Australia rejects proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in constitution
Australia rejects proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in constitution
Voice to parliament referendum fails in defeat that Indigenous advocates will see as a blow to progress towards reconciliation
Australians have resoundingly rejected a proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in its constitution and establish a body to advise parliament on Indigenous issues.
Saturday’s voice to parliament referendum failed, with the defeat clear shortly after polls closed.
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American here, what does it mean to recognize a class of indigenous people in Australia?
Because we have a very different understanding of the word lol
It was to put them in the constitution as the original inhabitants of Australia and give them the right to a mostly powerless advisory body to the Commonwealth government called "the Voice".
It was a pretty conservative idea but unfortunately the conservative opposition leader is the arch-racist piece of shit who will never win a real election, but in his desperation to make a name for himself he campaigned against the referendum, and referendums traditionally only succeed with bipartisan support. So now all that's really been accomplished is to disenfranchise our indigenous population even more.
I know it's a lot more nuanced than this but the idea of history being like "yes these people were unarguably here first" and government going "nah we created this place" is so fucking ridiculous.
It's not much more nuanced than that. Have you heard of Australia's history wars? Many of the leaders and major ministers of Australia's conservative party have been, and still are, subscribers to a completely alternate and incorrect version of Australia's history which has been pushed for decades by right wing media and political journals like Quadrant. The current party leader, Peter Dutton, literally walked out during the federal government apology for the damage it caused to the Stolen Generations.
Decades of this shit has really slowed progress on Indigenous affairs and reconciliation, and it's a big part of the reason why so many Australians have a warped idea of their own country's history (if they even know anything) and why our attitudes towards our Indigenous peoples seem so laughably archaic to the rest of the world.
That's not far from how it is here - but I'd say it's more dishonest politicians tokenistically acknowledging Country (such a performative exercise) and capitalising common nouns in that way. Nobody's really saying "we created this place", more that we have this culture of falling over ourselves to recognise Traditional Owners while not actually doing much to address Indigenous disadvantage. Referenda are seen as a big deal and usually fail, especially where they're not led by those who care about the movement, AND are completely transparent about what the result will mean. This referendum was led by the governing party of Australia as an election commitment, and what would result was neither well thought out nor explained adequately. Australia voted not to support the vague word of hand-wringing do-gooders we don't trust.
That’s a lot of hate you assume was caused by the opposition. Australia voted them out big time a few months ago so that’s a lot of reach.
It was the yes campaign that did it to themselves. They needed to have CLEAR impact statements about what it will do before they put it to the public. Their campaign created its own vague outcome and stink of virtue signalling. Not good enough. Especially considering what happened in WA weeks before announcement.
There's a good breakdown on the whole thing here: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/13/what-is-the-indigenous-voice-to-parliament-australia-when-referendum-2023-explained-yes-no-campaign-wording
The recognition aspect was basically the creation of an advisory body to the government with members selected from indigenous groups. The idea being that the govt has historically poorly managed indigenous issues so by having them directly advising govt there should be better policy outcomes
In retrospect they really should have set it up first and let it run for a bit before they tried to put it in the constitution.
Yeah, but they didn't have time for that in this election cycle. Fuck I hate it when progressives play the conservative handbook, follow fuck ups become fuck ups.
Went for a slam dunk but didn't tie their laces.
Yeah I don't get it either. I know a lot of Natives hate the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but is that what Aus is trying to get too (within the Constitution)?
There are essentially two parts to what was proposed, the first is that having mention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island (ATSI) peoples in the constitution is recognition.
The second part, which is actually the exact mechanism which was proposed, was a permanent advisory body made up of ATSI representatives with constitutional power to give advice to the Government on issues related to or impacting ATSI people.
The exact details of the advisory body were up to legislation which we will probably never see.
Why would anyone have a problem with that?
A few of the arguments or concerns voiced by Australian’s included:
-A Voice with no power is pointless
-Lack of detail in the proposal
-Separating Australian’s by race is divisive (note there’s already constitutional race powers, which I disagree with and hope will be scrapped)
-ATSI people would have more representation than others (they actually have proportionally higher representation in Parliament today than their percentage of population)
-Leaving the exact details of the Voice to legislation means any future government could gut it without violating the constitutional amendment
-concerns this is the first push on a path to treaty and reparations as a percentage of GDP (which WAS discussed as a possibility by the people who worked on the Uluru statement)
I’ve left out the outright lies, though I guarantee someone will take issue with me simply mentioning the talking points to give you context.
Just as long as we're all aware that while those are all reasons put forward, they are all false / lies / misleading.
The exact details of the legislation were released on the 23 of March. As in, 6-7 months ago.
The exact wording of the Constitutional amendment was released 6-7 months ago.
The Legislation has not been, and likely won’t be seen.
If you have seen the legislation somewhere please share a link.
Design principles are not legislation, it seems you are unfamiliar with Parliamentary process.
Additionally he (Anthony Albanese) stated that if the referendum is successful, another process would be established to work on the final design, with a subsequent government produced information pamphlet stating that this process would involve Indigenous Australian communities, the Parliament and the broader community, with any legislation going through normal parliamentary scrutiny procedures.
The final design being the legislation.
I hope that clears things up for you.
🤦 well done champ. You successfully don't understand process.
You claimed the legislation had been shown, it has not.
Your misinformation helps no one.
Except... That it had. No matter how much you wish your narrative to be real, you have no clue how the world works. 🤦
But, whatever. You want to stay ignorant and stupid, you do you.
Legislating the Voice is of course an option and something the government has committed to doing if the referendum is successful.
You should contact the ABC and provide them with a correction.
The government would prefer to take the concept of a Voice and constitutional recognition for First Nations people to a referendum and have the actual machinery of the body put forward in legislation.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-10/how-voice-to-parliament-could-work/101749746
If the referendum passes:
- Consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, the Parliament and the broader public to design the Voice
- Introduce a Voice establishment bill into the Parliament
- Once Parliament approves the legislation to establish the Voice, the legislation comes into effect and the work to set up the Voice begins.
https://voice.gov.au/resources/fact-sheet-referendum-question-and-constitutional-amendment
That's basically why the Voice to Parliament failed. It wasn't clear what that would mean, and our utter garbage media fanned all the flames they could - raising the fear in people's minds that we'd be 'giving away' some part of our democratic process. It's not what would have happened, but it's a not unfounded fear that in this age of doublespeak and militantly progressive movements, 'recognition' of Indigenous Australians could be manipulated into something we didn't agree to. The result - keep the status quo.
The result - keep the status quo.
I feel like the result was different from my perspective.
The result - stop planless virtue signalling and prevent the government sweeping the real issue under the rug with a token gesture.
I probably didn't articulate it well but "planless virtue signalling" is exactly what I meant - I suppose when it's clearly planless (if well-intentioned) it's easy for reactionaries to reframe what it's really about, since the populace is ignorant but generally tired of being told how to think and why things 'must' change.
The fact you're tired of "being told what to think" by "garbage media" and "militant progressives" is why you need to be told how to think
No
And if you look at the demographics that voted with the yes campaign, you'll find it's all the rich suburbs. Odd that they seem to know what's right for the most disenfranchised people.
ATSI live in rich suburbs now? That's nice progress!
Except for all the plans they released months and years ago
The vague ones subject to significant changes?
You mean "how the world works"? 🤦
Like the whore to your dad, "fuck you're thick"
Username checks out.