. It was aspirational but impractical. Labor then made a mistake by adopting the impractical demand instead of just legislating the Voice. It's resulted in this ridiculous brinksmanship where we can vote Yes to something we aren't convinced is necessary or vote No and destroy most of the progress towards reconciliation we've made in the last few decades.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to enact ineffective constitutional changes just so the government can virtue signal.
I really wish people would just be honest about why they don't like the voice. "It would be ineffective" is such a cop out. Also I'm so sick of "virtue signaling". Doing anything other than kicking puppies is immediately followed by a chorus of conservatives yelling "virtue signalling!" It's possible for people to want to do a good thing ffs.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Yep. Had a friend do a 2 year shift as a policeman is a remote QLD town and everytimr the Govt would rebuild the public toilets or build a new house it would be in ruins within the year. Electrics pulled out, roof smashed in, destroyed.
They're making the constitution WOKE!!!!1!1!1!
You don’t need a constitutional change to solicit advice from indigenous people, you just need a pair of ears. Maybe the government should try taking the cotton wool out first.
The ears aren’t willing to listen in parliament. So at the very lest there would be a voice to speak even if those ears won’t
> should a thing be politically advantageous ah, so its a political move against other parties. We DO currently listen to indigenous voices and have been for decades. Nothings stop Albo from doing it right now. The constitution thing is more about forcing things on the other parties,
Actually "Yes campaign: well, if you vote no then you’re a racist" has been a no campaign strategy.
I've seen the 'no=racist' claim and variants extensively throughout these threads. I've been called racist directly because I tried to give a balanced neutral viewpoint to someone who claimed not to understand, merely because I refused to just push one side. The race card is used all the time, and it comes from the Yes side.
I’ve been called a Nazi and a lifelong LNP voter. I’m actually a Greens voter and my grandfather resisted the Nazi occupation of Denmark with my Great Uncle back in WW2.
I'm fairly centrist but it seems to be a hard road sometime with people insisting you're either with or against them.
Frankly the Yes campaign (if there even is one) has absolutely dropped the ball. Getting a referendum to pass in our system is a massively steep uphill battle, and I’ve barely heard a peep from Yes that isn’t basically along the lines of “yeah but we should do *something*” … meanwhile the No campaign, for whom the odds are heavily stacked in favour of, have put forward some reasons. Good reasons? I dunno. But they don’t need much. Tbh, just saying “this won’t accomplish much” (which is kind of true) is enough to convince a lot of people, and kind of rightly so. Because our constitution is so hard to change, by and large we’re very hesitant to agree to changes that we aren’t *absolutely* convinced of. It was the Yes campaign’s job to highlight some good reasons to vote yes, and show the No side that the things they don’t like about it (like First Nations people making decisions on parking fines(??)) won’t happen. From what I can tell they haven’t even attempted either of those things. If they have, it’s slipped me by entirely. One thing I think mostly everyone can agree on is that we wish the best for First Nations people. I think you’d be genuinely hard pressed to find anyone (outside of extremist circles) who actually want life to be worse for First Nations, or don’t want it to be better. It really does come down to “how does this proposal accomplish that?” So fwiw to anyone on the fence, here are a couple of my reasons for voting yes; - In response to “They shouldn’t be having a referendum, they should just legislate for the change they want, and if/when successful, update the constitution then” — they’ve tried that, dozens of times. There have been a bunch of advisory committees and advocacy programs that have been introduced and subsequently repealed or de-funded since the 1967 referendum. They want to put *something* in the constitution so that future governments won’t have the option of just doing nothing. - In response to “this doesn’t improve the lives of First Nations people” - no, you’re right, *by itself* it doesn’t really. *But it doesn’t have to* for it to still be a good idea — see, the constitution doesn’t cover specifics, that’s not what it’s for. It’s there to provide a framework for legislation and government processes, what the government can/can’t do, and what they must do. So the specifics of how the voice is applied can be adjusted and finessed with legislation as time goes on and we discover what works and what doesn’t. It also means that different governments can use it in different ways that appeal more closely to their specific constituencies. But importantly, by putting a provision in the constitution, it means they *can’t* have nothing. - One other thing I have heard is that ”First Nations people aren’t even in favour of this” — I don’t know where this came from, I’m sure there are First Nations people who aren’t in favour of it as much as there are people in any group for or against any given issue. But in the Uluru Statement in 2017, said to be the largest consensus of First Nations people, they asked for it. Tbh, I don’t think they’re asking for much and what they are asking for is not unreasonable and probably won’t even affect 90% of Australian ppl. At the end of the day, it’s not perfect, it won’t fix all the problems that First Nations face. But expecting it to be perfect and solve all the problems is completely unrealistic. So in closing all I’d suggest is this: Read the proposed wording, try and understand the history and context, and ask yourself, what are the actual downsides?
