What’s all that about, I hear you ask. Here’s an explainer. I sincerely hope that it is successful, but the polling does not look promising. Author Thomas Keneally looks at the tactics of the ‘No’ campaign. the small plea of First Nations people burns on: let us counsel you on what will work for us. In health, housing, schooling let us help ensure against waste and ill-aimed expensive policies that have no chance of working. And help us live as long as you. https://www.theguardian.com/comment...d-rockets-in-our-sky-we-must-not-go-saying-no
A little closer to home the Slovakian election result is further evidence that Europe is going t1ts up rapidly
So, a comment on Australia (and I stress I’m no expert, having spent only 3 weeks there, and about 20 years ago). I read a little about the Voice a few days ago. My first thought was it sounded like “wokery” at its finest. The BBC article about it which purportedly was explaining the situation to those of us not well versed in Aussie politics could hardly have been more naked in its support of the Voice. Nevertheless, despite a natural aversion to being told what to think by the BBC, I couldn’t help but feel that in principle and assuming it’s powers are reasonable (as in reasonably constrained), I fail to see why this small step would not be a good thing for ongoing attempts to improve the lot of Aboriginal communities down under, and for community relations there in general.
As I understand it, ‘The Voice’ is simply that, a voice that the Australian Parliament would be compelled to listen to. It would have no powers to pass laws, but once it has considered a law or Government initiative that directly affects indigenous people, it would require the Government to acknowledge its view. It might be awkward for the Government to ignore that view. It could consider issues like the mining of outback land, police powers or health services for indigenous communities. The indigenous peoples of Australia are in a bad way. Their life expectancy and health outcomes are awful. I visited Alice Springs a few years ago and some people were in a very bad way, with alcoholism and homelessness. Without me even wanting to enter into conversation, some people couldn’t wait to tell us of their hatred for them. There is no getting away from the reality that they are a colonised people marginalised by a society that has utterly subdued them. Democracy isn’t going to serve indigenous people well without tweaks. There will never be more than a handful of people in Parliament and they will never, collectively, wield enough political power to ensure the things that are done to and for them, on their land, will be right. This seems a subtle and elegant step towards achieving that.
As an Australian citizen I am totally in favour of the Voice. Many Australian aborigines have not adapted well to western democracy, partly through being excluded because of racism and partly because of their own cultural differences. The bottom line is that many now live in poor rural communities with many very specific issues including alcohol and other addictions. This is largely ignored by the large metropolitan Australian communities. If you walk around Sydney you rarely see aboriginals. Even the didgeridoo players down at Circular Quay are often white. It would be good, imho, for them to have a Voice that reminds Parliament of the needs of their constituents beyond the largely white non-indigenous city folk.
Sounds like we’re all in agreement here then - a good thing. Unfortunately if I hear rightly, there’s not much chance it will be passed. What happens next then? On a related note, just why have the indigenous people of Australia fared so terribly for so long? I visited New Zealand once too, in contrast the Māori people seem to do quite well there.
I very much doubt it will pass. The Murdoch press will have its way, scare and affront white society until it believes that an advisory voice to Parliament for one of the most marginalised peoples on Earth is some kind of undeserved privilege and detriment to their own rights. The Māoris and Australian indigenous people had very different cultures and experiences. In NZ there were always far more Māoris to colonists than in Aus. Māoris were also of paler skin and more settled, they farmed for example. Colonisation involves far clearer treaties and benefits for some Māoris. In the modern time, they have far more political power and can raise strong alliances with trade unions and others. In Australia, colonisation was a disaster for the indigenous peoples, an overwhelming body blow. Aboriginals were living as they had done for thousands of years. They had no capital, no sense of land or great desire for technology. They spoke a wide variety of languages and had no unifying nation to resist with. They were considered sub-human by thr colonisers, hunted, poisoned. Australia was initially a brutal place for colonisers and colonists alike. Now it’s unclear what their place is and many white Australians seem to resent them. Poor mental health and alcoholism magnifies that view. How to then move on? Cling to an old life that is not respected within Australia or try to assimilate, get a job at MacDonalds?
Don't be scared to use the "r" word. Racism towards Australian aboriginals has a long history and is still rife today. Even Darwin described them as primitive humans and their disappearance would simply be natural selection. There is no easy solution but the Voice would, imho, be a small step in the right direction. Unfortunately that appears too much for too many Australians.
'No' vote confirmed as the winner with only a tiny percentage of the votes actually counted and while one state still had half an hour left to finish its vote. Sounds like a resounding result.
