Australian national broadcaster ABC has projected three states voted No, effectively defeating the referendum.
Man, I didn’t know Australia was full of idiots. There was absolutely no reason to vote no to this. It was simply a group that would give feedback to the Australian Senate. Feedback from a marginalized group of the land you stole. Feedback that could simply be ignored by the Senate. It was simply giving that group a voice. How you could vote against that, I have no clue.
Is it just racism? I also don’t get it.
Ironically, “Yes”.
I’d go with “yeah nah”.
No, it is not just racism. There would have been an element of that, but it’s certainly far from the main reason. That idea is contradicted by the facts that a very significant portion of Indigenous people and Indigenous activists voted against it.
Linking to this useful post, explaining why various progressive groups were against it.
Significant proportion, but a minority still.
But yes it’s not racism alone, also confusion, selfishness, disinterest, spite, partisanship, a long list of reasons
I’d say apathy more than anything. So many people didn’t bother to actually find out what was going to happen. Yes side messaged it poorly. No side preyed on low information, making it divisive and about non relevant semantics.
We have this same issue in Canada. It seems the average person finds it completely acceptable to dismiss our First Nations peoples as “drunks” and “bums” and less than citizens.
Don’t forget the words of our leader of His Majesties Loyal Opposition, and possible future PM: “My view is that we need to engender the values of hard work and independence and self reliance. That’s the solution in the long run – more money will not solve it.”
He’s apologized since, but you as they say, you understand how someone truly feels the first time they say something, unfiltered.
In my opinion a racism is having different laws for people with different genetics/skin color. “Black is not allowed” is racism. The proposed law is actually the one doing exactly the same - it treats people differently according to their genetics. Why people think it is good - is beyond me.
Sounds like you’re fine with it happening, you’re just not fine with it being written down.
But sure. Tell us how a yes vote would have meant “different laws for people with different skin color” and what color your skin is.
Sounds like you’re fine with it happening
Care to point out where it “sounds” that way in what he wrote? I’m not seeing it.
Sure: it’s already happening and he voted ‘no’ to something that could begin to address it.
Not exactly rocket science.
You think that this very specific constitutional amendment is the only way to “begin to address it?” You say it could begin to address it so it’s clear you’re not even sure of that.
There’s plenty of ways to address the problem – none of which the Liberal Party will ever implement or the “No” campaign will ever support.
You can feign all the indignation you want but at the end of the day, we know you won’t support any of those changes, just like you didn’t support the voice, nor even a token apology on behalf of the government for the inhumane things their predecessors did.
Want to prove you actually care? Campaign for a solution that isn’t “let’s just ignore the problem since it doesn’t impact me”, perhaps with the financial support of all of those “vote no” organisations that don’t exist at their registered addresses.
We both know there’s not a chance of that happening. You’ll just continue to pretend you have some standard that isn’t being met, rather than admitting that nothing ever will because you simply don’t want it to happen.
The constitution currently allows for laws,to be specifically made about ATSI people. I didn’t see any of the people worried about inequality protesting that. Ever.
Not specifically about ATSI people, but of any race. The ‘races power’ part of the Constitution (section 51(xxvi)) reads as follows:
Current text:
The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:
“the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws”Original text:
The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:
“the people of any race, other than the aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws”Yes, as ATSI people arent currently recognized in the constitution. In practice, it’s only used to target them.
I was not talking about legality.
That’s odd, as your first sentence talks about laws. Maybe you said something you didn’t mean.
One can talk about laws and yet not discuss their legality, but their morality.
Yes, one can. You however were comparing comparison under laws, which is speaking about legalities. You were incorrect. Doubling down just makes it clear you are not discussing in good faith, but have been caught in a lie.
Because systemic racism already exists. Minorities all over the world are treated worse. The Indigenous people’s problems are ignored. “Just make equal laws” doesn’t happen. They are enforced differently.
Someone else said it perfectly “Sounds like you’re fine with it happening, you’re just not fine with it being written down”
If there is problem with enforcement the laws in different ways, then address that directly. Don’t create laws separating people by genetics. That’s the opposite to what equal society should have! Why would you help one poor person and will not help another poor person just because their genetics is different?