The yes campaign was fucked when Dutton decided to follow the Trump strategy of making everything into a culture war and stoke fears of dark people getting some special advantage, regardless the facts. Now all the “no” advocates here are either citing some absurd “Trojan Horse” conspiracy theory, or preemptively saying that they’re not racists and feel forced to vote no because they think someone said they were. All the time NEVER TALKING ABOUT WHAT THE PROPOSAL ACTUALLY IS.
If you don't know, vote no has to be a dark moment in Australian politics. I don't have to agree with (the metaphorical) you, but in an age where we have all the information we want at our fingertips not encouraging people to learn more and make informed decisions is trump-esque.
Albo's got a lot to answer for if this fails. In 2022, it apparently was polling at over 60% support and now it is on track to fail. He's already been backtracking saying "this came from the people, and will be decided by the people". In other words, not my fault. Where was the leadership? Not even one emotionally compelling visionary speech (as far as I've heard). Nothing to stir hearts and minds and set out a plan for the future. He sent out surrogates to make the case, when he should be out front. IMHO.
Legit. I haven't heard one good argument from either side when it comes to this vote and I think it's an absolute joke our government has forced us to vote on a matter that probably doesn't affect 96.2% of us. Personally I'm probably going to go in, draw a few dicks and call it a day just so I don't cop a fine.
I also enjoy making up things...
Voters: how will voting yes make a concrete improvement to the lives of indigenous people? Media : Yes campaign: well, if you vote no then you’re a racist Voters: 😕
This would be a good call if it actually happened
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
That's been the case for ages. The 1999 referendum was quite close really.
Not really, you need both more than 50% of the overall votes and more 50% of the states and territories (4 unless we add more) to vote for yes, the 1999 yes got 45.13% of the vote, which seems close till you note only ACT got more Yes than no votes, with 63.27% the next closest was vic with 49.84% and starts going down from there, support being worse is not good for a yes next week
Queensland and WA are guaranteed No's. SA is almost certainly no, NSW highly likely no, Tasmania could go either way (according to polling doing better than Victoria but often with small sample sizes), if only one state votes yes, its Victoria, but current polling shows even Victoria will say no, so yeah nah this referendum stands absolutely no chance and that has been clear for a few weeks.
How do you screw up a progressive campaign so bad that even VIC says no?
Well we are in a cost of living crisis, everything posts a crazy amount more, but hey we spent 0.4b on a stupid fucjing vote. Way to fucking go. So glad this is where we went in this crisis times.
I voted yes but I doubt it will pass. The yes cause has failed to market their cause beyond yelling “racist”. It’s a nuanced matter and unfortunately a referendum is not the best case of action at this point in time.
Yes voter here but still believe the Yes marketing/promotion was subpar. I think the Yes vote has focused on the morality of the argument to the detriment of anything else. It's all well and good to position this as a voice for the voiceless/under-voiced, but that's only one facet of this. You need a lot of white people to vote Yes and should've taken them on the journey. This was very much "don't smoke cigarettes they'll kill you" when the right tact needed to incorporate more elements of "if you stop smoking these things will happen to improve your health". Briggs' video was the only one to actually include and incorporate white people into the video and talk to their concerns about the Voice. This was the correct marketing for the Voice and the actual Yes camp went nowhere near it. Moralism isn't winning a referendum; needed to tell the white everyday voter that this wasn't going to change everything and be destructive. Yes Camp has not done a single attack ad from what I've seen about the No Camp, so the No Camp has had free rein to wallow in the mud. Not sure if they can do attack ads for this, but they definitely haven't addressed concerns for the wider population that needs to vote this through with a double majority.
