I don’t see how. We’ve already officially said sorry as a nation and have strong native title rights and laws were indigionous people can claim their ancestral lands, own them and live on them as traditional as they would like to.
Indigenous communities are still alive and well in many parts of Australia and can freely make the choice to assimilate with western culture or not. Australia is a huge and sparsely populated place that does not force this on indigionous people at all.
At some point the indigenous community needs to stop considering themselves victims and focus on the future of their people and culture. What is generally amusing is that it tends to be inner city privileged indigenous people who tend to make the most noise about this.
Facts without evidence presented as if they are self-evident.
The vote was to change the Australian Constitution to include a section giving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples a voice in parliament, which they already have through inner dialogue between their mobs and local governments.
The current system is definitely not effective. There is a massive gap where due respect, health outcomes, opportunities, and sovereignty are lacking at the least.
You can argue that this is piecemeal, and it is - but its a step from the current status quo.
How this constitutional change would look or be enacted was not known and very vague, with the crux being that it would still be government controlled…
Misleading. The constitution is high-level by design, that is not how that document works.
there was widespread animosity from First Nations people about it being another ‘white-man’s decision’, it would create division by being unequal when indigenous Australians are striving for equality.
I voted Yes in the end, but I definitely understand the journey you’ve taken and respect your informed voting. I think a big part of the problem is people’s attention is so divided these days that complexities are oversimplified to one-word descriptors like “racist” that are facile and inaccurate.
Yeah as someone outside Australia I've been surprised at how biased and simplified the reporting has been. A complex constitutional issue is being painted as a simple "good people, bad people".
When I read about the changes myself (after having to go hunting for some actual detail - the reporting is pretty poor on this) it honestly seems more like virtue signalling rather than useful or meaningful reform.
Last time I looked at the count 40% of indigenous people voted against the voice, there’s definitely no good/bad side in this regardless how some might choose to vilify others. We have compulsory voting as well.
I’m not familiar with the Australian political terms, can you share what this means:
inner dialogue between their mobs and local governments
To me, that sounds like the Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islanders are free to think about what they want, and then form a potentially violent, roughly organized group of people to confront local officials… But I assume I’m missing something.
From google: ‘Mob’ is a term identifying a group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people associated with a particular place or Country. ‘Mob’ is an important term for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, as it is used to describe who they are and where they are from.
In Australian slang a mob can just mean any grouping of people, not necessarily a criminal group or a group of rioters. It's not uncommon for people to refer to their own ethnic or political grouping as a mob; at least from what I've seen when reading Australian websites.
And by local government I think they are referring to the states and territories governments.
This is correct, mob in this context is a number of indigenous people belong to one particular community. There are various different mobs out there which is one of the reasons why a singular controlled voice was never going to work.
An aggregation of written statements collected from socialist, anarchist and radical Indigenous groups, showing the diversity of thought on the matter: old.reddit.com/…/megathread_of_leftist_statements…
(PS: don’t just take all the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ summaries in that list at face value, a couple of them are misinterpretations or oversimplications)
We also do not acknowledge a treaty/ies as a solution to reconcile the historical and ongoing issues faced by First Nations people. The goal of national and economic liberation will only be achieved once the capitalist and colonial social relations cease to exist in Australia. National liberation will always be an intrinsic part of the revolutionary struggle against capitalism, colonialism and imperialism.
… and some interesting demands:
The abolition of private property.
The return of all crown land and waters and all land and waters used as a primary resource to the custodianship of their rightful Indigenous owners.
The redirecting of taxes related to land and water usage and ownership paid by non-Indigenous homeowners to their relevant Indigenous Nation.
Old mate continuously refers to the voice as tokenistic, “there’s other advisory bodies” and “this one doesn’t even have any power” et cetera. I’m not aware of any other advisory bodies that were backed by the constitution with a clear mandate from the Australian people. Imagine a government ignoring the voice to parliament when the Australian populace has supported them.
This guy’s whole argument is “no compromise”. He wanted the referendum rejected, to galvanise first nations people to demand more. That’s not how modern democracy works in Australia.
