Is there a decent write up somewhere about what the voice actually is? I've heard a lot of debate about it, I'd like to read an impartial write up about it.
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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It will be a government body to advise the government on aboriginal laws. The government will need to listen to them but does not need to follow their advice. The problem, many Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people say, is that there are programs and funds to help but they are often misdirected and end up wasted or they target things the communities don't need. The idea is to ensure their voice is heard when the government legislates about them.
It's pretty uncontroversial when you strip it back.
The government will need to listen to them but does not need to follow their advice
I'm almost certain I'm misunderstanding something, but this sounds like an aboriginal filibuster. If the government is 'required' to listen, and no time limit is spelled out in the amendment, could the voice be used to filibuster?
Parliament is able to legislate, like with literally everything in the constitution. Parliament could legislate that all pollies need to be holding a special duck blessed by the king's chief bum wiper to speak in the house if it wanted to.
Provided the constitutional requirements are fulfilled (there's a voice, they can make representations on indigenous issues) the precise nature of those representations, the composition of the voice etc are all a matter of legislation.
It's the same as every other constitutional requirement. The constitution provides minimum standards to meet and curtails certain powers, Parliament passes acts to fulfill those.
Sorry but you're not going to find a good impartial write up. Anyone who's impartial on this issue is ignorant of the facts. The issue is far too emotionally charged and important for anybody to possibly have no opinion if they understand the issue at hadn.
Here's my partial one:
- White people did some horrible shit when we settled in Australia.
- In some pockets of society those atrocities are still happening now.
- Not enough is being done about it.
Indigenous people (and any white person who's aware of the issues and has a shred of compassion) want more to be done to deal with the issue.
A joint effort by both the Liberal and Labor parties spent years asking the affected people what should be done, and considering the issue, and the number one thing those people asked for was a "Voice" or rather a dedicated group of people who's entire job is to recommend ways the government can improve things for indigenous Australians. The joint Liberal/Labor effort also produced a report recommending exactly the same thing. And that's what will happen if we vote Yes.
Indigenous Australians feel like nobody in the government listens when they talk. They want a Voice, and we should give them one.
It will cost almost nothing. There's no requirement for the government to act on the advice, the elected government of the day can make that decision on a case by case basis after seeing the recommendations. There is zero downside to voting Yes... other than acknowledging that atrocities have and are being committed which many Australians are unwilling to do.
How much it will help... well that's something we can debate. But mostly it will depend what government is in power when the recommendations are made The Voice. If Pauline Hanson is Prime Minister then, yeah, The Voice would be a waste of time. But she's not Prime Minister and touch wood she never will be. The worst possible outcome is a "Yes" vote won't achieve the sated goals, and then we'll just continue life as we are.
Voting No, on the other hand, will absolutely make things worse. That will significantly divide and anger indigenous people. There's going to be years of civil unrest and burned bridges all over the place if we vote No.
So:
- Voting Yes - costs nothing and won't do any harm and it might do some good.
- Voting No - will be a fucking disaster.
Which one of those would you prefer?
Despite the author lambasting the ignorance behind the "don't know, vote no" messaging (rightly so), there's no actual explanation of what a "vote yes" accomplishes. I would love to vote yes but I haven't been able to find any resource on what it meaningfully accomplishes.
what do you want to know? it hasn't happened yet so we don't know what the precise outcome will be.
constitutionally what is accomplishes is enshrining in the constitution a body called the voice which has the right to address Parliament on matters relating to aboriginal and Torres straight islander people.
what this stops governments doing is disbanding advisory councils etc which they have done repeatedly.
The statement from the heart (https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement/view-the-statement/) specifically requests it. you can read about what they hope it to accomplish here: https://ulurustatement.org/the-voice/what-is-the-voice/
What have you googled and found unsatisfactory?
That website us exactly what I'm talking about. It lists all these great things but if you actually look at the wording of the actual referendum it doesn't include the majority of these points.
I'm looking over your replies and I'm feeling very confused. Something I wonder is if you are expecting constitutional changes to be more specific than they are.