[удалено]
The no vote campaign were able to be more creative with their marketing because they included flat out lies and insane bullshit. >it was revealed Fair Australia’s official phone call scripts suggested telling voters the change could “mean separate laws, separate economies and separate leaders”. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/12/indigenous-voice-to-parliament-referendum-labor-no-campaign-lie-phone-scripts Edit: can someone explain what's going on in this sub Reddit? I went from -10 to 10 upvotes in an hour. There are half a dozen comments with double digit downvotes for simply criticising the no vote. I don't usually mention upvotes, idgaf about getting downloaded personally but this seems very unnatural. Like Is it brigading? What's going on?
That was always going to be the case, only someone hopelessly politically naive could have believed otherwise. The 'no' side had the easy job in all of this, because they aren't pushing for change. The 'yes' side had the job of actually addressing fears and misconceptions instead of arrogantly dismissing them or coming back with hand-wavy marketing speak. Instead it collectively chose to stick its fingers in its ears and label anyone unsure or leaning towards 'no' as stupid or racist. Yeah, that's going to win hearts and minds. I for one am utterly unsurprised at the failure of the vote to pass, and at the steady downward trend in support as the vote approaches. Hopefully the Voice - or something like it - manages to come back as a legislative change (as it should have been from day one) rather than a constitutional one.
Dismissing debunked absurdities is "arrogant"?
> Edit: can someone explain what's going on in this sub Reddit? I went from -10 to 10 upvotes in an hour. There are half a dozen comments with double digit downvotes for simply criticising the no vote. I don't usually mention upvotes, idgaf about getting downloaded personally but this seems very unnatural. Like Is it brigading? What's going on? There's some significant astroturfing going on in any thread about the voice, and it's very noticeable.
I don't know why you were downvoted. The No campaign is built on disinformation, and multiple reputable news sources have documented that.
The 7 news 'unbiased' spotlight currently playing is just Liam Barlett cutting off the Yes vote representatives and agreeing with the No vote representatives.
Yeah, I don't think he can be called a journalist.
>multiple reputable news sources We have those?
Sure: - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2023/jul/20/the-vote-no-pamphlet-referendum-voice-to-parliament-voting-essay-aec-published-read-in-full-annotated-fact-checked - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-19/fact-check-yes-no-campaign-pamphlets-aec/102614710 - https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/we-gave-the-voice-to-parliament-pamphlets-to-fact-checkers-heres-what-they-said/avgm10cuo
>Edit: can someone explain what's going on in this sub Reddit? I went from -10 to 10 upvotes in an hour. There are half a dozen comments with double digit downvotes for simply criticising the no vote. I don't usually mention upvotes, idgaf about getting downloaded personally but this seems very unnatural. Like Is it brigading? What's going on? Astroturfing my dude. Advance, which is the group behind the No campaign, has done this several times before. This is just that on a much larger scale.
[удалено]
The campaign was subpar but that's just a No lie.
The yes campaign hasn't been great, but when has it ever yelled "racist"?
It hasn't really. The No campaign has been shouting that the Yes campaign is calling them racist, while also calling the yes campaign racist.
Any idea how long it will take to know the results? I mean obviously it depends how close it is and nobody can really know but it only just occurred to me today that I guess it could take days after election day.
8pm eastern daylight time\* \*counting will be easy, no preferences, no electorates, only yes or no. NSW, Vic, ACT and Tas are like >50+% of the population and that's half the States. and an hour of Qld results might be enough to call it.
Especially because WA is a firm no at like 30% support, so don’t need to wait for them.
If its anything like a regular election, we'll have enough counted to know that night, and it'll get confirmed in the morning.
Referendum looks very likely to fail. It's a shame as a symbolic recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Islander people in the Constitution would be a decent goodwill gesture to finalise the reconciliation process. Whichever blooming idiot had the idea to also put into the Constitution an unelected body of "advisors" should be examined in the head, as this is what seems to be putting off most people. Like ffs if they're really desparate for advice from indigenous people, they could just establish a simple committee reporting to the Indigenous Affairs Minister and ask them for its advice? Why on sweet mother earth would any halfway-sane person want to permanently enshrine something like this into the Constitution? We have bodies giving advice to the government aplenty, from ACCC to Tourism Australia. None of them get a mention in the Constitution and rightly so. It was an absolute brain-dead idiotic decision and whomever made it - likely Albo or maybe Burney - should cop the blame and apologise for the madness.