It’s also very frustrating that he happily perpetuates the misunderstanding that he somehow speaks for First Nations people generally. That’s pretty fucked IMO.
Yes the proposed change to the constitution lacked detail, but that is entirely in keeping with the constitution as a whole, it is a “high-level” document after all. The detail would have come in the legislation that enacted it, with plenty of public consultation and discussion in parliament, no different to any other legislation. In its final form it would have probably looked a lot like previous advisory bodies that we used to have, with the critical difference being that it could not be disbanded just because the government of the day didn’t like it.
which they already have through inner dialogue between their mobs and local governments.
False. They do not have constitutionally supported advocacy in parliament.
How this constitutional change would look or be enacted was not known and very vague
False, the precise change to the constitution was readily available.
there was widespread animosity from First Nations people about it being another ‘white-man’s decision’
False, yes it’s possible to find a First Nations person happy to have a whinge about their circumstances, but there was no wide spread animosity towards the voice amongst First Nations people.
It was never a vote about if you ‘like Aboriginal Australians or not’
Well, perhaps not, but it’s definitely a vote about whether you’re happy with the status quo.
Man, I didn’t know Australia was full of idiots. There was absolutely no reason to vote no to this. It was simply a group that would give feedback to the Australian Senate. Feedback from a marginalized group of the land you stole. Feedback that could simply be ignored by the Senate. It was simply giving that group a voice. How you could vote against that, I have no clue.
Makes me wonder if the Yes campaign was deliberately shit to achieve exactly that. Surely they knew that they could establish it anyway without constitutional support and prove that it worked and could be trusted before going for a full referendum.
They did not steal from these people, but from their several generations long dead ancestors.
I didn’t say anything contrary to this. I said “Feedback from a marginalized group of the land you stole.” which is absolutely true. A marginalized group owned the land. The majority group came in and marginalized them.
This law is differentiating people by their genotype.
The law already does that. Systemic racism exists. I encourage those to setup systems to reduce it and not support it.
If you thought the term “You” specifically meant the person posting the article, which hasn’t been active in this comment section at all, you absolutely need to get better at reading comprehension. There is the term the royal we, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_we. Royal us, Royal I, and Royal You all exist because of it. You in that place means the Australian government. No one else here has made this mistake and no one else is speaking like I accused OP or the modern Australian people of actively stealing land.
Did you not see the parenthetical I put in that sentence? It specifically covers all of this. You wasted a paragraph complaining about something that was already addressed, and then completely ignored the actual question that is relevant.
I'll repeat it, in a simpler and more general form so you can hopefully understand it better. How old are the people you're accusing of being land thieves?
The original people who stole the land are dead. Age is irrelevant to that discussion. People who benefit from the crimes of the past are still alive. Since it was racially motivated and successful, we’ve seen a lot of attempts in many countries to try to repair this damage to the culture.
So when you said "the land you stole" you were talking about dead people, not about anyone who is alive. There are no identifiable "thieves" any more.
The sins of the fathers should not be laid on their children. Helping people alive today who are disadvantaged is a fine goal, but trying to divvy those groups up on the basis of ethnicity or ancestry is simply repeating the original problem. You can ban discrimination, provide social programs, promote cultural enrichment and exchange, improve living conditions and economic opportunities for poor communities, without ever once having to make decisions on the basis of who's grandfathers belonged to which families and have what genetic profiles.
This is not "supporting systemic racism." It's the opposite.
The sins of the fathers should not be laid on their children. Helping people alive today who are disadvantaged is a fine goal
We have built an entire system based on the majority race and culture of the people who have stolen the land. That system is the systemic racism that is talked about. Giving a voice to that culture that has been taken from seems like a way to undo that systemic racism. To help understand where we’ve built racism systemically into our system.
trying to divvy those groups up on the basis of ethnicity or ancestry is simply repeating the original problem.
It is not at all. This is only true if you believe giving a voice is equal to giving over full control of the government. It’s not the case at all.
ever once having to make decisions on the basis of who’s grandfathers belonged to which families and have what genetic profiles.
Technically this is a culture of tribes rather than genetic profiles. So the entire committee could have been entirely white folks who were picked by the tribes to represent their culture. Has nothing to do with race or genetics. Assuming it did is like assuming Australians are all white.