And I will ignore your “sounds like” comment as completely made up statement.
So instead of preventing the laws from being written in ways that will affect minorities disproportionally, correct the legal system for following the law and instead train them to follow the law in a different way than it was written. Got it, no way that will go wrong.
Also, this isn’t about poor people. The fact you equate indigenous people to poor people is extremely racist.
That isn’t a useful definition of racism. It’s sounds alright, although it’s ultimately idealistic, it doesn’t hold up when applying to material circumstances.
As for why people think having different rules for different groups is good, I think one of the simplest ways to sum it up is: Equality of treatment will not give equality of outcome until there is already equality of conditions. Treating all people the same isn’t fair in the real world.
As a thought-experiment to demonstrate: If we have two people, one has $200 savings after rent and the other has $10,000,000, you can’t make them more equal or make the money more distributed by treating them the same: if society wants to reduce poverty (which is obviously a good thing for society, to have less people in poverty), it makes some sense to supply the poorer of the two with money, but it makes no sense to supply the richer: they already have more money than 90% of people! There isn’t a moral or ethical benefit in giving them more money, they don’t need the money as much as others do, it’s not how to achieve fairness or equality.
The generalised point of that being, if a group is disadvantaged and the status quo is keeping them disadvantaged, solving that will require special treatment. Treating Indigenous people the same way as always just keeps the systemic racist status quo, and to solve that, the Government will inevitably have to treat Indigenous people differently. That’s a consequence of trying to create a more equal outcome in an unequal environment.
The same goes for other types of disadvantage, of course. I am obviously not trying to imply that all people who aren’t indigenous have all the advantage they need! Ultimately, everyone who is not a mega-multi-millionaire is disadvantaged, but we can’t fix that all in one change. We have to start somewhere.
This is veering dangerously close to the arguments neo-nazis make against affirmative action.
You’ve actually explained one of the reasons many Indigenous people rejected this: it is just feedback that could simply be ignored by the Senate. That’s powerless, and we’ve seen from royal commissions into Aboriginal deaths in custody that the feedback does get ignored. Why accept such a bad deal, pretending it’s a victory or progress?
The Black Peoples Union interview with ABC explains why they took the ‘no’ position.
I saw this stance and I still don’t know why you wouldn’t want a position to give you more of a platform. It’s still progress to give minority groups a larger platform than they had before.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Black Peoples Union interview with ABC
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
There was absolutely no reason to vote no to this.
Of course there was. Enshrining different rights to different people in the constitution based on their race, is fundamentally objectionable.
Like enshrining the position of head of state as being the next in line for a particular family who are born & live on the other side of the world?
For the love of democracy let’s not fuck that one up again next time it comes around. Based on yesterday the next PM may well be one of our most evil statesmen around. I think the ARM is planning for a 2027 republican referendum… please let’s not elect a skilled reactionary to lead our country when the time comes.
Judging by the way the vote went in previous libs, now teal seats, it may be more likely he’s cemented his status as unelectable.
Hope so
That is entirely irrelevant. “The king exists, therefore the constitution should give different rights to regular people based on their race”. Disgusting argument.
Im pointing out the hypocrisy, not providing an endorsement of monarchy. The Australian constitution has an original sin baked in, so pretending it’s a sacred document and not already a biased setup is naive.
Nobody is proving an endorsement of monarchy. You’re using monarchy as an argument for adding (additional) racism to the constitution. It’s a fucking stupid argument. “One thing is bad, therefore it is not a problem to make other things worse too.”
If something has a flaw (monarchy) that’s not a reason to make it worse (enshrine racially based representation).
There was absolutely no reason to vote no to this.
Of course there was. Enshrining different rights to different people in the constitution based on their race, is fundamentally objectionable.
Your words. I’m simply pointing out the hypocrisy nothing further. The constitution is already in the state you say is fundamentally objectionable, it is not a neutral, equal set of laws. But you draw the line here, when advantage is already enshrined one way. Funny that.
