SM,

When the Australian Constitution was being drafted
Áboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
were excluded from the discussions concerning the
creation of a new nation to be situated on their
ancestral lands and territories.

The Australian Constitution also expressly discriminated
against Aboriginal and Torres Strait peoples.
The Australian Constitution did not - and still does
not make adequate provision for Australia's First
peoples.

It's upon this historical foundation that Australians are
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 and as I stated earlier -
at the federal level bipartisan support for amending the
Australian Constitution in this regard has been maintained
since 2007. Bipartisan support was re-affirmed by both
major parties as election commitments in the federal
election held in August 2010.

Foxy,

I wonder what you really think or believe in, rather than just quote Google material uncritically. The Constitution doesn't mention any group, ethnic, religious or otherwise.

Discriminatory clauses were removed (with the support of all State and Federal governments) on the vote of 91 % of Australians at the 1967 Referendum. So you want to insert special clauses now ? You want a treaty although you don't know what might be in it ? [An echo of Shorten's statement in 'support' for Gillard]. You support a 'Voice' although, similarly, you don't know (or seem to care) how it may be operationalised ? You talk of sovereignty without any notion of what it may mean, except some flowery waffle ?

The best service anybody can do for to the Indigenous Cause right now is to subject any and all such suggestions to the most rigorous scrutiny. The truth, or more specifically what is claimed to be the truth, always needs scrutiny, after all: just as in criminal law, one is presumed innocent until proven guilty, any assertions about the best way forward must remain UNproven until they are tested, analysed and proven to be valid and feasible.

Many of us whites are terrified of being called racist if we disagree with some Aboriginal point of view (of which there are very many). So some of us lurch the other way and never, never criticise or analyse or assess any assertions of the best way forward. But ask any engineer or architect: should they, out of fear of offending a building designer, accept his assessment uncritically ? Ask any teacher: should kids not be tested out of fear of offending them and their snowplough parents ? Cui bono, Foxy ?

The best thing we can do, always, is honestly and fearlessly critique proposals, such as treaty, voice, nation, sovereignty, etc. Otherwise dreadful mistakes can occur, and if uncorrected early, the racists can eventually win.

Joe

Foxy,

What you say is only half true. There is bipartisan support for amending the constitution to remove any existing discriminatory elements and for giving the first peoples recognition in the preamble of the constitution, however, there is far from bipartisan support for adding a racially discriminatory "voice" in parliament.

Without bipartisan support any referendum is doomed.

Joe,

I see no point in repeating what I've written
or giving you the links already listed in
this discussion. You've regarded both my
views and the links as BS. You've called me
arrogant, ignorant, my links as being "kids"
links, and so on.

You appear to get emotional and are not prepared
to take on anything on board or look at any other
viewpoint apart from what agrees with your own.
Your reference to the "truth" appears to refer
to only your truth. Your views appear to reflect
only those of the colonists and " protectors."
Hell, you've even had a book published on the subject.

I'll leave you to your truth. I prefer to stay
with the facts.

SM,

You need to ask yourself the question -

" Would a First Nations voice in the Constitution
divide our nation by "race" and undermine the
principle of equality? Or would it create a more
complete Commonwealth: addressing injustices of the
past and bringing the three parts of our nation - our
ancient Indigenous heritage, our British institutional
inheritance, and the multicultural character of our
society - into deeper accord?"

Some people reject constitutional recognition on the
grounds that the reforms would create division, disunity,
and inequality in our otherwise "fair and equal"
constitution. I find these objections self-contradictory
and factually incorrect as I've stated in this discussion.

However, I stated to Joe, I don't intend to once again
argue with anyone. I've had my say. I see no point in
repeating the arguments.

Have a nice day.

Hi Banjo,

I've read Bourke's Proclamation now, but cannot see any mention of, or use of the term, 'Terra nullius'.

Is that it ? Land law is complicated - words like possession, occupation, use, ownership, vacant, rights, etc. have very specific meanings to lawyers, which often seem to contradict how they are used in everyday speech. Someone can occupy land without possessing it - renters and lessees, for example. In some cases, occupation and possession can be challenged - in cases of adverse possession, for example. Land can be technically vacant (i.e. of ownership, itself a very complex term) while well and truly in use.

So you can't really just infer from certain words that Bourke, or anybody else it seems, meant 'terra nullius' in the legal sense. He didn't use the term and my point is that perhaps nobody else did before Blackburn in the Milirrpum v Nabalco case in 1971. In fact, I'm not sure if the learned judges in Mabo 1992 used the actual term.

So is the use of the 'terra nullius' myth ........ a myth ?

Joe

Foxy.

This is the point: that what you call' facts' certainly may not be: the grounds for any claim have to be set out and able to be critiqued and analysed.

I'm not going to waste my time with arguments about Aboriginal farming if the definition of 'farming' is bent out of recognition. And I'm not wasting my time on idiotic claims with not the slightest confirmable evidence to back them up.

'The world's first city' ? Where ? How ? Why ? It just popped up ? People said, "Hey, let's build a city !" "What's a city ?" "Technically, it's a conurbation of more than twenty thousand people." . "What's thousand ?" "Ten cubed, as we, the world's first and most sophisticated mathematicians, know." "Okay, how do we build a city, for no particular reason ?" "Ah. You've got me there. Bugger it, ets hunt a few bettong, there's 700 million of them here, after all."

'The world's first society'? All human societies have been societies, long before people left Africa. So, if anything, Africa most certainly hosted the world's first societies. There's something quite arrogant, even racist, about the attitude of some Aboriginal people to Africa and Africans, and certainly to their contribution to the world's social development.

Don't waste my time. Evidence, Foxy, not hearsay, or mis-definition.

Joe