We have this same issue in Canada. It seems the average person finds it completely acceptable to dismiss our First Nations peoples as “drunks” and “bums” and less than citizens.
Don’t forget the words of our leader of His Majesties Loyal Opposition, and possible future PM: “My view is that we need to engender the values of hard work and independence and self reliance. That’s the solution in the long run – more money will not solve it.”
He’s apologized since, but you as they say, you understand how someone truly feels the first time they say something, unfiltered.
In my opinion a racism is having different laws for people with different genetics/skin color. “Black is not allowed” is racism. The proposed law is actually the one doing exactly the same - it treats people differently according to their genetics. Why people think it is good - is beyond me.
The constitution currently allows for laws,to be specifically made about ATSI people. I didn’t see any of the people worried about inequality protesting that. Ever.
Yes, one can. You however were comparing comparison under laws, which is speaking about legalities. You were incorrect. Doubling down just makes it clear you are not discussing in good faith, but have been caught in a lie.
No, I do not know how you get this impression. Please reread my posts. I was talking about what laws should be for good society, not what can or can not be allowed legally.
Not specifically about ATSI people, but of any race. The 'races power' part of the Constitution (section 51(xxvi)) reads as follows:
Current text:
The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:
"the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws"
Original text:
The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:
"the people of any race, other than the aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws"
You think that this very specific constitutional amendment is the only way to "begin to address it?" You say it could begin to address it so it's clear you're not even sure of that.
There’s plenty of ways to address the problem – none of which the Liberal Party will ever implement or the “No” campaign will ever support.
You can feign all the indignation you want but at the end of the day, we know you won’t support any of those changes, just like you didn’t support the voice, nor even a token apology on behalf of the government for the inhumane things their predecessors did.
Want to prove you actually care? Campaign for a solution that isn’t “let’s just ignore the problem since it doesn’t impact me”, perhaps with the financial support of all of those “vote no” organisations that don’t exist at their registered addresses.
We both know there’s not a chance of that happening. You’ll just continue to pretend you have some standard that isn’t being met, rather than admitting that nothing ever will because you simply don’t want it to happen.
Because systemic racism already exists. Minorities all over the world are treated worse. The Indigenous people’s problems are ignored. “Just make equal laws” doesn’t happen. They are enforced differently.
Someone else said it perfectly “Sounds like you’re fine with it happening, you’re just not fine with it being written down”
If there is problem with enforcement the laws in different ways, then address that directly. Don’t create laws separating people by genetics. That’s the opposite to what equal society should have! Why would you help one poor person and will not help another poor person just because their genetics is different?
And I will ignore your “sounds like” comment as completely made up statement.
So instead of preventing the laws from being written in ways that will affect minorities disproportionally, correct the legal system for following the law and instead train them to follow the law in a different way than it was written. Got it, no way that will go wrong.
Also, this isn’t about poor people. The fact you equate indigenous people to poor people is extremely racist.
That isn’t a useful definition of racism. It’s sounds alright, although it’s ultimately idealistic, it doesn’t hold up when applying to material circumstances.
As for why people think having different rules for different groups is good, I think one of the simplest ways to sum it up is: Equality of treatment will not give equality of outcome until there is already equality of conditions. Treating all people the same isn’t fair in the real world.
As a thought-experiment to demonstrate: If we have two people, one has $200 savings after rent and the other has $10,000,000, you can’t make them more equal or make the money more distributed by treating them the same: if society wants to reduce poverty (which is obviously a good thing for society, to have less people in poverty), it makes some sense to supply the poorer of the two with money, but it makes no sense to supply the richer: they already have more money than 90% of people! There isn’t a moral or ethical benefit in giving them more money, they don’t need the money as much as others do, it’s not how to achieve fairness or equality.
The generalised point of that being, if a group is disadvantaged and the status quo is keeping them disadvantaged, solving that will require special treatment. Treating Indigenous people the same way as always just keeps the systemic racist status quo, and to solve that, the Government will inevitably have to treat Indigenous people differently. That’s a consequence of trying to create a more equal outcome in an unequal environment.
