Australians have resoundingly rejected a proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in its constitution and establish a body to advise parliament on Indigenous issues.

Saturday’s voice to parliament referendum failed, with the defeat clear shortly after polls closed.

  • snippet@aussie.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    1 year ago

    There’s a good breakdown on the whole thing here: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/13/what-is-the-indigenous-voice-to-parliament-australia-when-referendum-2023-explained-yes-no-campaign-wording

    The recognition aspect was basically the creation of an advisory body to the government with members selected from indigenous groups. The idea being that the govt has historically poorly managed indigenous issues so by having them directly advising govt there should be better policy outcomes

    • Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      In retrospect they really should have set it up first and let it run for a bit before they tried to put it in the constitution.

      • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Yeah, but they didn’t have time for that in this election cycle. Fuck I hate it when progressives play the conservative handbook, follow fuck ups become fuck ups.

        Went for a slam dunk but didn’t tie their laces.

    • xad@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Oh dear, thanks for the link. I would have voted no, too. It does not sound like a great institution. (Although I’m German and reading about it for the first time rn, so…)

      From what I read in this article, I’m not even sure it would be properly democratic? Reads like a government advisory body which claims to represent the interests of a specific heritage - pretty strange.

      • Benj1B@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        The context is important here - Australia had a continuous indigenous population for over 60,000 years before white settlement. White Australia never had an agreement with indigenous peoples at large, and through relentless expansion of colonies, spreading diseases like smallpox, introducing alcohol and drugs, forcibly abducting and schooling children, heavy incarceration and a slew of other typical British colonial shit ended up leaving them disenfranchised, alienated, and excluded. Indigenous Australians prior to colonisation had a deep affinity with the land and tended it like custodians, but because they didn’t build towns or farm like Europeans, they were just swept aside without ever really being acknowledged or addressed.

        The Voice was asked for as a product of the Uluru Statement of the Heart - not long, worth a read- https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement/view-the-statement/

        It was really first and foremost about having an acknowledgement that maybe, just maybe, the settlers cocked things up and that it’d better to fix things together. It’s not asking for anything “more” or extra, it’s about correctly telling history and reframing our national dialogue to be coming from a place of partnership, instead of colonialism, so we could fix some of the very real issues modern Australians face as a result of hundreds of years of callous racism. It was a chance for white Australia and government to really listen and maybe find better ways of doing things.

        But now instead we get to try to explain to our kids why 60% of the country don’t think representation or inclusion matters while indigenous Australians will continue to struggle without a government that can listen to them.

        • xad@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          The context is important here - …

          Why would context be important here? Institutionally it is a bad idea, even if an indigenous population ten times as big would’ve been mistreated ten times worse. The hard question would be: How would anything happening in the past improve this specific policy proposal?

          It seems very lacking on a legitimacy level, appears to be functionally questionable and has evidently led to increased polarization prior to even being enacted.

          The Voice was asked for as a product of the Uluru Statement of the Heart - not long, worth a read- https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement/view-the-statement/

          I like that it’s very prosaic and well crafted. I don’t like that they fail to make the case how past and current tragedies relate to the specific proposal. There’s also no evidence, benchmarking or any other kind of reference indicating the expected performance of their proposed setup. I’ve yet to find a paper outlining how the “voice” is actually supposed to work.

          It was really first and foremost about having an acknowledgement that maybe, just maybe, the settlers cocked things up and that it’d better to fix things together. …

          That’s cool. Why didn’t they do two proposals, one with the acknowledgement the other one with the suspicious institution?

          … It’s not asking for anything “more” or extra …

          It’s asking for the creation of a permanent advisory body. Are we on the same page here?

          But now instead we get to try to explain to our kids why 60% of the country don’t think representation or inclusion matters while indigenous Australians will continue to struggle without a government that can listen to them.

          I do think representation and inclusion matter a lot and, as said, I’d strongly oppose this advisory body. Do you think it’s a black and white issue? One needs to like this specific thing or be a bad person?

          I don’t think that is a productive take on this referendum. There are certainly many loving and caring people on all sides of this referendum.

        • canuckkat@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          You are correct except for calling the white colonizers “settlers”.

          Settlers in this context typically means immigrants who came over after Australia became a British colony. Usually non-white but there are plenty of Scottish and Irish families who are settlers because of the whole British enslaving them part.