You’re pretty rude and divisive in your comments here, you can take negativity too far you know.
I feel like you say that without the context of anything. In isolation what you say might be true but within context it’s just fairly clear to see why you’d get a minority group committee of advisers to be more widely heard. “Different rights to different people” is literally how the world works. If you want to pretend that majority bias doesn’t exist then so be it, I can’t change your support for systemic racism.
When you choose to use the expression “absolutely no reason”, it is trivially easy to disprove your claim. My argument is one of them, and it is a valid reason to vote no. Your further arguments are valid reasons to vote “yes”, and their pros and cons may or may not outweigh each other.
But you are verifiably wrong to claim that there are no reasons to vote no. Opposing race-based legislation in all its forms is a very valid position, and the only non-racist position possible to take in this.
Sorry, I figured you wouldn’t be pedantic. I clearly meant no valid reason that I see to vote no. Racism and support of systemic racism is a reason, you are right. Go get your internet pedantic star.
Grow the fuck up. You are the one arguing for race-based legislation. That makes you the racist. Every human has the right to be equal in the eyes of the law. There simply cannot be an excuse for having tests based on genetics that lead to different rights in a society. That’s just purely despicable in every way.
“Tests based on genetics that lead to different rights”. Again, that sounds alot like the constitutional rights granted to just one family line as head of state. And that genetic line didn’t come from Australia. So which race of humans have primacy in australian law?
It’s possible to hold both of these beliefs simultaneously:
- The constitution conferring special rights and privileges on the royal family and their delegates is a bad idea.
- The constitution conferring special rights and privileges to a subset of people within the country based on race is a bad idea.
The constitution has been and still is racist - try researching it before spreading misinformation.
There is Equality, Equity, and Justice. I highly recommend reading about why you should go for Justice rather than Equality. Also, this law would have nothing based on race or genetics. It was based on what the tribes, which are organization bodies like the Australian government, would put in the committee. It’s fairly racist to assume that indigenous committee representatives have to be of indigenous genetics in this day and age.
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Racism, by definition, is treating one race negatively. Enshrinign the voice in the constitution is not racist, while you’re being pedantic.
If one “race” (which isn’t a scientific term and its use in the US is dated and itself racist) is treated differently from another, regardless of which group is perceived to be treated favourably or unfavourably, such a situation can legitimately be described as racist.
They know. The whole “progressives are the real racists” shtick is just a way for them to chew up values and spit them back in peoples faces.
They’re not actually concerned about genuine racism and routinely tolerate it, if not outright support it.
Hard to say that the right to be heard is objectionable imo
Everybody should have the same right to be heard. Different people having different rights to be heard, based on their race, is absolutely objectionable. And racist.
You’re looking at a set of unequal scales and saying they should be equal, while refusing to place more weight onto either side…
Enshrining racial differences in the constitution is absolutely disgusting, no matter how good your intentions are.
That’s already occurred. Google it.
Australia has some of the most racist people on the planet.
The problem is, since they live in a self-contained ‘white-zone’, they rarely have to deal with the problems of racial diversity.
So many people think Americans are racist, but that’s just because the USA actually has to deal with diversity.
It’s easy for nations like Australia or Iceland to appear as they though care about other races until it comes home.
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Left-leaning voters in this very thread are oversimplifying in the exact way you’re accusing conservative bigots of doing. It’s the state of politics, not the political positions that are the problem. I try not to look at politics in such a polarised way because it adds to the problem.
Who stole the land, exactly? The last Census detailed that 28% of Australians were born outside Australia and 48% have a parent born overseas, so the population who could be traced back to “stealing land” is a small minority.
From the perspective of some in the older generations, Indigenous Australians were given a voice and representation in 1962 when they were given the option to enrol and vote in federal elections, the same as every other Australian.
