Akerman: We should not be shamed into voting yes in the Voice referendum

Installing a body in the Constitution to represent only the Indigenous, when the Census would show that the majority are in mixed relationships, makes zero sense, writes Piers Akerman.

Attempts by lobbyists of Indigenous interests to shame Australians into voting Yes in the Voice referendum went into overdrive during Reconciliation Week. While no one has defined what “reconciliation” would look like, aren’t we already “reconciled”?

According to the Bureau of Statistics, most of those identifying as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Island origin in the 2021 Census were partnered with a non-Indigenous person. If, as the most vocal advocates of the Yes vote in the proposed referendum noisily protest, non-Indigenous people are evil colonisers who have inherited a murderous legacy, treacherously occupying “never ceded” land, stealing children, and so on, then surely most of those identifying as Indigenous in the Census are sleeping with the enemy.

Of course, this is not the case. They are in relationships which don’t differ from those shared by other Australians. According to the Census (and unlike the Bureau of Meteorology there have been no claims that the ABS has fudged numbers to push an agenda), in 2021 there were 159,843 couples where one or both partners identified as Indigenous.

A question from the Census form.

“Most of these (81.7 per cent or 130,514 couples) were couples where one partner identified as ATSI and the other identified as non-ATSI or did not respond to the standard Indigenous question (ATSI partnership couples),” the Census noted. “Since 1996, the number of couples where one partner identified as ATSI and the other identified as non-ATSI has increased at a faster rate than the number of couples where both partners identified as ATSI. The proportion of ATSI couples where both partners identified as ATSI decreased from 35.6 per cent in 1996 to 18.4 per cent in 2021,” it adds.

In the last Australian Census, more than 130,000 couples had one partner identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander and the other did not.

That last figure would indicate that true “reconciliation” is taking place with some gusto.

The ABS broke the figures down further and demonstrated that – not surprisingly – the territory with the highest proportion of couples where both partners identified as ATSI (71.8 per cent) was the Northern Territory.

But in the southern states, where the virulent push for the Voice is the greatest, mixed race couples flourish.

In the ACT, the People’s Republic of Wokedom can boast 94.2 per cent of mixed race partnerships, while Victoria, home to the most noisome activists, has the second-highest number of mixed race couples with 93.7 per cent. Overall, across the nation, 81.7 per cent of couples reported as having one ATSI partner and the other non-ATSI and, according to the ABS, the number of these mixed partnerships is increasing.

This is why the claims of the Yes campaigners that we are a racist nation are patently and absurdly false. Further, they insult those in mixed partnerships who just wish to get on with their lives.

Race cannot be permitted to become a factor in the Constitution and preferment. Indigenous Australians are already proportionally over-represented in federal politics, and there is a plethora of bodies representing Indigenous interests in Canberra and in every state.

The divisive Voice is just another attempt by a group of unelected, predominantly urban, elites to gain even more power for themselves.

Health, education and employment opportunities run second to race-based appointments to government (and increasingly, private sector) jobs and handouts from here to the horizon.

We should have an acknowledgment of mixed race heritage rather than the contrived acknowledgement of country to truly embrace all Australians, now and in the future.

Installing a body in the Constitution to represent only the Indigenous, when the Census would show that the majority are in mixed relationships, makes zero sense.