I'm sure like most sane Australians you haven't actually read the constitution. It's not exactly particularly relevant to most if us. Let's have a look at it now though to get an idea of how it's worded. For example, lets look at provisions on electing senators, that seems important!
- Method of election of senators
The Parliament of the Commonwealth may make laws prescribing the method of choosing senators, but so that the method shall be uniform for all the States. Subject to any such law, the Parliament of each State may make laws prescribing the method of choosing the senators for that State.
Huh... that seems vague? now there's a little more there interspersed between a few sections laying out the 6 year term and elections as an entire state but that's pretty much it.
Crucially this isn't about laying out exactly how it should be carried out because things change, it's about laying out what the government can and can't do in broad strokes.
Now imagine we didn't have that section "shall be uniform for all the States" and we're holding a referendum over it. The text of the referendum would just be like "should blah section be ammended to add 'shall be uniform for all the States' yes or no?"
The yes side would be making grand proclaimations about equality, fairer society, less vulnerability to governments dominated by party members from one state with rivals in another etc. There are no concrete details yet about how elections will change etc, just that they'll have to be fairer.
That's kinda what we're looking at with the voice. The broad strokes are vague because times change and needs change, but what doesn't change is that people need to be heard if they're going to be respected and helped. We haven't been hearing the indigenous people very well, sometimes deliberately maliciously as when bodies are abolished, sometimes because people were just massively wrong about who knew best.
The yes campaign is saying "look at all this good stuff that'll happen" because it'll mean there's a requirement for there to be a body which can't be completely ignored or abolished, and that'll force a record of what was said even if it's totally ignored which can help make people accountable.
I think that's a bit disingenuous because if you look at the page you link there's a lot more detail than just the excerpt you provided, including at the very top that they are voted upon by the people of the states. It has provisions for different cases as well.
The voice proposed change has none of this detail.
I would like to see some accountability included in the proposed change and I think that's why a lot of people are skeptical. The way it is now still leaves a lot of room for political sabotage at any future point as long as there is a "body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice" that exists. There is nothing in the amendment that even specifies who makes up this body, how many people, how they get chosen, term lengths, etc. These details are at least considered in our current constitution for senators.
It's not that any of this would make me vote no. I do support this type of cause and I'm glad that steps are being made. It's just that, as far as I can tell, there's no constitutional protection that would stop, say, PwC from being assigned the role of "the Voice".
Sorry, I was trying to focus specifically on the means by which they are elected. Not trying to mislead, I think there's parallel because like the voice just says it has to be a body and not how it's made up and senate elections more or less just say "you have to have them, figure out how".
So there's a lot of leeway in the constitution in general, like to my knowledge there's nothing stopping senate electing laws being like a 2 hour window in the state capital except that if a government tried to do that presumably they'd be challenged on either going against the intention of the constitution, established practiced, or worse case there would be revolts. There's a few risks to making something too specific, what if things change and you need to like have another referendum to say hire a new person?
It certainly is vulnerable to say appointing the board of PwC as the voice, except of course that's the status quo now (inasmuch as advisory bodies on indigenous affairs go) although nobody could argue that the government was going against the spirit of the constitution doing so. So this can really only be thought of as massively strengthening the situation we have now.
If we look at how divisive even this change is, you can imagine the sort of polemic criticism a more prescriptive change might apply. If the voice fails to be satisfactory and vulnerable to being hijacked then we can always go to referendum again, we wouldn't be worse off than we are now. Legislation is a lot more flexible, which is a weakness and a strength but in general keeping systems flexible helps us fix things and keep them relevant as times and goals change. If the people want this, then the people have an interest in it working correctly after all.
Excellent points. Thank you for putting in the time to discuss this with me. You, and others here have been invaluable to me. It's too hard to find quality information like these replies through searching. I'm the kind of person that likes to understand things in an extra level of detail so when I discuss things with people I can know what I'm talking about. Knowing only the bullet points makes it hard to back up opinions when talking to people of differing opinions.
You are welcome.
