"It's about recognizing them as the true custodians of this magnificent land."
C R A P. I don't need to read any more.

David

From the article: "Voting in the upcoming national referendum... is, in my view, a sacred responsibility for every Australian."

Well actually, its a legal responsibility. But the author seems to think its a sacred responsibility to vote as we've instructed by our 'betters' ie Yea. But in fact, its a sacred responsibility to vote for what the voter thinks is best for the nation, not what they've been told to do.

From the article: "Full credit is attributed to the Labor Government and the then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, who decisively abandoned the White Australia Policy in 1973,"

In fact, the White Australia Policy had already been dismembered by the preceding Menzies and Holt governments. Whitlam merely announced the symbolic end - as with most things concerning Whitlam, symbolism trumped actual good policy. Sadly, despite being completely wrong, this part of the article is its most accurate!

The article rushes to announce that Hanson and Dutton aren't playing nice on the Yes campaign. Somehow, it neglects to mention that Price and Mundine are also opposed to the procession the Yes campaigns thinks should be taking place.

If the Nays win, there's going to be some serious rending of garments to behold.

I don't see this as a sacred duty. But rather a method of giving a minority, superior rights to other Australians. And all but reverse apartied. Let's not play this game of playing a few off against others/poor white trash.

The past is a foreign country, and what some folks/governments did to other folks is hardly anything to do with those who came after! Let alone be asked to compensate for the actions of others/past governments.

The best thing we can do for all Australians is to give them a bill of irrevocable rights. And improve the lot of all Australians with a transition to nuclear energy that we the people own and control as MSR thorium.

There is only one constant in the universe and that is constant change. The first Australians hadn't changed for centuries and had change forced on them. And so had the Irish and the Scots.

Six million Muslims were slaughtered in the crusades. And millions of Jews in the Holocaust. And millions of Christians in wars fought for territory. Not unique to Australia and the first Australians.

Many voiceless Irish and Scots were slaughtered and ripped from their ancestral homelands and forced to relocate to all parts of the globe. Often as prisoners bound down in iron chains.
Alan B.

Voting in Australia is not some nonsensical "sacred duty": it is compulsory.

Indigenous people, all dead long ago, do not need acknowledging, nor were they "custodians" of this country. They did nothing to improve it, use it - they just kept it in the Stone Age.

Australia is no more their (modern aboriginal-identifiers) land than it is that of the last person to swear allegiance at a citizenship ceremony. The law says so. Australians are all equal under the law.

Albanese and yes voters do not want that equality to continue. They prefer inequality and division, properly identified as apartheid. That's the thing we used to refuse to play rugby with South Africa for, such high-minded people we once were.

High-mindedness, equality and a fair go for all are now under attack by a bunch of Marxist racists.

Multiculturalism is mentioned in this article, without the common-sense to realise that the Voice would make a mockery of that policy, which preaches equality of culture. Already, the 'multiculturals' are making murmurs about this contradiction of multiculturalism that the Albanese/white aboriginal Voice would be.

The Voice certainly would not be the "fair and equitable approach for every citizen" that the writer of this fantasy thinks it would be; it would be the dead opposite in fact.

The "heartfelt apology on behalf of the Australian Government" - not the Australian people, you will note - was a mere put up job by a egotistical politician, which many aborigines turned their backs on; a useless gesture that was never officially accepted or acknowledged by anyone, as far as I remember.

There will be no so-called reconciliation while there is no forgiveness or acceptance; and the Voice, if enough voters were stupid enough to endorse it, would only make matters worse - and more expensive!

Finally, this bloke loses all credibility by using the old "White extremist" epithet.

Nondisclosure of information.

Too frequent use of the throwaway insult "racist".

Politicians are being "tricky" when pushing the Voice.

They think that I am a mushroom.

I don't feel the Vibe!

I wonder if the extraordinary stoush in the past two days over what exactly is in the Statement from the Heart might be the final nail in the coffin of the Yes campaign.

Today’s Australian contains two fascinating articles, one from Professor Megan Davis arguing that there is only one Statement from the Heart, a single page document; and one from Peta Credlin, arguing that there are two versions – the familiar short one and a second, longer version, which includes a section called “our story” detailing an indigenous interpretation of Australia’s history since “invasion”.

Normally I’m no fan of Credlin, but the evidence she presents is compelling. There are several previous public comments from Professor Davis asserting that the Statement is not, in fact, only a one-page document; an email exchange with National Indigenous Australians Agency confirming that the longer version is the “Uluru Statement from the Heart – Long” (which surely suggests two versions, a long and a short one) and the papers from the National Convention in 2017, which clearly treat the longer version as a single document.

It is interesting to note that, for the time being at least, Wikipedia also lists “our story” as described as 'extracts from the Uluru Statement from the Heart’ in the final report.

Albanese has called these claims conspiracy theories, and tabled in parliament an AAP fact check purportedly debunking them. But while AAP correctly identified many items in the consultation documents published in March by the National Indigenous Australians Agency under Freedom of Information laws as reports of meeting and discussion not a “secret agenda”, document 14 in that release does appear to be a longer version of the Statement from the Heart.

https://www.niaa.gov.au/sites/default/files/foi-log/foi-2223-016.pdf