Dear Foxy,

By all means, have a referendum to get rid of those archaic and obscure (and more or less inoperable) clauses in the Constitution. Then we can move on.

I'm all for a Yes vote in any referendum, provided the proponents can persuade me that I should vote Yes.

Mention in a Preamble to the Constitution: yes, depending how it's worded.

But somebody mentioned a Treaty: what, a blank bit of paper that can be filled in later ? That binds all Australians ? No. Give us all something to vote for or against. How can anybody in their right mind approve a clauseless 'Treaty' ? And how can a 'Treaty' come AFTER everything has more or less been settled in terms of equal rights ?

Similarly a referendum on a 'Voice': Indigenous people all have voices, their own, and those of five thousand organisations, many parliamentarians, etc., etc., etc. Give me a reason, just one, why there should be a special right for one group of people against the rest.

There are very serious problems out in remote communities and elsewhere: when these are resolved by the people involved themselves, since they are intelligent people like anybody else, and the problems of violence, neglect, drug and grog abuse, etc., (with life expectancy often barely half the national average: short, violent AND boring, meaningless lives) have been mainly created and maintained by the people themselves, I'll wait until all of that has been cleared up before I lift a finger on any Referendum.

Joe

Foxy,
"The only way we can change the
Constitution is if a majority of voters in a majority of
states vote YES at a Referendum. I'm sure that the
majority of Australians would. The same as they did
for same sex marriage."

Now you are rewriting history;
There was no referendum on same sex marriage, the proponents thereof were terrified of a referendum, so we had an expensive opinion poll instead.

Dear Joe,

The Australian Government honoured Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people as the "oldest
continuing cultures in human history" in the
national apology to the Stolen Generations.
Yet the nation's founding document does not mention
Australia's Indigenous people.

The story of our nation is incomplete because our
Constitution, described by the Australian Government
as the "birth certificate of our nation" is
silent on the histories of the people who inhabited this
continent before European settlement.

When the Constitution was being drafted Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people were excluded from the
discussions concerning the creation of a new nation to
be situated on the Ancestral Lands and Waters.

The Constitution ignores the presence of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander peoples prior to
European settlement.

It is time for the Australian Constitution to reflect the
Australian identity and recognise our Indigenous history.

The Australian Constitution also permits the Commonwealth
parliament to validly enact laws that are racially
discriminatory and contemplates disqualifying people
from voting on the basis of their race (Section 25).
Section 51 allows laws to be made based upon a person's
race.

During the Referendum process the nation will be called
to answer whether these provisions reflect a modern
Australia.

Before we can ask our Indigenous people to accept
responsibility for their actions today - we need to accept
responsibility for our own. We need to correct the
wrongs of the past and not pretend they did not
happen. Several centuries have passed.
It is time to act in order to be able to move forward.
The past will not be buried until we do this.
Because it still exists today - and does not reflect modern Australia.

Is Mise,

You need to read what I actually wrote not what you think
I wrote. Do not put your words into my mouth.

Foxy,

""The only way we can change the
Constitution is if a majority of voters in a majority of
states vote YES at a Referendum. I'm sure that the
majority of Australians would. The same as they did
for same sex marriage."

There, I read it again and you are saying
"...vote YES at a referendum...The same as they did for same sex marriage.

They did not vote at a referendum for same sex marriage.

You should analyse what you write before pushing the button.

Dear Foxy,

All societies in the world have always had continuing culture - what on earth would a discontinuous culture even look like ?

Do you mean the oldest 'unchanging' culture ? I don't see much positive about that: it may well mean 'a culture which doesn't learn anything in changing circumstances'. And of course, all societies do learn in changing circumstances, otherwise they rapidly disappear.

Of course, Aboriginal culture has always been changing: people may not have been aware of change but it must have been happening. Droughts would have meant people left their areas, perhaps for decades or even hundreds of years, and had to sort of re-invent dreaming stories when their descendants eventually went back.

So, just like every other culture in the world, Aboriginal culture has been continuous AND changing. The common traditional feature of forgetting makes continuity that much more difficult, even after just a few generations.

I wish people would think through what fatuous assertions imply instead of accepting them uncritically, perhaps out of fear of seeming racist. Don't let that BS get in your way :)

Love,

Joe