this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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The “half arsed proposal” is what the first nations requested in the Uluru Statement from the heart after many years of consultation.
It’s what they asked for because they think that what will make a difference on the ground.
They are saying please listen to us on matters that affect us.
It really boils down to will Australia recognise them and listen to them?
Yes or No?
Narrator Voice: They won't.
Source: «broadly gestures toward Canadian liberals seeing and hearing us and doing nothing, either»
What you ask for and what you present to the people are two very different things though. The Uluru Statement may well be what is requested, but when you put it to the people to vote, you need to remove as much ambiguity as possible and flesh out the practicalities in much more detail. That doesn't mean diverging from the Uluru Statement, it just means providing more detail on how those requests are actually going to be met.
For me, it's the difference between describing your dream home to a friend vs getting the blueprints back from a qualified engineer. If you build off the high-level description you're probably going to be disappointed, but if you sign off on the blueprints before construction starts you'll know exactly what you're going to get - no surprises.
All the government had to do was flesh out the processes and procedures in more detail and instead of us now arguing Yes vs No, we'd instead be assuming Yes and arguing about the various implementation details instead. Such a lost opportunity.
I would suggest avoiding statements like this, because it makes people in the No group more certain they should vote No. It's because the majority of No voters want to recognise First Nations people but they disagree with the way the current proposal has been put forward. It's exactly the same as the referendum on Australian's independence - even people who wanted independence had to vote against it because they weren't happy with the way it was going to be implemented.
Telling No voters they don't want to recognise First Nations people when they actually do, makes them feel like the Yes crowd doesn't understand their concerns, and doesn't see the problems that might arise. So it makes No voters even more certain that they need to vote No, in order to save everyone from problems they think the Yes crowd hasn't seen. Maybe that's untrue, but I feel it necessary to point out that in order to convince people to alter their opinion, you need to understand where they're coming from so you can provide reassurance about whatever it is that worries them. If you don't understand what your opponent's concerns are, you will end up putting forward arguments that are not persuasive and you will have no hope of changing their minds.
To answer your final question, yes I want to recognise First Nations individuals, yes I want to listen to them, but no I don't want it made permanent in the constitution until I have seen it making a difference in the real world first. I don't care what changes anyone wants to make to the constitution - it could be free money for all white males like me - it should not be changed until we have tried it first and are 100% sure that it is going to work and isn't going to introduce any unforeseen problems.
Show me the Voice working for two years and all the positive differences it's making in everyday people's lives and I will gladly vote Yes to make it part of the constitution. Until then I'm afraid it's a No - nothing to do with First Nations people, and everything to do with being given an incomplete picture of what's going to happen.
The point of there not being an extremely precise definition of the voice in the constitution is that it can be changed if it's not working. Most parts of the constitution are like this afaik.
What you are being asked is if you support putting a passage in the constitution that would ensure a body with the express purpose of indigenous representation exists.
Bloody hell he literally just said that by reiterating and simplifying the proposal, you not only don't address his concern, but make him more distrustful of proposal.
I don't think the question "if the government is so eager to address indigenous affairs, why haven't they road tested the voice and taken other funding stimulus measures in the 2023 budget?" Is a ludicrous question.
You could increase the amount of senators in the NT! I wouldn't have a problem with that.
The government could do many things, but it's not the question being asked by the constitutional amendment. It's not hard to find the design principles for the voice, something I suspect people wouldn't read even if this wasn't going to referendum.
Wanting to see something for two years first is kind of an excuse to never do anything. It's also not really a good argument for voting no, because the idea is that the "shape" of the voice can be changed if it isn't working. What people are voting on is the concept.
I dunno what else to tell you, that's the proposal and that's where we are. If people are voting no because lack of details there's not much to do to convince them. The government is hardly going to release more details now.
Alot of these arguments are good, however, not in the context of the referendum. The alteration to the constitution is just to guarantee that it exists, the rest is effectively up to the government that we have already elected. Don't like it? Vote for someone else or "make a representation to parliament" by talking with your local member about it. At the end of the day we live in a democracy.