I thought a group dedicated to ensuring the matters affecting any group of peoples are represented in Parliament would be a good thing. And if this is not “good enough”, how will it have a worse outcome than voting no.
Parliament is a group dedicated to ensuring matters affecting any group of peoples are represented.
I am against the voice because it prioritises things based on who people are and not what their needs are. E.g. I would happily vote yes to a voice to parliament for domestic abuse survivors, but I would not for a voice to parliament for Chinese international students.
That’s what the current system is. It’s not working for the indigenous communities.
I’ve seen this sentiment before, but what evidence is there that the current system isn’t working?
For example, this chart shows remarkable improvement for Indigenous Australian infant mortality (source).
What metrics are you looking at which are not trending in a favourable way for indigenous Australians?
And, as indigenous Australians were only given the right to vote in 1962, how quickly do you expect parity with non-indigenous Australians to happen?
The Closing the Gap reports are a good benchmark. The graphs give you a good idea of the discrepancy between indigenous and non-indigenous outcomes. https://www.pc.gov.au/closing-the-gap-data/dashboard https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-30/closing-the-gap-report-released/101713892
Because Australia hasn’t acknowledged its true history. It has told itself lies and thrown token white guilt bones, but it cannot bring itself to actually accept reality. Until this happens, there will be no significant change and any attempt at progress will be met with widespread pushback.
Because news corp need a villain. That’s legit 90% of the no campaign right there. I suspect it’s gonna be 50/50. 50% yes from the cities and 50% no from the country towns that only get sky news.
In my mind there are two main branches of reasoning: One comes from either racism or a feeling of aggrievement (“why do they get something I dont” kind of thing). The second stems from a misunderstanding of systemic issues, a sort of demographic blindness like “this is a policy that only affects X and that’s racist” kind of thing. Arguably the aggrievement fits in here too. This obviously ignores the fact that demographic differences do exist.
Of course there’s also the “progressive no” argument that people like Lidia Thorpe argue for, but imo the other two are more common.
Yours is the most just understandable explanation so far. But I don’t know if I understand this ‘progressive no’ argument.
I believe we, the Australian people, owe the indigenous peoples a greater weight on those opinion. This is their land after all.
Partisanship aside, referendums are always close. The republic referendum was the same.
Trouble with this one is, theres a lot of confusion about what’s proposed. Confused people vote no.