The same goes for other types of disadvantage, of course. I am obviously not trying to imply that all people who aren’t indigenous have all the advantage they need! Ultimately, everyone who is not a mega-multi-millionaire is disadvantaged, but we can’t fix that all in one change. We have to start somewhere.
No, it is not just racism. There would have been an element of that, but it’s certainly far from the main reason. That idea is contradicted by the facts that a very significant portion of Indigenous people and Indigenous activists voted against it.
Linking to this useful post, explaining why various progressive groups were against it.
I’d say apathy more than anything. So many people didn’t bother to actually find out what was going to happen. Yes side messaged it poorly. No side preyed on low information, making it divisive and about non relevant semantics.
Who stole the land, exactly? The last Census detailed that 28% of Australians were born outside Australia and 48% have a parent born overseas, so the population who could be traced back to "stealing land" is a small minority.
From the perspective of some in the older generations, Indigenous Australians were given a voice and representation in 1962 when they were given the option to enrol and vote in federal elections, the same as every other Australian.
From the perspective of some in the older generations, Indigenous Australians were given a voice and representation in 1962 when they were given the option to enrol and vote in federal elections, the same as every other Australian.
That’s just dishonest. The link you posted paints a much more grim picture.
The body of the government is supported by the people. Like, think of it this way. If I go to your house, claim it as my own, then sell it to other people. Is it your house or the other people’s house? The other people bought the house knowing the unresolved claims against ownership and bought it anyway. Are they complicit in stealing the house? What if the house wasn’t yours but technically your great grandparents but you’d still live there if it wasn’t for those people who stole or the supporters of the thieves.
Just being given a vote as a minority doesn’t mean their voice has been heard. You can see this sort of bias in Australian prisons: “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners accounted for 32% of all prisoners.” They are disproportionally imprisoned and it’s clear that systemic racism has put them in this position. So just getting a vote doesn’t matter when there are more people who hate your race of people than the population of your race able to vote. It means you’ll never gain anything in the system because racists will keep you down. Don’t support systemic racism.
Left-leaning voters in this very thread are oversimplifying in the exact way you’re accusing conservative bigots of doing. It’s the state of politics, not the political positions that are the problem. I try not to look at politics in such a polarised way because it adds to the problem.
You’ve actually explained one of the reasons many Indigenous people rejected this: it is just feedback that could simply be ignored by the Senate. That’s powerless, and we’ve seen from royal commissions into Aboriginal deaths in custody that the feedback does get ignored. Why accept such a bad deal, pretending it’s a victory or progress?
Just gonna quote my other comment about this video
I hadn’t heard of the Black Peoples Union before.
I would caution “progressive no’s”, closet racists, and staunch conservatives from aligning with this idiot.
Their list of demands includes a few odd statements:
We also do not acknowledge a treaty/ies as a solution to reconcile the historical and ongoing issues faced by First Nations people. The goal of national and economic liberation will only be achieved once the capitalist and colonial social relations cease to exist in Australia. National liberation will always be an intrinsic part of the revolutionary struggle against capitalism, colonialism and imperialism.
… and some interesting demands:
The abolition of private property.
The return of all crown land and waters and all land and waters used as a primary resource to the custodianship of their rightful Indigenous owners.
The redirecting of taxes related to land and water usage and ownership paid by non-Indigenous homeowners to their relevant Indigenous Nation.
Old mate continuously refers to the voice as tokenistic, “there’s other advisory bodies” and “this one doesn’t even have any power” et cetera. I’m not aware of any other advisory bodies that were backed by the constitution with a clear mandate from the Australian people. Imagine a government ignoring the voice to parliament when the Australian populace has supported them.
This guy’s whole argument is “no compromise”. He wanted the referendum rejected, to galvanise first nations people to demand more. That’s not how modern democracy works in Australia.
It’s also very frustrating that he happily perpetuates the misunderstanding that he somehow speaks for First Nations people generally. That’s pretty fucked IMO.
I saw this stance and I still don’t know why you wouldn’t want a position to give you more of a platform. It’s still progress to give minority groups a larger platform than they had before.
