After the voice defeat, we can never again allow politics to suspend the cause of Indigenous justice – Paula Gerber and Melissa Castan
After the voice defeat, we can never again allow politics to suspend the cause of Indigenous justice – Paula Gerber and Melissa Castan
A hundred days on from the unsuccessful referendum, it’s time to rebuild momentum for the rights of First Nations people
A hundred days on from the unsuccessful referendum, it’s time to rebuild momentum for the rights of First Nations people
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Work on The Voice referendum started in 2007, and despite decades of work it was a complete failure.
The idea that something meaningful can be done in months, where decades failed, is pretty ridiculous. Yes, we need to be working on it. But it's going to take a very long time.
The biggest problem was the LNP backing out and refusing to support it, even though this was a bipartisan effort all along (and actually started when LNP was in government). There's lots of talk about what Labor is going to do next, but it's really not up to them. Clearly what they want is what they tried (and failed) to actually achieve, and the real question is what can they achieve now?
Realistically what they can achieve is whatever LNP will support. Dutton promised to bring a legislated version of The Voice to parliament, so lets see what he actually meant by that. Presumably if it's a step in the right direction it's going to have bipartisan support. It needs to come from LNP - they need to tell us what they will support.
Unfortunately, actions speak louder than words, and what LNP are actually doing is very different to what they said on the campaign trail. It seems pretty clear that they won't support anything at all that will lead to reconciliation.
Realistically what they can achieve is whatever LNP will support.
Alternatively, we can ignore the fossils and grow as a nation. We absolutely can get there. If the vote had only been open to people under 50, it would have passed. We are growing and evolving. The ship turns slowly, but it does turn.
I'm not saying you are right or wrong, but if we suspend voting for ~1/3rd of our adult population, then what we are practicing is no longer a democracy.
Ha! I wasn't proposing we exclude over 50's. I like voting myself.
What I was saying is that the pendulum is already swinging and soon enough we will be pointed in that direction as successive additions join on the zoomer end of the spectrum (and yes: Older people die). We don't need to worry about what we "can realistically achieve" and let the LNP take the lead on this issue. We can ignore them: in another decade, we will be there with or without them.
The Coalition decided to turn the Voice into a political football. Once they saw that their initial FUD got traction, they doubled down on it, kept spreading the same lies, even the ones that had been refuted a hundred times, and weaponised the division they created. To them it became primarily about damaging Albanese, even more so than denying constitutional recognition to Indigenous people.
The reason Dutton 'favours' a legislated version of the Voice is that it can be un-legislated any time and at the whims of any future government. We've seen many versions of Indigenous representation come and go, some legislated, some not. The only thing that will have a lasting foundation is constitutional recognition. And that's what conservatives don't want.
what LNP are actually doing is very different to what they said on the campaign trail
Their Victorian branch literally just pulled support for what was a bipartisan promise for an Indigenous Treaty - something that had been promised for years.
Until the LNP gets rid of their conservative, gutless, old, white, male policy-makers, we'll never progress as a society. And I'm an (almost) old, white male.
The biggest problem was the LNP backing out and refusing to support [the Voice], even though this was a bipartisan effort all along (and actually started when LNP was in government).
Their [LNP] Victorian branch literally just pulled support for what was a bipartisan promise for an Indigenous Treaty - something that had been promised for years.
Qld LNP also abandoned support for treaty
Are we seeing a pattern here? When it's time to actually do something, that's when you see what their real position is.
Certainly seems like it, doesn't it? Like I said, they're gutless. Unwilling to commit to acting on their empty promises when the time comes.