The body of the government is supported by the people. Like, think of it this way. If I go to your house, claim it as my own, then sell it to other people. Is it your house or the other people’s house? The other people bought the house knowing the unresolved claims against ownership and bought it anyway. Are they complicit in stealing the house? What if the house wasn’t yours but technically your great grandparents but you’d still live there if it wasn’t for those people who stole or the supporters of the thieves.
Just being given a vote as a minority doesn’t mean their voice has been heard. You can see this sort of bias in Australian prisons: “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners accounted for 32% of all prisoners.” They are disproportionally imprisoned and it’s clear that systemic racism has put them in this position. So just getting a vote doesn’t matter when there are more people who hate your race of people than the population of your race able to vote. It means you’ll never gain anything in the system because racists will keep you down. Don’t support systemic racism.
From the perspective of some in the older generations, Indigenous Australians were given a voice and representation in 1962 when they were given the option to enrol and vote in federal elections, the same as every other Australian.
That’s just dishonest. The link you posted paints a much more grim picture.
Really, we just have demonstrated to the indigenous community that we don’t give a shit about them. It’s sickening…
They did not steal from these people, but from their several generations long dead ancestors.
The goal of the prosperous society should be equality between people. This law is differentiating people by their genotype.
Worried about poor people? Just help them regardless color palette of their hair, eyes or skin.
They did not steal from these people, but from their several generations long dead ancestors.
I didn’t say anything contrary to this. I said “Feedback from a marginalized group of the land you stole.” which is absolutely true. A marginalized group owned the land. The majority group came in and marginalized them.
This law is differentiating people by their genotype.
The law already does that. Systemic racism exists. I encourage those to setup systems to reduce it and not support it.
Feedback from a marginalized group of the land you stole.
There’s the spot where you accused OP (or, more generally, modern-day Australians) of being land thieves.
How old do you think OP is?
If you thought the term “You” specifically meant the person posting the article, which hasn’t been active in this comment section at all, you absolutely need to get better at reading comprehension. There is the term the royal we, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_we. Royal us, Royal I, and Royal You all exist because of it. You in that place means the Australian government. No one else here has made this mistake and no one else is speaking like I accused OP or the modern Australian people of actively stealing land.
Did you not see the parenthetical I put in that sentence? It specifically covers all of this. You wasted a paragraph complaining about something that was already addressed, and then completely ignored the actual question that is relevant.
I’ll repeat it, in a simpler and more general form so you can hopefully understand it better. How old are the people you’re accusing of being land thieves?
The original people who stole the land are dead. Age is irrelevant to that discussion. People who benefit from the crimes of the past are still alive. Since it was racially motivated and successful, we’ve seen a lot of attempts in many countries to try to repair this damage to the culture.
The original people who stole the land are dead.
So when you said “the land you stole” you were talking about dead people, not about anyone who is alive. There are no identifiable “thieves” any more.
The sins of the fathers should not be laid on their children. Helping people alive today who are disadvantaged is a fine goal, but trying to divvy those groups up on the basis of ethnicity or ancestry is simply repeating the original problem. You can ban discrimination, provide social programs, promote cultural enrichment and exchange, improve living conditions and economic opportunities for poor communities, without ever once having to make decisions on the basis of who’s grandfathers belonged to which families and have what genetic profiles.
This is not “supporting systemic racism.” It’s the opposite.
So we can expect the 10 of millions of dollars that bankrolled the “no” groups will now go directly to “poor people” now?
The Labor government appears to be committed to not changing anything.
Makes me wonder if the Yes campaign was deliberately shit to achieve exactly that. Surely they knew that they could establish it anyway without constitutional support and prove that it worked and could be trusted before going for a full referendum.
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Yes the proposed change to the constitution lacked detail, but that is entirely in keeping with the constitution as a whole, it is a “high-level” document after all. The detail would have come in the legislation that enacted it, with plenty of public consultation and discussion in parliament, no different to any other legislation. In its final form it would have probably looked a lot like previous advisory bodies that we used to have, with the critical difference being that it could not be disbanded just because the government of the day didn’t like it.