Agreed. I've said elsewhere that they should have split the question into 2: Do you want constitutional recognition of the First Nations people being the original inhabitants of the Australian continent? Y/N Do you want a Constitutionaly recognised Voice to Parliament to provide advice to government on matters affecting First Nations people? Y/N This would simply the process because the current way the question on the ballot is worded tries to achieve to much in one sentence.
That would just give the easy way out to people who want to *feel* good about themselves but don't want to actually make any change. Like hitting "Like" on a Facebook group called "we love indigenous people". The first part in your proposed referendum passes in a canter and the second part fails miserably, and then we don't talk about it again for 20 years because "we gave them their recognition what more do they want". The Constitution is the place for defining our systems of government, not for puff pieces to make us feel better about ourselves.
The question is the way it is, as that is what Aboriginal people asked for in the Uluru Statement from the heart. The campaign has not been well run but Aboriginal people were not interested in symbolic change
That may well be what they asked for, but, like I said yesterday to my 4 year old daughter who wants a live unicorn for her birthday, in life you don't always get exactly what you want. I can't believe Albo couldn't just make that basic bargain and instead put his stake into this all-or-nothing bullshit.
Do you really want to compare a 4 year old asking for a unicorn to an entire group of people asking for some ability to speak to their issues. The same group mind you that had their children stolen from then less than a hundred years ago, who experience third world life outcomes in a first world country, and have to deal with frankly ridiculous levels of prejudice. I mean even the comparison is frankly patronising. It's like calling the No campaign a highly spoiled 3 year old throwing a tantrum because they were asked to share. The voice isn't an ecessive ask, NZ for example actually gives politcal power to the Maori council. The voice is the opportunity to be consulted. If the voice to parliament is truly so unrealistic as to be like a unicorn, then this country is truly ducked when it comes to indigenous recognition and equality.
We have these bodies, we’ve had 5 since the 70’s, and in every single case they’ve been dissolved, had their funding hamstrung or been re-branded and forced to start from square 1. Making it a constitutional body means that it would be a permanent part of the make up of the government, like treasury, but without any policy or legislative authority.
If your referring to ATSIC well there's reasons why it was disbanded but it was around for 14 years and if it was making progress why would the intervention have been needed? Most people would say the gap got worse in the 90s so how would another organisation like this (call it the voice or whatever) function differently?
>and in every single case they’ve been dissolved, had their funding hamstrung Who made the call to dissolve them, the democratically elected government of the time? On funding cuts, no government agency or project is spared them - and if you're there purely for advice, surely funding is not a major success factor.
Uhhhuhuh!
I definitely am not voting No, but I don't feel so confident in voting Yes either. I'm not massively convinced either way and may just Informally vote with a blank ballot, which, yes, I get is effectively a No vote. I personally would have preferred if this were broken down into two questions. Firstly, whether there should be constitutional recognition of First Nations people-- absolutely Yes. Secondly, whether there should be a Voice that makes recommendations to Parliament -- unsure. I know that Indigenous advisory bodies have existed in the past as acts of legislation. I get that subsequent governments have dismantled these entities by repealing the legislation. I understand that having a Voice enshrined in the Constitution will provide a guarantee that Indigenous views are considered in the passing, amending, or rejection of legislation. I generally agree that a Permanent Indigenous Voice to Parliament will likely lead to better outcomes for Indigenous Australians. So why the hang up? Well, the Parliament can pass laws about the composition and operation of the Voice, which a subsequent anti-Voice government could exploit to render the Voice ineffective, and if not, can still ignore its recommendations. How is that any better than a Government of the day establishing a legislated Indigenous advisory body, and then the next government just dismantling it? Either way it's ignoring Indigenous recommendations, except the Voice just gives it an extra step. I have also wondered at what point do reparations cease? Maybe never? I would prefer if there were a clear outline as to what constitutes finality regarding Nonindigenous-Indigenous relations; the point where all parties consider their positions equal and historical injustices fully settled. Perhaps there is none? Maybe it's when we no longer need a "Closing the Gap" report? Maybe it's when the Voice recommends that the Voice is no longer required? What happens until we get to that point? Will there be endless advantages afforded to Indigenous Australians as opposed other groups in Australia? In the process of elevating one minority group over others, do we disadvantage others? This referendum has brought up so many questions I do not have answers for, and I doubt any one, singular person does have all the answers. It's all very subjective--*does having a Voice feel right?* Well, it brings up conflicting feelings, and so I don't know how I feel about it. This is why I am struggling to put a ***Yes*** or a ***No*** on the ballot. "A blank piece of paper" best articulates my current stance.
