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cammd said..Chris 249 said..cammd said..
So back to point 3 (can only deal with one at a time)
Firstly apologies for the misunderstanding, when I asked you for evidence I was calling for evidence that the Voice would provide different outcomes. I have seen no actual evidence to support that claim.
Secondly the evidence of disadvantage you provide is well documented, no arguments from either side about that. The "No" side is very much committed to addressing that disadvantage "based on need not race" by starting with a genuine review/audit into what is and what is not working. I don't believe "disadvantage" is inherent to Indigenous people in terms of genetics or some other permanent state that would see them unable to overcome it without special rights. I actually think that argument is racist it assumes a permanent deficiency in some way.
If you want to see a real change then vote No because The "Voice" will most likely just be the same people we have now who have failed to "close the gap" over the last 30 or 40 years. We need change we don't need to enshrine the failure in the constitution.
I've got no issues with "based on need but race" and similar concepts.
It's not racist to say that a group could be at such a disadvantage because of temporary factors that they need special rights until that disadvantage is erased. We say similar things about other groups; we give temporary assistance to farmers, exporters, and big business when they suffer periods of disadvantage.
Heck, Barnaby Joyce has been calling for a change to allow regions special senators to give country people and indigenous people better representation - Barnaby certainly isn't racist towards country people so when he calls for extra representation for them it shows that you do NOT have to feel that people are inferior to claim they need special representation.
To use an analogy from the Constitution, Qld used to get "special rights" because it had the same number of Senate seats as NSW, which had eight times the population when the Constitution was written. Tasmania, WA and SA still get such "special rights". Does that mean we're being racist towards people from those states? Nope, it means that we can see that they need a Constitutional structure to get over the fact that they are a minority. So the fact that a minority gets special allowance in the Constitution certainly doesn't mean that they are seen as inferior.
Indigenous people from many countries, including NZ, Canada, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Africa and the USA suffer severe disadvantage. When the prevalence of disadvantage is so widespread it's pretty easy to say that the process of having another group come into your country and becomes dominant it leads to major problems for those who were there first.
Is the Voice the best mechanism? I'm not enchanted with the way the Voice has been run but many of the claims from the No side are BS.
Once again the Yes case cannot provide evidence that special rights will erase disadvantage. This is your third opportunity to present the evidence from the Yes campaign. I haven't seen any argument other than it will help us listen betterer FFS. That's kindergarten level stuff and people are not buying it.
Also enshrinement in the constitution is not temporary, you can argue that it can be changed so it may not be permanent but
no one,
absolutley no one is suggesting the Voice should be temporary. It would be a very weak/borderline false argument to suggest the Voice will only be a temporary measure.
Your examples of special rights above are not based on race or ancestory, basing special rights on race is racist. Spin it ten different ways or twenty or as many as you want the fact remains putting special rights into the constitution based on race means those rights are race based duh. Your an intelligent guy, see it for what it is.
All people in every country throughout the entire history of the world suffer when another group comes in a dominants, that's the History of the world, it cannot be changed. What can be changed is the message that you are defined by your ancestory, you are a victim of colonisation, you live in a racist society and you have no agency to help yourself. That is the message from the Yes side, it is clearly demonstrated by the add on TV with the young boy asking if he will live as long as others or get an education, "Yes makes it possible" F%&cken Horse S&^t, that lad needs to be told its up him, his life is in his hands.
"It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." Its easy to say many claims from the No side as BS, which ones and why are they BS.
1- You haven't asked me to present the case for the Yes campaign, since you can do that yourself. Other people have spent more time putting the Yes case than I can. However I can address the arguments that people give here.
I've spent more time and space writing here than anyone else so asking me to do more isn't really on.
2- You ask me to point out which claims from the No side are BS but I've already pointed to a bunch in earlier posts. For example, I've said that the claims that the Voice will definitely allow more court challenges are BS. I've pointed out that the claims that the main Voice proponents are communists are BS.
As I write this a former conservative deputy PM John Anderson is saying other BS. He's just said that the Constitution treats all Australians equally, but it doesn't. There ARE special cases in our system, or proposed by the Right, where one person effectively gets far more votes than other Australians. The point is that to say "other Australians don't get special treatment under the Constitution therefore the indigenous shouldn't" is simply incorrect. People who don't want the Constitution to change are NOT saying "all Australians are equal under the Constitution"*; what they are effectively saying is "special rights are OK for some people but not for other people".
One fascinating point about equality under the Constitution is that it's denied to those of the ACT and NT; one of them will almost certainly vote Yes and the other is likely. So it's ironic that the No vote is saying we should all be equal under the Constitution when the No vote benefits from the fact that we are NOT all equal under the Consitution.
3- I know my examples of special rights aren't based on race. I never said they were, so you can put your "duh" where it fits. However they show that "we are all currently equal under the Constitution" is simply untrue as the difference in representation in the Senate shows.
Equality is not just treating everyone in exactly the same way; it's treating people differently when they need to be. It's well accepted that, for example, it's not equality to the blind to ignore the fact that they can't see. It's not equality to treat
The Constitution is designed around that concept - it is designed to treat people from different states differently in order to create effective equality. Arguably the Voice would follow that same general approach.
4- Can I ask whether you have ever sat back of Bourke with indigenous people or done something similar? Have you been in the Riverina working with indigenous organisations? Do you know anyone who has worked in the Outback for indigenous people or the wider community?
I'm not sure about your background but have you come from a position of disadvantage of the type that many indigenous people suffer? Do you have experience about how hard it is to be inspired by poetry when you are living in a place like Goodooga (makes Wilcannia look nice in my very limited experience)?
I understand about the message of telling people they are disadvantaged, and agree with the downsides. But when the disadvantage is as real as it is in many cases we can't just tell people "lift yourself above it".
5- What is being called for is a way to cut through the fact that indigenous people are a tiny part of our nation and have a voice that is largely drowned out. You can't just ignore as you want us to do, and the fact is that indigenous people have suffered huge social disadvantage in the past. That sort of social disadvantage and the CONTINUED racism they suffer have severe effects like learned helplessness, welfare dependency, etc. There is also a major disconnect between indigenous people on the ground and those making the decisions.
It's not "kindergarten stuff" to say that having a direct voice to government helps - that's why industrial groups spend big dollars on lobbyists. I run a sporting group in regional Australia, and I have a direct voice to the Mayor and state representatives (the conservative Federal rep doesn't answer calls probably because he's pissed as usual). I've worked for 18 months in federal government in Canberra and can see how out of touch it is. I was designing a policy for a major employment sector and wasn't allowed to talk to industry at all. That's crap. I've got first hand experience in how much it changes things to have a direct voice in government (just as industry groups do) and how out of touch government is now.
I'm not a great fan of the Voice or the way the campaign has been run but I do think that it can change one of the biggest problems in Australia for the better, and at a fairly low cost.
6- You say (and I agree) that you want to see indigenous disadvantage wiped out - but even today Dutton, a leader of the No side, has got no new strategy for achieving that in interviews. I don't think anyone doubts that Howard, for example, wanted to close the gap - but it's still there. There's not much use saying "let's not change anything but let's expect a new result that will change indigenous disadvantage" so why follow that line of thinking? Are we willing to ignore a good chance of making things better in order to defend a false claim that people are equal under the Constitution?
warwickl
> 9 months ago, 30 Sep 2023
