In his email to supporters this week, Senator Cory Bernadi refers to the information broadcast since the Recognition get together at Uluru, which has exposed some alarming information for people concerned about possible race-based changes to our Constitution.

He believes that Australian politicians who said that they 'would sweat blood' to make the referendum succeed should now be eating their words, as should corporate backers like the AFL.

“No one should write a blank cheque for anything. No one should endorse constitutional change without knowing exactly what we are agreeing to”. And as “Even the parliamentary committee looking into the matter couldn't agree on the path forward....what chance do the general public have of achieving consensus”.

The Uluru meeting “demanded treaties and what is effectively an aboriginal-only parliament".

The Senator said of that: “It is as if the people behind this process actually want any referendum to fail so that they can continue guilt-tripping non-indigenous people over Indigenous welfare”.

“What has happened in the past is not our responsibility”, he writes. What is our responsibility is to question the “tens of billions of taxpayer dollars spent on aboriginal communities with “virtually nil effect on health, domestic violence, education and wellbeing outcomes”.

Senator Bernardi believes that we “need to deal with the issues of today, not continually revisit the problems of the past”.....”a forward-focused, unified nation will reject any division of our society according to race, creed or colour”.

EXACTLY!
”.....”a forward-focused, unified nation will reject any division of our society according to race, creed or colour”.

Otherwise we have a government divided, focused on race and culture

What is there in 'Recognition' for non-elite indigenous Australians?

Question asked by Julia Patrick in The Spectator of 11/5/17 - “...what do activists, both white and indigenous, want 'recognition' to do for them?”

We all know what the elites want; power, privilege and land. But what about your average Australian with indigenous ancestory: the 80% living lives pretty similar to those the rest of us live in cities and towns? Not the ones who the Big Men in camps speak for. We'll never know what they think – they don't get a look in, and probably don't understand or care what is going on.

Patrick has come up with one 'reason' for changing our perfectly adequate Constitution: a need for a “clear statement” (in the Constitution) “that indigenous people can share in every opportunity (on offer)”.

She naturally responds to that one with, “What opportunities are they missing out on now”?
I cannot think of any. Perhaps the 'recognisers' among us could come up with answer?

I will be voting NO to this racist BS, and I hope the silent majority will do the same.

Hi Ttbn,

I suppose the question is: do we want one inclusive, integrating society, or should we support some open-ended process of disintegration, exclusion and separatism ? Didn't they try that in South Africa ? Gosh, I wonder if the Indigenous elites are dimly aware of how that turned out. Nah.

Sooner or later, we're going to have to deal with the issue of 'sovereignty': what does it mean ? More pointedly, what does it mean for Indigenous people who have been living off the labour of others now for more than two hundred years, and for those Indigenous working people who have been dipping in and out of 'western' society for as long ?

In the olden days, if somebody took something, food, money, etc., from a 'sovereign', by doing so they acknowledged that sovereignty, and surrendered any of their own. In India, they used to talk about 'taking the King's shilling' or 'taking the King's salt', i.e. ceding sovereignty.

So what on earth do 'radicals' mean by 'sovereignty' ? That, regardless of how much some people have been taking from the Australian taxpayer - thirty billion a year can buy quite a bit of 'salt' - somehow, 'something' (they call it 'sovereignty' but a better term might be simply 'identity') will, remain undiminished.

I think they are on one of those idiotic logical loops which get people further and further up the creek: i.e. if your initial assumptions are off-track, then all your conclusions are going to be even more so. They can lead to complete and crazy dead-ends. If the notion of 'sovereignty' is pushed to its ultimate, it clearly leads through Treaty and a separate Indigenous-controlled State, to pushing for a separate country. [See ref. to South Africa, above].

As pointed out above, what rights DON'T Indigenous people have now ? Come to think of it, nobody, no 'special group', no 'nation' per se, is mentioned in the Constitution as far as I know. To that extent, it's a completely non-racial, non-racist, document already.

Cheers,

Joe

Dear ttbn,

The following link is worth a read:

http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/selfdetermination/aboriginal-sovereignty-in-australia#axzz4icknZz3f

Thanks, Foxy. Sorry, which end does one suck at again ?