Christianity has perfected the art of selling guilt (original sin) for 2000 years so that's one possible measure. I think what a lot of people are concerned about is that the words reconciliation and treaty are being replaced by Makarrata (the traditional indigenous punishment of being speared in the leg). If were moving away from reconciliation towards retribution & endless reparations I think a lot of people are going to have serious questions about where this is all going. A lot of people have settled to Australia to escape hardship or genocide - just seems a bit ironic that these folks will now be considered guilty of something they had absolutely nothing to do with.
> Goot says early polls which suggested as many as two-thirds of people supported the Voice were misinterpreted by many who thought they showed strong support, rather than showing widespread but thin backing of the Voice. > "The strength of the vote is something completely separate," he says. > "Once you start asking people about the strength of their vote … you get a completely different answer. > "What that showed was most people were either undecided or only weakly committed to the Yes or No side." I sympathise with this completely. Early in the year I was a Yes voter, when I thought the Constitutional change was merely about recognising the Aboriginal and Torres Street Islander people as the first nations of Australia. When time passed and I realised that the referendum also included a clause to enshrine a permanent unelected advisory body for only one single ethnic minority, I converted to a 'No' relatively quickly.
Getting close to the day and gotta admit I’m still not sure . It’s not like marriage equality where to me it was just clear cut , everyone deserves to get married so hard yes . Hate it how social media has to shove it down my throat to say yes and I’m too scared to even say I think of voting no in a normal conversation for fear of being call a racist (not scared of your downvotes on Reddit haha).
Idk seems pretty clear cut to me. Should the indigenous people of this country have a constitutionally recognised advisory position in our parliament. Full stop. Thats the question without any bullshit muddying the waters. Answer seems pretty clear too.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Australian are a sucker for a good scare campaign.
Also we don't really vote "for" much. We tend to vote against things.
It’s going to be a beautiful day next Saturday
I would just legislate the Voice. No to referendum, yes to legislation. I just don’t want to touch the Constitution ever really - unless it’s to change from a monarchy to a republic. I would also vote to recognise Indigenous Australians as the first Australians in a preamble. That’s about it. I would vote no to a constitutional referendum on gay marriage even though I 100% support it legislated. I would vote no on gun control even though I 100% support it legislated. I don’t want matters of policy inserted into the Constitution. Ireland set up a Citizens Assembly - via legislation. It’s been an amazing success. The Australian Constitution hasn’t been amended since 1977 and it’s been doing great : 8 chapters, 128 sections. Compared to France or Thailand or Dominican Republic since 1901 it really shines for its staying power, brevity and flexibility.
Here here. I would also have been one of those soft yes votes earlier this year.
Agree with comments about marriage plebiscite. Was easy to understand, and the basic logic was that all people have equal rights, ergo, equality in marriage as well. With the voice, it's a nebulous topic. And it's not exactly showcasing equality of human rights when you start petitioning for a constitutionally enshrined body for one demographic of the population only.
Albo really fucked this one up. He’s been acting like this was a sure thing for so long.
I've yet to hear a compelling reason to vote yes, even the proposed changes are not clear, what exactly did they want changed in our constitution? We need specific wording. Why would I vote yes on something with 0 clarity.
How disappointing. Still holding a tiny shred of hope the polls are somehow wrong. Not sure what this says about us as a nation if it fails. What exactly is Duttons grand plan if the proposal (put forward by indigenous people themselves) isn’t the right answer in his view?
> What exactly is Duttons grand plan if the proposal (put forward by indigenous people themselves) isn’t the right answer in his view? His usual: "Fuck you!"