Aunty Shirley Lamas, in the room at the Yes campaign headquarters in Sydney, said she had grown up in a segregated Australia. She said she was wearing blue, for autism, to represent her profoundly disabled son who received poorer health care and access as an Indigenous man. “I don’t understand people voting No - visceral voters will always vote No because they have a deep seated ingrained fear. "But we won’t go away. They’ve embarrassed themselves in front of the whole world. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/wor...2a6eb4fd63b979e1acd6ac&pinned_post_type=share
No idea how true it is, bit anecdotally I have always heard that Australians are broadly racist in terms of how the view the indigenous people so that doesn't seem wholly surprising to me on the face of it. Perhaps @sydney_horn can offer some thoughts.
I don't like to generalise but a lot of Australians were brought up in a society that accepted that aboriginals were "lazy" and "inferior". However a lot of people now take pride in any aboriginal or convict heritage. I have a friend who is half Cypriot and half Italian. His wife is a freckled skin, blond haired "fair dinkum" looking Australian. She recently found that, several generations back, one of her ancestors was aboriginal. She, and her 3 "Mediterranean looking" kids take great pride in taking part in aboriginal events now, including wearing full tribal dress and learning traditional dances! Unfortunately the ingrained belief that aboriginals are not equal to "white folks", that became accepted in the 19th century, when they had to compete with convict labour and suffered terribly from disease and addiction, is difficult to change in some (or perhaps many).
By contrast, yes; but still much higher rates of drug use, crime, poor health etc amongst the Māori population than other New Zealanders.
From guiding quite a lot of Aussies on cycling trips on France over the last decade, the result doesn't surprise me in the least. I have had to bite my tongue on quite a few occasions*, especially with the older Aussies, many of whom are, shall we say, quite unreconstructed. *Occasionally my outrage got the better of commercial considerations.
I’ve got several uncles and an aunt in Australia and can confirm from Facebook they and extended family are as boomer-tastic as their peers over here. Some of the Facebook gibberish they’ve been sharing ahead of this referendum reminded me of the Brexit campaign.
This rings a bell. When the Brexit result was announced the "Boomers" were blamed exclusively when the polls showed that peoples age defined how they voted. Younger people voted overwhelmingly to stay in Europe and that percentage reduced with each age group, up to the older generation who had the most % of votes to leave. Then it transpired that Millenials and Gen X didn't vote very much, was it only 60% of them could be bothered? And that was the difference. I can find no similar data on age groups voting patterns, maybe that will come out in time, but I did find this one interesting.
Yep, White Australia, bar the seat of Government, overwhelmingly rejected giving a voice to the 3.5% of the population who got there 40,000 years earlier and whose land and Children they stole. Not very Brexit, favouring the incomers.
I’m not really blaming the older generation for the outcome of the vote. It’s not like this Australian referendum was even a close call. It was just an observation that I saw a bunch of folk from the generation above who normally post standard, if not a bit cringey, Facebook stuff suddenly sharing these dubious memes and posters with one another and demonstrating political awareness where I’ve seen no evidence of that in the past 10-15 years.
I think what riles me, (and it certainly isn't you UEA), is that I'm in the same "boomer" category, (by literally 3 months), as the people that you refer to. I just don't like being categorised like that, (literally 2 posts after I blamed the young for Brexit), when there is no doubt that "boomers" have a very high percentage of people who are not open to change in any way. I'd be very interested to see the percentages of voting based on age. From what I can find the higher the level of education the more likely they were to vote yes.
As a postscript to the Aussie Referendum result, seized upon as a ‘victory for common sense’ by the right, a very interesting Australian documentary on the conquest and colonisation of Australia has just aired. It’s ironic that the right get terribly upset by their belief that the wokies and libtards portray the Empire in a negative light particularly in schools. But the truth is, the surface is barely scratched. If a simple dispassionate account of what took place was taught it would blow your mind. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0gjfgjh
What a fascinating documentary @Moose – thanks for drawing my attention to it. I recently watched the David Olusoga series Union, which I thought was very good until it got to episode 3, which dealt with the Irish famine. The abject failure to accurately portray Britain's role in creating the famine was really quite something. The documentary made out that the famine was just one of those things and that the Brits did all they could to help but to no avail when the reality was that there was plenty of food in Ireland but it was all grown for the British landowners and exported. The Irish were left with only the potatoes and when blight wiped out the crop they starved to death. Britain's failure to honestly examine its role in history really does have a lot to answer for.
I have to say that I am very surprised that Olusoga took that tack; it doesn't seem at all consistent with his general reading of British history.
