cont'd ...

How would you feel if we were invaded from Asia
and all our rights were denied?

Interesting question?

Foxy,

Generally, treaties are negotiated to resolve a violent conflict. Putting something in place just because others have done so long ago is at best a specious argument.

Secondly, considering that the last effort to provide a council to give an indigenous voice collapsed because of mismanagement and infighting, to cement this into the constitution without showing how it could work seems foolhardy as a cock up is bad enough without having to live with it forever.

Finally, either the indigenous voice has an advisory capacity only with no effect on legislation, or it has powers to effect legislation and risks becoming a body of rent seekers with privilege entrenched based on race.

How would you feel if we were invaded from Asia
and all our rights were denied?

You mean like Pauline Hanson's concerns ?

SM,

Do you know what is being asked in the Uluru
Statement?

Our constitution - our founding documents -
must reflect what came before: it muse acknowledge
the place of the First Peoples.

Others have described it as our nation's rule book.
It is a rule book that still caries the illegitimacy
and stain of race, so it surely needs amendment.

This land's First Peoples have felt the sting of
exclusion and discrimination. It is the challenge
of a nation to rise above its past.

Can our constitution meet the aspirations of those
locked out at the nation's birth? Will the First
Peoples be given full voice to shape their destinies
and complete their union with their fellow
Australians?

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have
consistently fought to have their rights recognised
and acknowledged by the Australian government and
Australian people. Throughout Australia's history,
many Australians have supported them in these
struggles.

It is upon this historical foundation that Australians
are now realising the need for constitutional change to
address the lack of recognition and exclusion of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in our
nation's birth certificate.

At the federal level bipartisan support for amending
the Australian Constitution in this regard has been
maintained since 2007. Bipartisan support was
reaffirmed by both major parties as election commitments
in the federal election held in August 2010.

"How would you feel if we were invaded from Asia
and all our rights were denied?"

As I said elsewhere, learn Mandarin in preparation.

cont'd ...

SM,

It seems that you are trying to assert that formal
Indigenous inclusion in Australia's Constitution
somehow equals Indigenous separatism. But the leap
from constitutional inclusion to constitutional
separatism, and separate Indigenous sovereignty, is
unpersuasive.

You appear to be unclear about what "sovereignty"
entails. Your simplistic notion of sovereignty -
sovereignty in the interational sense - is generally
achieved through force. It is fought out in the political
realm, often through conflict.

Equally implausible is the idea that separate Indigenous
sovereignty might be established through a legal loophole
or unintended consequences arising out of an amendment to
the Constitution (an amendment that will need to be approved
by a double majority of Australian voters, not to mention the
majority of politicians and their legal advisers).

The suggestion that the sovereignty of the Commonwealth of
Australia could be impinged upon or divided by
anything less than military force is fanciful.

Constitutional conservatives support the proposal for a
First Nations voice precisely because it respects
parliamentary and Crown sovereignty and upholds the
Constitution. The Uluru majority consensus adopted an
inclusive understanding.

At Uluru the delegates adopted an inclusive approach.
Therefore your concerns are out of touch.