Australia Day defenders might not hate Indigenous people, but it might feel that way sometimes | David Penberthy
The existence of compassion is the biggest threat to critics of the Voice and adherents of January 26 as our national holiday, writes David Penberthy.
Opinion
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When Australians voted in the marriage equality plebiscite, many gay and lesbian people found the process a distressing impertinence.
It was as if the acceptability of their very existence was being put to an electoral test. You would imagine many Aboriginal Australians feel the same way amid the argument over a Voice to Parliament and the interminable debate around the appropriateness of January 26 for Australia Day.
The arguments against a Voice, and the arguments in favour of retaining January 26, are often put by good people raising issues that aren’t motivated by racism.
On the Voice, they say their concerns have nothing to do with the fact that Aboriginal people will benefit from special and direct influence on the Parliament, rather that any group of people could ever have special and direct influence on the Parliament.
On the question of January 26, they argue that the day has never been meant as some triumphalist celebration of white conquest, rather a day of thanks for the value of citizenship and the modern country we have become.
While these are fair-minded points, and not rooted in bigotry, I offer those observations as a middle-class white person who has never experienced prejudice or poverty. A nuanced assessment of how these debates are panning out might be lost on indigenous people who, understandably, have a much more emotional and human response to these discussions.
As with gay Aussies during that unnecessary plebiscite, many black Australians would simply hear those alarmist arguments against the Voice and the passionate pleas to keep January 26, and simply feel unliked.
They might even feel hated. And that’s a crappy state of affairs for a generally good country like ours.
From what we have seen so far, neither side of politics is covering itself in glory when it comes to their handling of the Voice debate. Referenda have a long history of failure in this country, and they always fail when leaders advocating change fail to provide meaningful detail, which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been struggling to do.
The most recent poll said 87 per cent of people still have no idea how it would work.
While that figure will come down as the community campaign for a Yes vote unfolds, it shows the concept is operating from a challenging standing start.
On the other side of the aisle, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton seems to regard this whole issue as such a target-rich environment for worrying people that he is coming across as being relentlessly negative.
It’s a live question as to who will suffer the most from his approach – indigenous people who overwhelmingly favour a Voice, or the Liberal Party itself.
The last federal election saw the near total collapse of small-l liberal support for the Coalition. If it is Mr Dutton’s plan is to leave Teal seats Teal and turn the Liberals into a niche right-wing party, becoming a one-man wrecking ball against the Voice is the right way to go about it.
As for the Greens, leaving the discussion of the Voice to a firebrand such as Lidia Thorpe shows total disregard for mainstream indigenous sentiment on this issue, as evidenced by the poll out last Friday showing 80 per cent of First Nations people want a Voice.
If the political parties approach this issue on the basis of whipping up support within their own constituencies, there is a real danger that indigenous people will feel even more disenfranchised and silenced than they already do. In the event that the no vote prevails, they will feel even more shunned and disliked.
Those feelings have probably been made worse over the past few days with the focus on the mayhem in Alice Springs.
Critics of the Voice were quick to seize on the drunken violence in Alice as a real-life problem which showed the meaningless of all this Voice posturing.
I’d argue instead that it’s a depressing but powerful example of what happens when governments fail to listen to their communities – in this case the Northern Territory Government – which is exactly the kind of inappropriate policy-making the Voice aims to end by providing feedback and advice to the Parliament when laws such as these are being made.
My fellow columnist Douglas Smith wrote a typically honest and thoughtful piece before Australia Day, where he gave a compelling emotional account of how the January 26 date makes him feel as an indigenous bloke.
Douglas wrote that when the date comes around he tries to stay in bed as long as possible and then surround himself with as many of his indigenous mates as possible.
The sense he gave in his piece was that by holding what is essentially a party on such a historically loaded date, it feels like the rest of Australia simply doesn’t give a toss about him or his people.
You would have to imagine he’d feel exactly the same way if we all vote no to the Voice, along with the other 80 per cent of his fellow First Nation Australians.
The yes vote for marriage equality prevailed comfortably in Australia on the basis largely of compassion.
Most Australians, even those who have no gay mates and no experience of a gay lifestyle, shrugged their shoulders and voted yes on the basis that they could see no harm in letting gay people tie the knot.
The existence of compassion is the biggest threat to critics of the Voice and adherents of January 26 as our national holiday.
What harm comes from a Voice anyway? Is a date worth dying in a ditch for? I have heard no compelling argument to either of those questions.
And as per Douglas Smith’s column, thinking about how all these issues make people feel is important. It might also be the best path to change.
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