“Racial discrimination is illegal in Australia and a vote No would not be evidence of hostility to Aboriginal Australians but of a determination to reject race as a fundamental category of civic identity.” Greg Sheridan | The Australian
“Aborigines are Australian citizens, have equal rights, and at just over 3 per cent of the population receive approximately $30 billion a year in federal government support and benefits. As a result of the High Court Mabo decision, they also have extensive land rights to over 54 per cent of Australia’s land mass.” Dr Kevin Donnelly.
The Father of Federation, Henry Parkes said: ‘One People, One Destiny’
The Prime Minister’s meek suggestion that it is ‘polite’ politics to recognise one group of Australians representing 3.2 per cent of our population for additional benefits in our Constitution, ahead of all others, is discourteous and disingenuous to all Australians and flies in the face of existing international conventions. Kevin Byrne is a former Mayor of Cairns
As the historian and editor Keith Windschuttle has pointed out, the coming referendum should not be seen “merely as a sympathetic means of eroding the marginality of Indigenous people in remote communities but as a potential threat to Australia’s unique geographic and political status”. He says, in an article in last September’s Quadrant magazine, that the Indigenous activist class simply won’t accept their position as just another minority group in a diverse society – “its members want political power commensurate, not with their numbers in the population, but with the fact that they got here first”. To the activist class, he says, “closing the gap” has never really been about improving the lot of poor Aboriginal people but about re-establishing Indigenous people as the rightful possessors and titleholders to Australia.
As Windschuttle says, voters in the referendum should “recognise that its ultimate objective is the establishment of a politically separate race of people and the potential break up of Australia”. per PETA CREDLIN COLUMNIST FEBRUARY 9, 2023
“Rather than encourage agency and practical solutions to complex problems, it will only entrench a victimhood that sees any kind of embrace of modernity as fealty to the colonial oppressor.” Tanveer Ahmed, author and practising psychiatrist. Financial Review, Feb 20, 2023.
Former High Court, Justice Ian Callinan has foreshadowed that the Voice would give rise to a ‘decade or more of constitutional and administrative law litigation.”
What’s wrong with the proposed ‘Voice’?
It’s Unnecessary – all the declared aims can be achieved through legislation – there is no need to amend the Constitution.
Its Content is Defective – the proposed ‘Voice’ is far more likely to divide rather than unite Australians.
It’s Discriminatory – it differentiates between Australians based on their racial heritage. This may contravene current International and National Racial Discrimination Law but the matter is most complex and has not been clarified. It’s Got Other Legal Problems – the ‘Voice’ referendum question’s text is misleading and there is much debate about what the legal effect of the ‘Voice’ will be;
It’s a Deliberate Diversion – the ‘Voice’ is an unnecessary diversion from the most important issue at stake – the Closing the Gap for the most disadvantaged Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians;
It’s a Politicians’ and Academic Elite’s ‘Voice’ – the people, in general, haven’t had a say on what should or should not be included in the ‘Voice’;
It’s a Rush Job – we should not be including these words in our Constitution without more work and much more public consultation – so many details are yet to be defined;
It’s Part of a Political Game – while the Labor Party support the ‘Voice’ in Parliament, they will not provide their intended full details before the referendum and refuse to acknowledge the many concerns raised against it; JUST VOTE NO!
PLMO (The Australian Comments)
“The Voice is actually a second Voice, because like all other Australians, Aboriginals have a vote, so they already have one Voice like the rest of us, but no the activists want another bite at the cherry.” KM (The Australian – Comments 01.01.23)
Even proponents for the Yes vote have expressed serious concerns about the legal risk – a risk former justice Robert French acknowledged as genuine – wanted these powers limited to avoid the prospect of a New Zealand-style cogovernance developing based on the constitutional right which cannot be removed by Parliament.
Barrister Louise Clegg stated: “It is therefore fair to say without any histrionics that the model entrenches the politics of identity in a liberal democratic constitution. In all our history, and in all of the history of comparable liberal democracies, nothing even approaching the idea of a permanent, constitutionally entrenched advisory arm of government with jurisdiction over everything has even been contemplated, let alone seriously proposed. JANET ALBRECHTSEN, 6:49AM MARCH 14, 2023
Now, life is about both.A thinking life without feeling is sterile and pointless.
A feeling life without thinking is dangerous, impoverished and short.Our choice.Jimothy. Comments to the Editor: The Australian 20.07.23
It is interesting how a large number of small tribes in frequent warfare with one another can be described by some as “Nation.” – as if the tribes speaking different languages were somehow united, when they were actually fragmented. (Paul Hanson / Facebook comments 03.05.23)
Terence Cole, Judge and Royal Commissioner: “To achieve (these) objectives, it is necessary to split the Australian people permanently into two groups based solely on race … this is wrong in principle,” he said.”
Current Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay “said: The draft wording … inserts race into the Australian Constitution in a way that undermines the foundational human rights principles of equality and non-discrimination,” she wrote, “and creates constitutional uncertainty in terms of its interpretation and operation.”