Some politicians have decided to do what is better for them and their re-election and position rather than what’s good for Australia. They think the smart thing to do is trash the whole idea of the Voice. Ego, power, position and privilege have nothing to do with the Voice. It has to do with Australian Continue reading »
Indigenous affairs
There is nothing that agitates some whitefellas more than an intelligent, articulate and charismatic blackfella. The emphasis the No Campaign is putting on Thomas Mayo is a classic example. Thomas Mayo attended the Uluru gathering and afterwards travelled the country visiting hundreds of communities to explain the Voice. At each he movingly recited from memory Continue reading »
In terms of the long-term survival of our species, the ritualisation of war the First Peoples of Australia achieved should be celebrated as a great advancement in human relationship. Rather than just celebrating the longevity and attachment to land of aboriginal people, we need to recognise that all their various cultures achieved one of the Continue reading »
Against the background of reconciliatory legal and political gestures from Canberra over the past 30 years, and in view of the Voice being proposed as an organic instrument ‘from the heart’ of Aboriginal Australia (rather than a top-down ‘advice’ – device of bureaucratic convenience), it may well be the game-changer everyone yearns for. I was Continue reading »
Defeat for the Voice referendum will reverberate internationally. Surviving suspicions about our racist past will be refreshed. It will come at the same time as our renewed embrace of our ‘forever friends’ in Britain and the United States and our growing enthusiasm for closer ties with NATO. Race is constantly referred to by both sides Continue reading »
By the time of the referendum on the Voice, No campaigners look likely to have turned it into a referendum on the Albanese government, and, probably into “wokeness.” It may be a tragedy if they do, whether for First Australians or the nation generally, because it will inevitably exacerbate divisions in the community. It is Continue reading »
The biggest risk to the success of the referendum on Aboriginal recognition is the Albanese government’s lack of resolution. It has strongly promoted the voice, successfully in parliament, but far less effectively within the broader community. There is a serious prospect that the various proponents of the No case will win by default, mostly because Continue reading »
While there are some – such as Major General Melick – concerned about not depicting warriors in the Frontier Wars, because they didn’t wear a uniform, in the Australian War Memorial, it is worth remembering how appalling the treatment of Indigenous veterans who did wear ‘the uniform’ over the last century or so were treated. Continue reading »
The Voice is beyond politics. It’s about reconciliation between two profoundly different cultures and approaches to life. Politics is important. Democracy wouldn’t exist without it. Engaging politically is how we manage a diverse and pluralist society with relative peace and respect. But there are moments in history when we have to go beyond politics. The Continue reading »
There is a widespread misconception that the powers given the Federal Parliament by the Australian Constitution may be altered only by referendum. Section 128 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1901 prescribes the mode of altering the Constitution and is premised on there being a proposed law for the alteration ‘passed by an absolute Continue reading »