Everybody should have the same right to be heard. Different people having different rights to be heard, based on their race, is absolutely objectionable. And racist.
I feel like you say that without the context of anything. In isolation what you say might be true but within context it’s just fairly clear to see why you’d get a minority group committee of advisers to be more widely heard. “Different rights to different people” is literally how the world works. If you want to pretend that majority bias doesn’t exist then so be it, I can’t change your support for systemic racism.
When you choose to use the expression "absolutely no reason", it is trivially easy to disprove your claim. My argument is one of them, and it is a valid reason to vote no. Your further arguments are valid reasons to vote "yes", and their pros and cons may or may not outweigh each other.
But you are verifiably wrong to claim that there are no reasons to vote no. Opposing race-based legislation in all its forms is a very valid position, and the only non-racist position possible to take in this.
Sorry, I figured you wouldn’t be pedantic. I clearly meant no valid reason that I see to vote no. Racism and support of systemic racism is a reason, you are right. Go get your internet pedantic star.
Grow the fuck up. You are the one arguing for race-based legislation. That makes you the racist. Every human has the right to be equal in the eyes of the law. There simply cannot be an excuse for having tests based on genetics that lead to different rights in a society. That's just purely despicable in every way.
There is Equality, Equity, and Justice. I highly recommend reading about why you should go for Justice rather than Equality. Also, this law would have nothing based on race or genetics. It was based on what the tribes, which are organization bodies like the Australian government, would put in the committee. It’s fairly racist to assume that indigenous committee representatives have to be of indigenous genetics in this day and age.
If one “race” (which isn’t a scientific term and its use in the US is dated and itself racist) is treated differently from another, regardless of which group is perceived to be treated favourably or unfavourably, such a situation can legitimately be described as racist.
Not according to the definition, to wit: prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.
Racism is by definition negative treatment, not different treatment. Putting darker make up on a black actor is not racist. Giving women breast cancer screening is not sexist.
Currently, the Australian constitution allows for different races or people to be treated differently. In practice, this has meant laws targeting ATSI people. The voice was a proposal, from consultation over many years within their community to have a say in any proposed law. It gives minimal power, just a voice to be heard. It’s part of the Uluṟu process, which is guided by the Uluṟu statement.
Racism is treating one group negatively, based on race, as per the definition above. This was an attempt to start a process to right historical racist wrongs and lead a path to true equality together. Quite the opposite of racism.
Screeching about misplaced racism doesn’t make you factually correct or morally correct.
“Tests based on genetics that lead to different rights”. Again, that sounds alot like the constitutional rights granted to just one family line as head of state. And that genetic line didn’t come from Australia. So which race of humans have primacy in australian law?
Sure but then we must acknowledge one of those unacceptable things is reality, and the other which could have added some equality and balance was rejected, leaving the constitution favoured to one group of people, as society has been structured.
That is entirely irrelevant. "The king exists, therefore the constitution should give different rights to regular people based on their race". Disgusting argument.
Im pointing out the hypocrisy, not providing an endorsement of monarchy. The Australian constitution has an original sin baked in, so pretending it’s a sacred document and not already a biased setup is naive.
Nobody is proving an endorsement of monarchy. You're using monarchy as an argument for adding (additional) racism to the constitution. It's a fucking stupid argument. "One thing is bad, therefore it is not a problem to make other things worse too."
If something has a flaw (monarchy) that's not a reason to make it worse (enshrine racially based representation).
There was absolutely no reason to vote no to this.
Of course there was. Enshrining different rights to different people in the constitution based on their race, is fundamentally objectionable.
Your words. I’m simply pointing out the hypocrisy nothing further. The constitution is already in the state you say is fundamentally objectionable, it is not a neutral, equal set of laws. But you draw the line here, when advantage is already enshrined one way. Funny that.
You’re pretty rude and divisive in your comments here, you can take negativity too far you know.
For the love of democracy let’s not fuck that one up again next time it comes around. Based on yesterday the next PM may well be one of our most evil statesmen around. I think the ARM is planning for a 2027 republican referendum… please let’s not elect a skilled reactionary to lead our country when the time comes.
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