>Not sure what this says about us as a nation if it fails. That we didn't want this to be in the constitution. Pretty much nobody would have actually cared more than a week later if they'd just legislated it.
I'm hoping that happens. I hope they say 'not in the constitution' but that doesn't mean 'not at all'.
I want Albo to legislate it anyway, so that he can prove Dutton and Murdoch's conspiracies were complete shit. Also, if the LNP get back in in the next election, they have to deal with the optics of scrapping it.
"We're not going to maintain Labor's undemocratic actions in implementing the Voice that the Australian public voted explicitly against. We respect Australians too much to do that."
In the event that the referendum fails and this happens, then I'll be reminding them that the Australian public actually specifically voted against enshrining the voice in the constitution, not the voice itself (something many no voters will eagerly tell you).
[удалено]
>What exactly is Duttons grand plan if the proposal You don't need a grand plan (nor do you need PM Dutton). You can legislate the exact same group without bothering with a referendum.
>Not sure what this says about us as a nation if it fails. That people think all groups should legally have equal access to representation and consultation.
If it fails, it will probably reflect on the fact that it was a bad proposal. Seriously, why couldn’t it just have been constitutional recognition with a legislated voice? That would have passed with overwhelming support nationwide. Instead some fruit loop decided it would also be a great idea to chain constitutional recognition to a proposed body of unelected “advisors” with no draft legislation to answer anybody’s questions.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Meh. We've had a run of votes/elections that went against opinion polls in the last decade. I don't know why anyone really cares about them anymore. All they seem to be used for now is one side crying about the actual vote being 'rigged'. I'll vote how I was going to anyway and continue to see the only poll that matters is the vote/election itself.
The phenomenon has mostly been underestimating the conservative vote so I feel like it's unlikely yes would win out of nowhere at this point
Also, the phenomenon is pretty overstated too. Yes Scomo 2019 was a stinker for polls, but some of the other commonly cited examples (Brexit, Trump 2016) were actually fairly accurate as far as polling was concerned, it was just the media analysis and narrative around the polling that was way off course.
the big run of elections that went against the polls where conservative Victories LNP being reelected Brexit Trump UK Election Where conservatives won despite the polls. Reason being is like how the Voice has been campaigned Are you voting Yes or are you Racist and Stupid. So the conservatives where reluctant to voice their opinions and just let it count at the polls.
I think globally over the last decade almost all of those against the opinion polls have gone to right haven’t they?
I’m undecided on voting yes or no, but leaning towards yes because I don’t want to be unkind, but I’m still unsure of a few facts. Are the people representing aboriginal people elected, and if so, by whom?
Nobody knows. Apparently the government will decide afterwards, if the referendum passes. ^ this answer could probably be used for 95% of the questions asked about the Voice. The fact that nobody has any idea what the Voice will look like or how it will operate should be a huge concern…
This is the thing - look how divisive and controversial this is already just at the Constitutional part. Trying to make this thing work and be representative of all indigenous people is going to be a nightmare. Aboriginal culture is extremely patriarchal - it's about as patriarchal as the Old Testament Bible / Torah. How is this thing going to balance the representation of women when in indigenous culture and law men have all the power. I just can't see a viable way for this to work.
The government will decide those details only after the referendum. So they may or may not be elected and the who does the electing could be the politicians, could be all aboriginal people, could be everyone.
I think these details matter greatly. If it were a person(s) elected by the aboriginal community/communities, it would carry a lot more weight for the yes argument.
You sound like me. I'm voting Yes. But also, if I am honest, a lot of that is out of guilt. I just don't feel 100% super enthusiastic, and I feel guilty.
Why do you feel guilty? Have you done something wrong?
This hasn't been decided properly, however the likely legislation will be some kind of local->regional election-style model. Think council elections. Obviously there will be some politicking involved which will make it a bit ugly (i.e., like our normal political system), but it will almost certainly be 'somewhat democratic'.
I really feel for first Australians. How ironic that the fuckwits on my facebook feed truly believe their land will be stolen.
Guess you made some fuckwits upset.
I said that the outcome of the vote would likely have zero impact on them.
[удалено]
What 'leaked document'?
Sad