“…We’re about to amend our Constitution so Aboriginal people will finally be listened to, after more than two centuries of supposedly not being listened to, despite the fact we’ve had a dedicated federal government Aboriginal portfolio for 56 years, 109 official Aboriginal agencies already, 11 Aboriginal people in the federal parliament and $30bn a year spent trying to alleviate disadvantage and dysfunction.
At the very least, given Albanese’s repeated insistence that the voice won’t be whatever the High Court says it is and won’t have a veto over government, he should make that explicit in the express words of the constitutional amendment. If he’s not prepared to do that, his assurances are hollow and voters won’t forgive him for trying to con them…”
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“…Isn’t it time to stop being deferential to officials with no electoral skin in the game, ministers who just want to climb the greasy pole and please their factional masters, and to stop taking the left establishment, government and elites, on trust? It really is bizarre that our country is being frogmarched into giving the Indigenous voice the constitutional right to make representations to everyone on everything without the government being expected to provide any details on how this change might work in practice.
Nothing to see here, insists Anthony Albanese; it’s just respectfully giving Indigenous people what they asked for in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Isn’t it time to stop being deferential to officials with no electoral skin in the game, ministers who just want to climb the greasy pole and please their factional masters, and to stop taking the left establishment, government and elites, on trust? It really is bizarre that our country is being frogmarched into giving the Indigenous voice the constitutional right to make representations to everyone on everything without the government being expected to provide any details on how this change might work in practice.
Even though that statement, which the Prime Minister says the government will implement in full, also says Indigenous people never surrendered sovereignty and demands not just truth telling about the past but also treaties (almost certainly including compensation) between the federal government and the up to 500 First Nations that existed in 1788.
Yet here we are.
So, square this circle for me. We’re about to amend our Constitution so Aboriginal people will finally be listened to, after more than two centuries of supposedly not being listened to, despite the fact we’ve had a dedicated federal government Aboriginal portfolio for 56 years, 109 official Aboriginal agencies already, 11 Aboriginal people in the federal parliament and $30bn a year spent trying to alleviate disadvantage and dysfunction.
The Prime Minister says it won’t have a veto – it’s just advisory – at the same time insisting only a very brave government could ignore it. And ignoring it would mean taxpayer millions, and time lost in the High Court, as lawyers for the voice and government faced off.
It won’t take long before the voice advice is seen inside the system as a diktat because to challenge it would delay the processes of government and cost plenty, in financial and PR terms, for those in power. Just imagine the sort of outcry a Liberal government, having rightly opposed the voice, would receive if it rejected its advice?
You can see why the Prime Minister doesn’t want us to ask too many questions or give much detail on his voice before we vote, can’t you?
Contemplating this campaign of official moral pressure, it really feels like our national debate is taking on echoes of North Korea.
Just approve the amendment, creating a special new chapter of the Constitution for a voice with a right to make representations not only to the parliament but also to the executive government, and we’ll work out the details later, says the Prime Minister.
We don’t know how the voice will be chosen: by election, nomination or tribal lore? We don’t know which entities it will be able to advise and the extent to which its advice will or will not be binding.
We don’t know how it will be resourced to give effect to the rights conferred on it but, you can take it from me, they will demand the same staff and salaries of backbench MPs.
There are rumours in Canberra that activists are working with public servants on plans for a specially built voice chamber inside Parliament House with its own entrance because they cannot use one of the existing “colonial Westminster” entrances (house, Senate or ministry), if you can believe it.
This has got to be one of the most brazen attempts ever to bluff Australians into doing what we’re deliberately being kept in the dark about, yet polls say a (dwindling) majority is still inclined to vote Yes, presumably because no one wants to feel like a racist pariah.
At the very least, given Albanese’s repeated insistence that the voice won’t be whatever the High Court says it is and won’t have a veto over government, he should make that explicit in the express words of the constitutional amendment. If he’s not prepared to do that, his assurances are hollow and voters won’t forgive him for trying to con them…”