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Australian Senate passes legislation for Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, triggering a public vote within six months
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- Title
- Senate passes referendum plan, cementing Voice vote before end of the year
- Published
- Jun 19 2023
- Word count
- 122 words
I really hope this does not turn into a shit fight as there have been 44 referendums in Australia since 1901 and only 8 have passed.
The Australian government by law has to fund information on both side of the argument.
The voice to parliament is an advisory body to the government of the day.
I feel it should be included in the constitution because if it was just made thought legislation it could as easily be unlegislated by another government in the future.
Hey bud, my wife is an Aussie out of the country and she's been interested in what this legislation actually means. Is there a good write up anywhere of the benefits?
The details are intentionally quite vague. The constitution will just cement an advisory body - how each government uses this body will be up to them but they cannot disband it completely (which is what the LNP would undoubtedly do immediately if this weren’t constitutionally required). How it will likely work: The Voice won’t be able to pass or veto laws, they’ll be an insight into the way proposed legislation would affect indigenous and Torres Strait islander peoples, or will advise legislation which could improve an area for these groups.
You’ll notice a lot of people on the “no” side being obtuse about this point - “how can we vote yes if we don’t know how it’ll work” but it will work slightly differently for each government formed. I think most of them know this but are latching on to any way they can say no that won’t be called out as racist (this is my own gut feeling on it)
Edit: I’m far from an expert on this so of course you should check and not believe some rando on the web, but this is my understanding of it.
This is a good overview.
This point is important.
Not many people will know this and all the rhetoric saying it will be a defacto 3 chamber of parliament is just pain wrong and unhelpful.
I’ve managed to work this out and I haven’t been following it very closely at all. At this point anyone in the media saying otherwise is intentionally wrong and unhelpful, and while I can’t exactly blame the people who believe it (not everyone has been taught the skills to engage critically with media, through no fault of their own) I do wish they’d just once read an unbiased news source. End rant
That's helpful though, we both tried to decode it and couldn't really figure it out. So, thank you matey.
Sounds like the right thing to do, it's better than the bloody affirmation thing that gets done at the start of anything over there. "Thanks to the traditional custodians" just felt so damn patronising and nice cheap words. This feels like actual actions for groups of folks who've been on the receiving end of colonial madness for centuries.
Here's hoping it works well.
I’ve always felt exactly the same way about the acknowledgment of country. I don’t know enough indigenous people to know how it’s received in the community and I wouldn’t presume to speak for them but to me it has always felt a little empty and perfunctory.
I agree this feels like the right step to me. Glad I could help you figure it out! The misinformation campaign has been hard at work on this one (which makes one wonder why they’re putting in so much effort - I usually know I’m on the right side of history if I think the opposite of what Peter Dutton says)
The legislation that passed this week is simply an enabling law, to enable the Commonwealth government of Australia to put a referendum to Australians.
The referendum question itself is deceptively simple:
You vote "yes" or "no".
If the referendum passes, we will add a new chapter to our constitution:
https://voice.gov.au/resources/fact-sheet-referendum-question-and-constitutional-amendment
That's it. From then on, there'll be a constitutional requirement for a "Voice" of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to Parliament. The Voice can make formal recommendations to Parliament and the federal goverment about legislation that might effect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people - but Parliament and the government can ignore everything the Voice says. There's no requirement for anyone to listen to the Voice, only for the Voice to exist and for it to speak.
The actual form of the Voice is up to the government to decide. There's talk about a "council of councils"-type format, where there would be local Voices that each contribute to a national Voice, which would talk to the federal Parliament. However, it's totally up to Parliament to decide how the Voice will work ("the Parliament shall have power to make laws with respect to [the Voice's] composition, functions, powers and procedures")... after the referendum passes.
And future governments can change the form of the Voice. However... and this is the important bit... no future government can ever again eradicate that Voice, as has been done with previous Aborginal and Torres Strait Islander committees to Parliament, like ATSIC - which was created by one government in 1990 and abolished by another government 15 years later.
The benefit of a Voice is hard to pin down.
Of course there's the symbolic benefit. For the first time in 120+ years, Aboriginal people will be officially recognised in Australia's constitution.
However, it's hard to identify the practical benefit. In theory, if Aboriginal people get input into laws that effect them (such as the alcohol ban in the Northern Territory, or the debit card welfare payment scheme), then the government can adjust those laws to better benefit Aboriginal people. The laws will work for them, rather than against them.
But that relies on the government of the day listening to the Voice, which is not required by the proposed constitutional amendment (if a requirement to listen was included in the amendment, then there's no way the referendum question would have been allowed through Parliament).
Of course it's going to turn into a shit fight. This referendum is going to be the shittiest of shit fights that Australia has seen for decades.
On one side, we've got outraged indignant angry Indigenous people screaming into deaf ears for justice. On the otherside, we've got self-righteous people who don't think this is their problem because they didn't do anything wrong... and some outright racists. In between, we've got a lot of very confused middle Australians, who don't quite understand what all the fuss is about, on either side. Plus, there's: white guilt, constitutional conservatism, compassionate allies, people seeing favouritism, racialisation...
We've already seen the beginnings of what promises to be a very toxic campaign. Strap in tight. This is going to make the same-sex marriage postal survey look like a minor tickle-fight.
Absolutely. I think the government has handled this incredibly poorly, to be honest. Virtually none of what people who are against the Voice are saying is remotely true, but it's just been allowed to fester completely unchecked for months without being challenged in the slightest.
Something of this magnitude and importance required a huge advertising campaign revolving around education and positivity but instead the extreme negativity coming from the right has been countered with literally nothing, except perhaps a vague notion of "if you aren't 100% in favour of this you are a racist" which I think has been really damaging for the many swing voters who legitimately don't understand what this is about. Well, they're certainly not going to make any effort to learn now, are they?
I don't think it's necessarily correct that every opinion against the Voice is grounded in untruth. There are many Indigenous people with very valid concerns that are being lost in the noise of right-wing garbage;
Conversely, a treaty would be genuinely meaningful, and affirm ongoing Indigenous sovereignty, but as much as—or exclusively because—Labor only really does crowd-pleasing moves, it's unlikely to happen unless the Greens force them to.