Dear Banjo Paterson,

Tennant Creek can be a bleak place in more ways that one.

The last time I was there got talking to a local who was explaining the difference between it and Katherine.

Tennant Creek was a mining town and the 'rivers of grog' which accompanied the miners had a predictable impact on Indigenous people of the area. Race relations were always fraught but when the town council expanded the township boundaries to almost the size of the City on London to pre-empt the Mabo decision things deteriorated markedly.

Katherine on the other hand went in a different direction. Katherine Gorge was handed back to Indigenous management and other accommodations were made for Indigenous input into decisions in the area.

The differences in mindset are still evident on the ground today.

As to whom might object to an Indigenous lobby group Howard's reaction to ATSIC was pretty typical them and from what we have seen in the reaction to an advisory body is still typical now.

"John Howard stating that ‘the ATSIC legislation strikes at the heart of the unity of the Australian people’ and ‘if the Government wants to divide Australian against Australian, if it wants to create a black nation within the Australian nation, it should go ahead with its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) legislation and its treaty’."

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Dear SteeleRedux,

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I got it right this time !

You wrote :

1. « Tennant Creek was a mining town and the 'rivers of grog' which accompanied the miners had a predictable impact on Indigenous people of the area. »
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Yes, I think it must have had “a predictable impact” on my father too. He was digging up dirt looking for gold or precious stones or something. He died when his jeep rolled over on the Stuart Highway. I don’t know if he was heading north to Katherine or south to Devils Marbles.
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2. « Howard's reaction to ATSIC was pretty typical :

“The ATSIC legislation strikes at the heart of the unity of the Australian people … if the Government wants to divide Australian against Australian, if it wants to create a black nation within the Australian nation, it should go ahead with its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) legislation and its treaty’. »
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Apart from Howard's racist comment about creating “a black nation within the Australian nation” which I firmly condemn, I note with satisfaction our ex-prime minister’s reluctance to pass par treaty rather than statutory law.

As for the creation of a lobby as part of a plan B in the event of failure of the referendum, articles 2 and 5 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) apply and, to the best of my knowledge, there is nothing in the Australian law to prevent them :

UNDRIP Article 2 :

Indigenous peoples and individuals are free and equal to all other peoples and individuals and have the right to be free from any kind of discrimination, in the exercise of their rights, in particular that based on their indigenous origin or identity.

UNDRIP Article 5 :

Indigenous Peoples have the right to conserve and reinforce their own political, judicial, economic, social, and cultural institutions while at the same time maintaining their right to fully participate, if they wish to do so, in the political, economic, social, and cultural decisions of the State.

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Page 60 of this topic & we still have to contend with people who don't & never will put their money where their mouth is !

I watched another person of my own conservative anti-Voice ilk last night confidently predicting the failure of the race-based Voice. I'm not so confident.

Given the way that most Australians buckled under the totalitarian onslaught of Big Government, Big Pharma, and ignorant, lying CMOs during Covid, cowardice and stupidity could still win the day.

Australians are definitely not what they used to be.

I part company with those NO voters, including the Opposition Leader, who are jumping up and down claiming that the ballot paper is "rigged" because you have to actually write yes or no in the box.

If you put a tick or cross when it plainly says 'write' your decision, you are a bloody idiot. And the bollocks about people not understanding English is just that - bollocks.

There are a umpteen and one reasons why you should vote NO. A childish whinge like this is not one of them. Grow up. You too, Mr. Dutton.

I think that the Yes campaigners are doing more than enough to sink their own ship.

-Not answering questions

-Claiming a misinformation campaign by conspiracy theorists and racists

-Claiming that the Voice is the only way to solve problems, yet it wont have any power(?)

-The moron at the head of the Yes campaign

-The dodgy vote counting rules of the AEC

But perhaps the most telling indicator is that almost all Yes positive media pieces don't give the plebs the chance to comment, presumably because they don't want to give people a platform to present the many valid reasons to vote No.