Hey, just a little nudge, if you’re keen to chat about the Voice to Parliament, we’ve got this corker of a megathread where we can all have a good chinwag in one spot. But if you’re not up for that, no worries, it’s business as usual. Gotta keep things fair dinkum!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
But a plaudit for David Marr's new book, Killing for Country, which documents his family's history as professional killers of Aborigines in NSW and Queensland in the mid-1800s, is that it is one you have to keep putting down.
The immediate horror of the story clashes horrendously with our image of ourselves, and with the lofty ambitions of those who oversaw federation, and the writing of our Constitution, as the former chief justice of the High Court, Robert French, observed in a speech to the National Press Club this week.
He quoted the then premier of Queensland, Samuel Griffith, observing that "there is no doubt that here, as everywhere, there will be timid men who are afraid of launching into something new; but when was ever a great thing achieved without risking something".
The willingness of some sections of the media to perpetuate misinformation, and of other sections of the media to get lost in attempts at false balance, has made nigh on impossible a reasonably rational debate about what a permanent advisory body to the parliament and executive, whose actual remit would be defined and controlled by the parliament, might mean both symbolically and practically to Indigenous Australians.
No campaigners regularly now rage about some mysterious bureaucracy which allegedly worthlessly chews up billions of dollars in wasted funding to Indigenous people.
The inaugural, government-appointed chair of the council — which sounds like it had a job pretty much identical to that proposed for the Voice — was another prominent No campaigner, Warren Mundine.
The original article contains 1,159 words, the summary contains 254 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
The immediate horror of the story clashes horrendously with our image of ourselves, and with the lofty ambitions of those who oversaw federation, and the writing of our Constitution, as the former chief justice of the High Court, Robert French, observed in a speech to the National Press Club this week.
Jfc has the man read nothing whatsoever on Australian history?
It clashes with the white armband view of history pushed by Howard and the like. I think he is speaking for the audience a bit not so much just himself.
Once they had to acknowledge that terra nullis was fiction ( and didn’t they fight against that - they are coming for your backyard - sound familiar?) it then transitioned to: A bit of push me shove you in the frontier, shit happens then they all died of diseases.
It’s uncomfortable to acknowledge than women and children were murdered while they were in their camps. You know, it’s not sporting or chipper. Tally Ho at least they have running water now you know?
The Voice is a small step in the right direction everyone voting has the chance to be on the forward looking positive path or just saying it’s all to hard let’s keep doing what’s failed in the past.
The truth telling process should have come first.
Maybe it didn’t have to if we had a government ready for the fight phrases like “History Wars” and “Great Australian Silence” should have made bleedingly obvious was coming, but that’s not the government we have.
As it stands the emboldened and networked hard and far right off the back of a no vote may be a more urgent reason to vote yes than the institution at the heart of the matter. They will likely now pose a threat to the rights of far more Australians, well more than 50%.
First they came . . .
Yes is it hyperbole to mention that? I Don’t think so. You gotta have a real good look at who’s supporting No…
Pauline Hanson? Fatty McFuck Face? Cookers and conspiracy nuts? Literal fucking Nazies?
Maybe, just maybe if thinking about going to vote the same way as these dropkicks you should reevaluate. Have a look at the actual proposition. Despite the scare campaign its actually pretty simple.
It recognises our first people.
Parliament retains full legislative control. It’s an advisory board consisting of Indigenous Australians selected by the regions and communities to advise on legislation and matters that concern them.
It’s not an additional layer of bureaucracy. It’s a leadership body intended to short circuit the bureaucracy and get the information from the regions to the decision makers in government.
Every one voting now is making a conscious decision to take a step forward and try to heal.
Yes I see you. Yes I hear you and want to listen
Or
No I don’t see you No I don’t hear you and I don’t want to listen.
If it is not an additional layer of bureaucracy, where I can find information that explains which minister or government body that the Voice will make representations towards? Will it direct representation to the existing NIAA or will it replace this government agency?
When explaining the concept to my parents and grandparents, it has been challenging to convince them that this is not just ATSIC 2.0. Their concerns are that the corruption that occurred within that former organisation will be harder to control as the organisation would now have a constitutional shield to protect against criticism or accountability.