I’m not familiar with the Australian political terms, can you share what this means:
inner dialogue between their mobs and local governments
To me, that sounds like the Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islanders are free to think about what they want, and then form a potentially violent, roughly organized group of people to confront local officials… But I assume I’m missing something.
From google: ‘Mob’ is a term identifying a group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people associated with a particular place or Country. ‘Mob’ is an important term for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, as it is used to describe who they are and where they are from.
In Australian slang a mob can just mean any grouping of people, not necessarily a criminal group or a group of rioters. It’s not uncommon for people to refer to their own ethnic or political grouping as a mob; at least from what I’ve seen when reading Australian websites.
And by local government I think they are referring to the states and territories governments.
This is correct, mob in this context is a number of indigenous people belong to one particular community. There are various different mobs out there which is one of the reasons why a singular controlled voice was never going to work.
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Yeah as someone outside Australia I’ve been surprised at how biased and simplified the reporting has been. A complex constitutional issue is being painted as a simple “good people, bad people”.
When I read about the changes myself (after having to go hunting for some actual detail - the reporting is pretty poor on this) it honestly seems more like virtue signalling rather than useful or meaningful reform.
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The result has produced a lot of sore losers. The campaign involved a lot of just straight up losers.
Its the eternal false dichotomy of “one side of a dispute must be the good guys, meaning the other side are therefore the bad guys.”
Last time I looked at the count 40% of indigenous people voted against the voice, there’s definitely no good/bad side in this regardless how some might choose to vilify others. We have compulsory voting as well.
How old are you?
Relevant: the Black Peoples Union position on the referendum (interview on ABC).
An aggregation of written statements collected from socialist, anarchist and radical Indigenous groups, showing the diversity of thought on the matter: http://old.reddit.com/r/AustralianSocialism/comments/161r8r1/megathread_of_leftist_statements_on_the_voice/
(PS: don’t just take all the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ summaries in that list at face value, a couple of them are misinterpretations or oversimplications)
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Black Peoples Union position on the referendum
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Did you write the ‘no campaign’ booklet by any chance, temp_acct_001?
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I voted Yes in the end, but I definitely understand the journey you’ve taken and respect your informed voting. I think a big part of the problem is people’s attention is so divided these days that complexities are oversimplified to one-word descriptors like “racist” that are facile and inaccurate.
Lol, fair enough. Are you a researcher travelling and interviewing different groups - or just rural living?
Dispelling Australia’s Referendum Misunderstandings
Facts without evidence presented as if they are self-evident.
The vote was to change the Australian Constitution to include a section giving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples a voice in parliament, which they already have through inner dialogue between their mobs and local governments.
The current system is definitely not effective. There is a massive gap where due respect, health outcomes, opportunities, and sovereignty are lacking at the least.
You can argue that this is piecemeal, and it is - but its a step from the current status quo.
How this constitutional change would look or be enacted was not known and very vague, with the crux being that it would still be government controlled…
Misleading. The constitution is high-level by design, that is not how that document works.
there was widespread animosity from First Nations people about it being another ‘white-man’s decision’, it would create division by being unequal when indigenous Australians are striving for equality.
Show me evidence again, temp account.
Australia has been gas-lit by foreign trolls paid by China and Russia.
Welcome to every single vote for the rest of your life. They won’t even be human soon.
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Don’t give Canada ideas
Like us copying the bill for Tech Giants to pay news organizations
I mean… what else would you expect from a white supremacist colonial project?
Common Australian Racist L
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I hate it here
Unlike America, you at least don’t have to “love it or leave it”! We still have it pretty good, globally speaking.
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I don’t see how. We’ve already officially said sorry as a nation and have strong native title rights and laws were indigionous people can claim their ancestral lands, own them and live on them as traditional as they would like to.
Indigenous communities are still alive and well in many parts of Australia and can freely make the choice to assimilate with western culture or not. Australia is a huge and sparsely populated place that does not force this on indigionous people at all.
At some point the indigenous community needs to stop considering themselves victims and focus on the future of their people and culture. What is generally amusing is that it tends to be inner city privileged indigenous people who tend to make the most noise about this.
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