Australian national broadcaster ABC has projected three states voted No, effectively defeating the referendum.
Man, I didn’t know Australia was full of idiots. There was absolutely no reason to vote no to this. It was simply a group that would give feedback to the Australian Senate. Feedback from a marginalized group of the land you stole. Feedback that could simply be ignored by the Senate. It was simply giving that group a voice. How you could vote against that, I have no clue.
In my opinion a racism is having different laws for people with different genetics/skin color. “Black is not allowed” is racism. The proposed law is actually the one doing exactly the same - it treats people differently according to their genetics. Why people think it is good - is beyond me.
Sounds like you’re fine with it happening, you’re just not fine with it being written down.
But sure. Tell us how a yes vote would have meant “different laws for people with different skin color” and what color your skin is.
The constitution currently allows for laws,to be specifically made about ATSI people. I didn’t see any of the people worried about inequality protesting that. Ever.
Because systemic racism already exists. Minorities all over the world are treated worse. The Indigenous people’s problems are ignored. “Just make equal laws” doesn’t happen. They are enforced differently.
Someone else said it perfectly “Sounds like you’re fine with it happening, you’re just not fine with it being written down”
That isn’t a useful definition of racism. It’s sounds alright, although it’s ultimately idealistic, it doesn’t hold up when applying to material circumstances.
As for why people think having different rules for different groups is good, I think one of the simplest ways to sum it up is: Equality of treatment will not give equality of outcome until there is already equality of conditions. Treating all people the same isn’t fair in the real world.
As a thought-experiment to demonstrate: If we have two people, one has $200 savings after rent and the other has $10,000,000, you can’t make them more equal or make the money more distributed by treating them the same: if society wants to reduce poverty (which is obviously a good thing for society, to have less people in poverty), it makes some sense to supply the poorer of the two with money, but it makes no sense to supply the richer: they already have more money than 90% of people! There isn’t a moral or ethical benefit in giving them more money, they don’t need the money as much as others do, it’s not how to achieve fairness or equality.
The generalised point of that being, if a group is disadvantaged and the status quo is keeping them disadvantaged, solving that will require special treatment. Treating Indigenous people the same way as always just keeps the systemic racist status quo, and to solve that, the Government will inevitably have to treat Indigenous people differently. That’s a consequence of trying to create a more equal outcome in an unequal environment.
The same goes for other types of disadvantage, of course. I am obviously not trying to imply that all people who aren’t indigenous have all the advantage they need! Ultimately, everyone who is not a mega-multi-millionaire is disadvantaged, but we can’t fix that all in one change. We have to start somewhere.
We have this same issue in Canada. It seems the average person finds it completely acceptable to dismiss our First Nations peoples as “drunks” and “bums” and less than citizens.
Don’t forget the words of our leader of His Majesties Loyal Opposition, and possible future PM: “My view is that we need to engender the values of hard work and independence and self reliance. That’s the solution in the long run – more money will not solve it.”
He’s apologized since, but you as they say, you understand how someone truly feels the first time they say something, unfiltered.
No, it is not just racism. There would have been an element of that, but it’s certainly far from the main reason. That idea is contradicted by the facts that a very significant portion of Indigenous people and Indigenous activists voted against it.
Linking to this useful post, explaining why various progressive groups were against it.
Significant proportion, but a minority still.
But yes it’s not racism alone, also confusion, selfishness, disinterest, spite, partisanship, a long list of reasons
They did not steal from these people, but from their several generations long dead ancestors.
The goal of the prosperous society should be equality between people. This law is differentiating people by their genotype.
Worried about poor people? Just help them regardless color palette of their hair, eyes or skin.
So we can expect the 10 of millions of dollars that bankrolled the “no” groups will now go directly to “poor people” now?
They did not steal from these people, but from their several generations long dead ancestors.
I didn’t say anything contrary to this. I said “Feedback from a marginalized group of the land you stole.” which is absolutely true. A marginalized group owned the land. The majority group came in and marginalized them.
