Give us the detail, and help us to vote Yes for voice
The response from government and advocates has been political gaslighting. They infer that those of us who would like to know what the voice might look like are morally deficient.
The two-speed economy is well established in Australia. I’m not talking about the usual kind, though; not the kind whose currency is dollars and cents. More about an economy of the political nature; the currency of control, power and influence, perceived and actual.
We Aussies pride ourselves on our democratic ways, the politeness and downright civility, for example, with which government is transferred from one party to another post-election.
This is all well and good, but what is becoming increasingly clear is that politically, at least, there’s a growing gap between the haves and have-nots. Between those who are allowed to have a say in policy and legislation, who speed in their Ferraris past us mere mortals who must sit down and shut up in our Datsun 180Bs. Those at the table, those thrown the crumbs.
This dynamic is playing out clearly and sharply as the nation continues to tease out what it might look like to have an Indigenous voice to parliament, but it certainly isn’t new.
Remember when Bill Shorten, as opposition leader, told voters we didn’t need to know the cost or shape of his climate policy? What a doozey. Eclipsed only by Chris Bowen, now the Climate Change and Energy Minister, saying if you don’t like it, don’t vote for us. We all know how that turned out, yet here we are again.
As we journey towards a referendum on changing the Constitution, Anthony Albanese says we don’t need to know all the detail.
I respectfully say: he is wrong. I’d also like to remind the Prime Minister and cabinet they work for us. If voters ask for details, you are obliged to provide it. You don’t change the Constitution on a promise.
The response from government and other advocates has been various levels of political gaslighting. They infer that those of us who would like to know what a voice might look like are morally deficient. They warn that we’d better be on the right side of history, waggling their fingers as if they were speaking to naughty teenagers caught sneaking a dart behind the bike shed at school.
To state it again, I’m not against an Indigenous voice to parliament. There are those who are using this argument around detail as a reason to dismiss it. I am not one of them.
In fact, last week I saw a tangible and powerful example of how a voice might operate. Ironically and somewhat embarrassingly for Albanese, it was the Labor government in the Northern Territory that demonstrated a textbook example of how to ignore and marginalise senior Indigenous women – women who had written to the government, pleading with it not to allow the Howard-era Stronger Futures laws to lapse. They warned that letting grog flow freely into dry communities would unleash carnage on the most vulnerable. They’ve been ignored.
This is the situation a voice to parliament might influence and inform. Yet what we saw was the NT Labor government blatantly ignoring the voices on the ground that know best.
I’d invite Chief Minister Natasha Fyles and her cabinet to go live in those communities that are no longer dry and see if that changes their mind.
This is just one example and, to me, it speaks of the need for more detail as much as it does of lingering political arrogance.
In so many ways this discussion is not about race, despite what the village idiots of political life, the Greens, would have us believe. Oh, the irony. You could not get worse advocates for Indigenous Australians than the Greens and their poppycock rhetoric, rooted in racism, victimhood and conflict.
No; this discussion is about fairness and respect. About the desire for change and an end to the revolving door of disadvantage, bureaucratic waste and infectiveness. The one thing I firmly believe by instinct, and by conversations with friends, family, and clients, is that most Australians want a different outcome.
Most of us are standing here saying: help us make that choice. Help us vote Yes. I want to know what I’m voting for because I believe this could be a game changer for Australia if done right.
There are many on the conservative side of politics who dismiss the idea of a voice as a program of the political elite and inner-city greens. That’s lazy. It’s as lazy as the Prime Minister and other advocates saying: don’t worry about the detail, we can sort that out later.
I’m disappointed Albanese and his cabinet don’t think us worthy of knowing what we’re voting for. He either doesn’t know the detail or doesn’t want us to know. Tell me, which is worse?
None of us should allow any government of any political persuasion to change the Constitution on a promise. It’s not a legislative lucky dip, so stop treating us like that’s all we deserve.
I want to support this voice and I want to see a different outcome. I want all the detail. I want to make an informed choice. If the government doesn’t provide it, and this referendum fails, it will be on them alone.
Is the Kamala Harris honeymoon over?
With Donald Trump the favourite in betting markets once again, the Democrats are getting nervous.
On a road to ruin paved by zero-sum economic thinking
Regard for growing the pie – instead of focusing entirely on how to cut it up – would let us have more of everything. That is not what the government is delivering.