.

Oups ! Something went wrong there !

Let's try this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsdvYbG3U_U&ab_channel=Chomsky%27sPhilosophy

.

There are several fatal problems with Albozo's "voice".

The first of which is that it is inherently racist,
The second is that the question posed in the referendum is a simple yes/no answer and provides no limitations on the scope of the voice.
The third reason is that Labor intends to require consultation with the voice at every level of government and every single decision law or regulation.
The fourth reason is that by all appearances the voice of every level of parliament will include the first stages of treaty negotiation and who knows reparations etc.

Dear Shadowminister,

I believe the main problem with the Voice referendum is it's paradoxical nature. I hear how the Voice is essential to empower indigenous communities to inform government and engage effective strategies to solve their problems, yet when I try to understand the specifics I am told that the problems of indigenous communities already have effective solutions, the Voice will have no power, and the government will have no obligation to take the advice given. Like the wonders of the quantum world, when you take a look in the box all you find is a dead cat.

.

Dear ttbn,

.

You wrote :

« The Voice is … prima facie racist … »

That's just a presupposition on your part, ttbn. The terms of the Voice referendum have not yet been published and probably won’t be until the ballot papers are in hand.

Though our constitution, as it stands, is clearly racist, I doubt very much that the terms of the projected referendum will also be racist.

The constitution gives the Federal Parliament power to make laws for “The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws”. Deemed necessary, that is, by the Parliament itself.

The argument for including such a provision in the Constitution was provided at the conventions that drafted the constitution by the then-leading political figure and proponent of a federated Australia in the colony of New South Wales, Sir Edmund Barton, later to become the first Prime Minister of Australia.

He told the Convention when it met in Melbourne in January 1898, “Questions which relate to the whole body of the people, to the purity of race, to the preservation of the racial character of the white population, are Commonwealth questions and should be so exclusively”.

Whereas, as I understand it, the objective of the Voice is simply to acknowledge our indigenous peoples in the constitution as having inhabited the country for over 65,000 years prior to the arrival of the British colonisers and pass legislation to allow them to have a say in the laws affecting them.

It has nothing to do with race, skin colour, religion/cosmology, culture, lifestyle, or any other aspect. It just has to do with who was here first and how long it took the others to get here and take over the country without bothering to ask the inhabitants if they agreed.

To quote the former MD of the Australian Christian Lobby who wrote in the conclusion of his article in The Australian :

« There is only one race, ultimately: the human race »

So there you go. He finally got it right.

And I couldn’t agree more.

.

"The Voice is an attempted Coup by a group of Australians who want to set-up an Aboriginal Aristocracy". (www.dark-emu-exposed.org) A soft-coup, not with guns and hard violence, "but with rhetoric, bullying and a low-information referendum."

"If the referendum (were to succeed), absolutely no legislation will be developed, proposed or enacted without The Voice Party having a default power to demand on being consulted by, engaged with, listened to ......"

Voice designer academic lawyer Megan Davis confirms that:

"The voice will be able to speak to all parts of the government, including the cabinet, ministers, public servants, and independent statutory offices and agencies – such as the Reserve Bank .....". (the parliament) "can’t shut the voice up”.

Dear Banjo,

So it is okay to grant democratic privilege retrospectively (over a century before federation) to Australian citizens descended from the native inhabitants on the basis that they were here first? What does that argument say for the democratic rights of recent migrants?

It may not seem like apartheid to you, but don't be so sure that the divine right of kings is more acceptable.