This law is differentiating people by their genotype.
The law already does that. Systemic racism exists. I encourage those to setup systems to reduce it and not support it.
Feedback from a marginalized group of the land you stole.
There’s the spot where you accused OP (or, more generally, modern-day Australians) of being land thieves.
How old do you think OP is?
There was absolutely no reason to vote no to this.
Of course there was. Enshrining different rights to different people in the constitution based on their race, is fundamentally objectionable.
I feel like you say that without the context of anything. In isolation what you say might be true but within context it’s just fairly clear to see why you’d get a minority group committee of advisers to be more widely heard. “Different rights to different people” is literally how the world works. If you want to pretend that majority bias doesn’t exist then so be it, I can’t change your support for systemic racism.
When you choose to use the expression “absolutely no reason”, it is trivially easy to disprove your claim. My argument is one of them, and it is a valid reason to vote no. Your further arguments are valid reasons to vote “yes”, and their pros and cons may or may not outweigh each other.
But you are verifiably wrong to claim that there are no reasons to vote no. Opposing race-based legislation in all its forms is a very valid position, and the only non-racist position possible to take in this.
Like enshrining the position of head of state as being the next in line for a particular family who are born & live on the other side of the world?
For the love of democracy let’s not fuck that one up again next time it comes around. Based on yesterday the next PM may well be one of our most evil statesmen around. I think the ARM is planning for a 2027 republican referendum… please let’s not elect a skilled reactionary to lead our country when the time comes.
That is entirely irrelevant. “The king exists, therefore the constitution should give different rights to regular people based on their race”. Disgusting argument.
Everybody should have the same right to be heard. Different people having different rights to be heard, based on their race, is absolutely objectionable. And racist.
Who stole the land, exactly? The last Census detailed that 28% of Australians were born outside Australia and 48% have a parent born overseas, so the population who could be traced back to “stealing land” is a small minority.
From the perspective of some in the older generations, Indigenous Australians were given a voice and representation in 1962 when they were given the option to enrol and vote in federal elections, the same as every other Australian.
The body of the government is supported by the people. Like, think of it this way. If I go to your house, claim it as my own, then sell it to other people. Is it your house or the other people’s house? The other people bought the house knowing the unresolved claims against ownership and bought it anyway. Are they complicit in stealing the house? What if the house wasn’t yours but technically your great grandparents but you’d still live there if it wasn’t for those people who stole or the supporters of the thieves.
Just being given a vote as a minority doesn’t mean their voice has been heard. You can see this sort of bias in Australian prisons: “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners accounted for 32% of all prisoners.” They are disproportionally imprisoned and it’s clear that systemic racism has put them in this position. So just getting a vote doesn’t matter when there are more people who hate your race of people than the population of your race able to vote. It means you’ll never gain anything in the system because racists will keep you down. Don’t support systemic racism.
From the perspective of some in the older generations, Indigenous Australians were given a voice and representation in 1962 when they were given the option to enrol and vote in federal elections, the same as every other Australian.
That’s just dishonest. The link you posted paints a much more grim picture.
Left-leaning voters in this very thread are oversimplifying in the exact way you’re accusing conservative bigots of doing. It’s the state of politics, not the political positions that are the problem. I try not to look at politics in such a polarised way because it adds to the problem.
You’ve actually explained one of the reasons many Indigenous people rejected this: it is just feedback that could simply be ignored by the Senate. That’s powerless, and we’ve seen from royal commissions into Aboriginal deaths in custody that the feedback does get ignored. Why accept such a bad deal, pretending it’s a victory or progress?
The Black Peoples Union interview with ABC explains why they took the ‘no’ position.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Black Peoples Union interview with ABC
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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Australia has some of the most racist people on the planet.
The problem is, since they live in a self-contained ‘white-zone’, they rarely have to deal with the problems of racial diversity.
So many people think Americans are racist, but that’s just because the USA actually has to deal with diversity.
It’s easy for nations like Australia or Iceland to appear as they though care about other races until it comes home.
