Andrew Bolt: ‘The Voice’ supporters peddling a giant fantasy

Jacinta Price and the Nationals seem to be the only ones with the guts to speak the truth about the giant fantasy that is ‘The Voice’.

Activists pushing Labor’s Aboriginal-only parliament say they want a kinder, more tolerant Australia. Many even believe them.

But just listen to the rantings this week of Noel Pearson - 17 minutes of poison broadcast by the ABC.

Pearson is an architect of Labor’s plan for what it calls the “Voice” and wants it cemented into our constitution for our “reconciliation”.

Reconciliation? From the likes of Pearson, accused some time ago by two women, separately, of calling them a “white c---”? (Pearson denies it.)

On Wednesday, Pearson turned his rage against an Aboriginal woman – Nationals Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

Price had the day before joined her leader, David Littleproud, in announcing the Nationals would oppose this Voice as it should be opposed, not on detail but as a matter of fundamental principle.

Noel Pearson wants the “Voice” cemented into our constitution for our “reconciliation”.

Price, daughter of a Celtic father and Aboriginal mother, said creating an Aboriginal-only parliament was racist: “Why can’t we do as what we fought for, be recognised as Australian citizens in this country, treated equally, not above anybody else and not below anybody else?”

Price and Littleproud were also clear this Voice would not fix Aboriginal poverty.

Again, they were right, but the Nationals’ decision seemed to shock ABC journalists and activists, too used to people being too scared to resist Labor’s racist plan.

That night Laura Tingle, the ABC’s chief political correspondent, called the Nationals’ stand “disturbing” and “a really unfortunate divide”.

But the real onslaught came the next morning, when ABC Radio National host Patricia Karvelas let Pearson vomit 17 minutes of uninterrupted hatred and abuse.

First, he ridiculed Littleproud as “Littlepride”, calling him a “boy” and “kindergarten child”, leading a “squalid” party that “couldn’t give a stuff” about Aborigines.

Then he put the boot into Price, claiming she was just a careerist caught in a “tragic celebrity redneck vortex” and controlled by racist “string pullers” whose strategy was “to find a blackfella to punch down on other blackfellas”.

Jacinta Price joined David Littleproud, in announcing the Nationals would oppose the Voice. Picture: Gary Ramage

I heard no reconciliation there, just a bully being as cruel as he could to not just intimidate Price but warn off anyone else thinking of criticising this Voice.

And Karvelas, employed by the supposedly impartial national broadcaster, didn’t utter a squeak of protest as Pearson monstered this Aboriginal woman and vilified Littleproud. She praised him instead: “That’s a really interesting analysis.”

Yet there were many questions to ask Pearson, and not just about the High Court one day turning this supposedly advisory parliament into something with real power, by forcing our real parliament to consider its every suggestion.

Pearson could have been picked up on his sneer that he’d heard nothing “in Jacinta’s rhetoric” offering “solutions for people back at Aurukun, for people at Yuendumu, for my people”.

Well, Pearson is sure expert in no solutions for Aurukun.

Aurukun is one of four Aboriginal towns in Cape York, and part of Pearson’s Cape York Initiative, which has been showered with state and federal money to get children into school and adults into work.

Just 3000 people were covered by this scheme, and governments gave Pearson’s Cape York projects as much as $150m over eight years, or $50,000 for each man, woman and child.

But the results have been terrible in education, jobs and crime. Two years ago, 300 Aurukun residents fled their homes after rioters went wild.

That tells us something about the prime minister’s justification this week for his Aboriginal-only parliament – that it would just allow Aborigines to be consulted about decisions affecting them.

But Aboriginal leaders are already consulted, a lot, and few more than Pearson. None has had such freedom to even design welfare programs.

Yet it still failed, just like so many other programs have failed – as we learned again on Wednesday with the release of the latest figures on Aboriginal welfare.

They failed not because of a lack of consultation but because the whole model is wrong.

You cannot glorify Aboriginal traditions, and have people live out bush, far from real work, living a kind of Aboriginal way, and expect western standards of wealth, education and wellbeing.

That’s the giant fantasy peddled by backers of the Voice. In fact, the Aborigines thriving best are not the ones now treated as some separate species. They are Aborigines who have integrated.

Price and the Nationals have the guts to say so, because they care as much as the people behind the Voice say they do.

That deserves respect and calm debate, not this foul abuse. Or is Pearson angry because he cannot deny the truths they dare speak?