The Indigenous voice has yet to persuade the nation

Why must a voice be in the Constitution (“Joint support ideal but we don’t need Dutton for voice”, 1/6)? Previous advisory bodies did not always operate as intended, nor did they achieve the results promised. If such bodies are “enshrined” they are virtually there to stay, regardless of their effectiveness in dealing with the real issues facing Aboriginal communities. What powers might such a body have over the elected parliament? Is it likely that, on particular issues, such a body could veto the will of the elected parliament?

Who would be the representatives on this body? The present very loose definition of “Aboriginal” could lead to a body that includes people with very little or no biological connection to Aboriginal people. (Before any one says it – no, I am a realist not a racist.)

How is it envisaged that the voice will deal with the pressing social and safety issues in Aboriginal communities? Is there a magic wand that it could wave in an area where other efforts have failed – or will it turn a blind eye to the Aboriginal people in real need and pursue other political goals?

Don McGregor, Baulkham Hills, NSW

In opposition to a voice from the heart to parliament, the argument of division by race is thin.

It is not who the descendants of the first occupiers of Australia are but what they bring. It can, in part, be seen in their art and cosmology but it goes much deeper to a consciousness that Western civilisation has almost erased with intellectual materialism.

Martin Visser, Cottesloe, WA

Despite the confidence of those proposing a form of constitutional recognition of Aborigines, the outcome of a referendum, I suggest, is no lay down misere. “Reconciliation” has become a never-ending process producing little but a permanent sense of victimhood and entitlement in those claiming even the most tenuous degree of Aboriginal descent, and a growing resentment in those condemned to wear sackcloth and ashes in perpetuity.

Many of us have wearied of debased and even invented ceremonies torn from a cultural milieu that no longer exists. Sold out by spineless political, religious, academic and corporate elites, we have tired of the now mandatory “Welcome to country” – a ritual that affirms our permanent guest status in this land.

Will there ever come a time when we can cease apologising – when we simply acknowledge each other as Australians?

Terry Birchley, Bundaberg, Qld

The much-trumpeted phrase “from the beginning of time” is used to claim that Aboriginal people, having been on this continent “forever”, deserve a superior status to those of us who have more recently migrated here.

No race of people has been anywhere on earth since “the beginning of time”. Even to use it metaphorically is misleading in suggesting that Aboriginal people evolved here, as anthropological studies show that millennia ago different peoples, including Aborigines, moved across the Earth on land bridges created by continental drift and ice ages.

The history of humankind is the history of migration and displacement. Australia is a nation of immigrants. A naturalised Australian from anywhere in the world should and does enjoy equal status with every other Australian, regardless of how recently they arrived. Guilt over past discrimination should not afford Aboriginal Australians a superior voice to the other groups, races and nationalities that make Australia the great multicultural and inclusive nation it is.

Ruth Lane, Killarney Heights, NSW

The Indigenous people already have many voices into the laws of this land. Federally, we have the Department of Indigenous Australians headed by a minister who is of Aboriginal descent. Each state, the ACT and the Northern Territory have Aboriginal affairs departments. It seems that the new parliament has 10 MPs of Aboriginal descent representing not only the 3 per cent of our Indigenous population but also the other 97 per cent of constituents who are not.

Currently, the Aboriginal people could read and digest proposed legislation and if it affects them in any way, voice those concerns to the federal minister, who could then take them forward to the cabinet room for discussion and decision by the elected government.

We do not need a race-based Constitution.

John Hunt, Northbridge, NSW