Is there any evidence of "wide-consultations amongst the First Peoples over years"? Or, is it just another lie from megamouth media types and intellectuals convinced that they know everything about everything, and the rest of us should believe them.

To get even sillier than normal, this bloke describes as a "tragedy" that a majority of Australians had the intelligence and the desire to protect their Constitution and democracy without the help of a "national leadership".

The people make the decisions in a democracy, buster, not 'leaders'.

And there is no point in blaming Albanese, idiot though he is, when the people resoundingly voted NO. Chek Ling is just another elitist, with nothing in his background to suggest he knows anymore than average about anything except engineering, who thinks the hoi polloi doesn't have the sense to make up their own minds.

So out of touch is Chek Ling, that he thinks that the Liberal Party has been "purged of its moderates" (Leftists), when every man and his dog knows that had this happened, the Library Party would still be in government. A right of centre party is no place for Leftists.

As for the totally boring diatribes against Dutton - inevitably popping up here - they are just more crap suggesting that Dutton was the reason why the Voice was thrashed.

Dutton is just not that powerful. It was the power of the people that did it. A wonderful reassurance that the silent majority still exists, despite all the put downs and contempt from far- Left motor mouths.

And, the more people keep yapping about 'First Peoples' and the even more ridiculous 'First Nations' to describe a small minority which has largely assimilated into modern Australian, the more irritated the majority of Australians will become.

Details of consultations? Just read Prof Megan Davis's quarterly essay.
Dutton decided to Divide and Win. History was on his side.
Silent majority? Is it the same sort that perpetrated the killing of the Aboriginal peoples for "revenge, convenience and sport"? Read David Marr's Killing for Country, and you might be surprised.
Then again, I am reminded of my erstwhile Premier, Joh, who once uttered, "You can take a horse for a drink, but you can't make it water.

So here we have this blow in, who arrived after white folk had, with a lot of very hard work, built a prosperous successful society, to harvest for himself what had been built.

He now thinks a few years living here, & taking advantage of what we had built, gives him the right to criticise the fact we don't want to be ripped off any more than we are at present.

Perhaps in stead of preaching at us he could just say thanks for being allowed to hitch his well being to the work white Ozzies had done before his arrival.

I accept he put in a good level of work to achieve his status, the same as any aboriginal could have done, if they had bothered to do some school work themselves.

Thank you Chek Ling for your considered article.

I don't agree with all of it but appreciate the perspective.

I don't think Albanese did a great job of being the visionary needed to get the Voice over the line but I think he is the product of the toxicity of Howard, Abbott and especially Morrison.

I feel the country needs to be lead gently out the the morally bereft wasteland which has bedevilled LNP politics for a long while now. The country needs some healing time, to right its course, to become a nation we can be proud of.

Give it time.

Thank you Steele.
Let's hope that Albo will be in minority government after 2025, and that the Greens,Teals and Independents would band together to bring in a new era - Proportional Representation in the Lower House.

I cannot see any other way out of our quagmire.

way out of our quagmire,
Chek,
Crapping in your own nest sure is a quagmire ! The activists' rhetoric did that.
Judging by your posts you're activist friendly so, reflect on yourself too a bit !