Dear Foxy,

Thank you.

Yes an inspiring song for an inspiring occasion. By all accounts Farnham is a decent bloke doing a decent think for a decent cause.

BUT, Steele and Foxy,

Where's the bloody MONEY, the MONEY I say! Is there anything in life more important than MONEY? Surely not, look how the Forum's Old Men count every thing in dollar and cents, no one is doing anything for anyone else unless they are rewarded, nah! unless there is a profit in it for them!

Except, for Indy whose been attached to the taxpayer teat for 50 years, and I suspect most of the old fellas here are on some kind of taxpayer funded welfare as well.

Dear Steele and Paul,

I was so happy to learn of Farnham's giving the famous
song to the YES campaign. It was a decent thing to do.

Accusations thrown at the Voice of it being racist is
not only disingenuous but wrong. It's always been that
marginalised groups sometimes require unique representation.
Creating an Indigenous Voice to Parliament is not racist or
inequitable. On the contrary, it presents an opportunity
for Australians to address and overcome racism and
discrimination.

Denying Indigenous Australians will only serve to
maintain racial inequality and continue the marginalisation
and discrimination of our First Nations people.
We can't keep making decisions for them and telling them
how they should live. We need to listen to what will work
in their communities. Not what we think is best for them.

The Austral;ian Constitution already includes several
provisions about race one of which gives parliament the
power to make laws for people on racial grounds. This
is often referred to as the race power
and Australia is the only country that has
empowered its federal parliament to make
laws based on race.

I watched Q and A last night. It upset me as to how much
misinformation is out there on what the Voice is and how
it will work. No wonder some people fall for these
falsehoods. I hope that people will do their homework
prior to the Referendum - and learn what the Voice
actually is, and how it will work, and why it is necessary
because what has been tried so far with our First Nations
people has not, and is not working.

Such a simple modest request from our First Nations people
and yet so much is being done to muddy the waters.
I only hope the attempts to muddy will fail - just as it
did with same-sex marriage And that in the future we will
all wonder what all this fuss was all about.

This entire issue has really made me think about
which side of politics I should support in future.
Should it be politicians with a heart, or politicians
who on issues which require radical solutions that
are likely in their minds to harm vested economic
and political interests?

Should we support politicians who look upon new ideas,
instead of being welcomed for the opportunities they
opened up for the improvement of the human lot are seen
as a threat to them who've become comfortable in their
ideologies.

Something to think about. Heart versus power grabs
and cash registers?

" It upset me as to how much misinformation is out there on what the Voice is and how it will work."

Information you don't want to be true isn't the same as misinformation.

The problem for the government (or at least one of many problems) is that they refused to provide the detail as to how all this would work and its impacts. We all know why they refused - because if they told the people the truth about how the Voice would operate, it'd be lucky to get even a quarter of the vote. Even when detail is provide such as with the Statement from the Heart (the full statement) they tried to hide it.

The latest Newspoll is a disaster for the government....Yes 38%, No 53%. We all know polls ain't what they used to be, but numbers like this are way outside the margin of error. Additionally, it seems this whole fraught referendum is dragging the overall government vote down with Labor trailing Lib on primary vote and Albo's approval rating now under 50%.

All of that will probably reverse after 14/10 and the government can put the project behind them. But the judgement of Albo and his senior people will forever be a little more questionable.

An apt description of Opposition leader Peter
Dutton's modus operandi is to "let off a lot of
hot air and then set fire to it in order to
gaslight the nation." This is one description
doing the rounds on the web.

It is not just the parliamentary kabuki. It is the
misinformation designed to harden the nation's heart
aided by falsehoods bestowed by a media mistaking
balance for context and further amplified by
divisive media platforms.

It is the very determined concerted efforts to sow
confusion and doubt in the minds of voters.
This is soiling our public square.

We get wild and wacky replies from some when asked
to justify their voting no. Things like:
You'll have to pay to go to the beach and national
parks. That First Nations people will get cheap
sport and music tickets. The scope is unlimited.

As we learned in Covid, you can only really
understand how infected a community is when you
test the water in the sewer.

This focus on what the Voice is not
actually drags attention from what should be the
main goal - showing how this change will make a big
practical difference.

No wonder our current Prime Minister has distanced
himself from this political game p-laying and is
focused on the positivity of the referendum.