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Australia Had a Referendum
by Ruthie Alekseeva Australia Votes No How It Started That’s how my night ended on 14 October 2023 after Anthony Albanese, Australia’s present prime minister, held a referendum regarding a motion put forward by his currently reigning Labor party. The referendum bid proposed that Aboriginal Australians should have, what he called, a Voice imbedded into Australia’s constitution. They said the Voice would give Indigenous Australians an opportunity to offer parliament advice on laws regarding Indigenous issues. It seems plans for this referendum began in 2015 when Malcom Turnbull, Australian prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party from 2015 to 2018, put together a referendum council which asked Aboriginal people how they thought Australia could best include them in the nation’s constitution, as, at this moment, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander citizens don’t receive a separate mention in Australia’s constitution. After this referendum council held discussions, in 2017, the National Constitutional Convention made a “statement from the heart” which they called The Uluru Statement. This statement requests a makarrata commission which they described as a concept found in the traditions of the Yolngu language group of Arnhem Land. Apparently, in this region of the Northern Territory, a makarrata occurs when warring factions seek peace and healing from past altercations. It involves admitting wrong doing and making things right again. A modern-day makarrata commission would also seek “agreement-making between governments and First Nations people and the truth-telling about our history.” Proponents of the makarrata commission believe that this agreement-making and truth-telling will help Aboriginal Australians and non-Aboriginal Australians step closer towards full and absolute reconciliation. The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) says Indigenous people suggested a makarrata commission as early as the late 1970s and that supporters of this commission, at that time, hoped it would result in the Australian government and citizens acknowledging that the continent of Australia did not originally belong to the British but to its indigenous inhabitants who would then have their lands handed back with reimbursements paid. It also sought Aboriginal only seats in parliament. Who Opposed It While the referendum’s Yes campaign found many supporters, a larger number rose against its proposed constitutional changes such as Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe, an Indigenous woman, who said seeking Aboriginal recognition in Australia’s constitution would concede that the modern-day continent of Australia belongs to its ‘new’ European, Asian and African arrivals even though Aboriginal Australians have never ceded sovereignty of the Australian continent to its very first colonial-British arrivals of 13 May 1787. Lidia believes the present-day struggles of Aboriginal people arises from Australia’s racist attitude and behaviour toward them, but instead of changing the constitution, she believes the solution lies in, what she calls truth, treaty and a Blak Republic. A Blak Republic would involve reserving parliament seats for Indigenous Australians, which would become known as Blak seats. Country Liberal Party Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, also an Indigenous woman, gave a speech saying she opposed Anthony Albanese’s Voice because she believes racism does not characterise most Australians but a permanent advisory body, such as the Voice, would divide Australians by race which would then make Australia a racist country, living under a type of apartheid. She said Australia’s politicians, media and activists had gas lighted, bullied and manipulated white Australians for decades, resulting in today’s toxic, divided racial climate. She said Anthony Albanese had not shown how the Voice would help struggling Aboriginal people or given any detail on how the Voice’s Indigenous advisory body would work which made its permanent implementation into the constitution risky and said most Aboriginal people she’d discussed the Voice with did not support it. Former Labor politician, Nyunggai Warren Mundine, an Indigenous man, said he also opposed the Voice saying it did not represent the desires of real Aboriginal people. He attributes the idea as a concept dreamt up by elite academics living in capital cities and that these upper-class intellectuals had squandered their past opportunities of helping Aboriginal people and the same thing would happen with the Labor Party’s Voice. He said past governments had set up such bodies and they had failed, becoming corrupt bureaucracies. He agreed with Jacinta that white Australians no longer discriminate against Aboriginal people. He believes truth-telling would divide rather than reconcile Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people and that white Australians have already made reparations by paying millions of dollars in tax money to right past wrongs but the money has stayed with corrupt advisory bodies instead of filtering down where struggling Indigenous people live. Both Jacinta and Warren said many Aboriginal people, like themselves, have done well in Australia and put forward solutions that they believe would help Indigenous people who remain in embattled conditions and lifestyles. They said that in some areas, Aboriginal people have not learned English, only knowing their native language, and some Aboriginal regions have a high truancy rate from school. Jacinta and Warren believe learning English and encouraging school attendance will get more Aboriginal people into jobs which will lower Indigenous crime and imprisonment and improve their health and life expectancy also. They reminded the media that on 13 February 2008, then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, apologised for Australia’s past poor treatment of Aboriginal people and the dispossession of their land, but, they said, when will Aboriginal activists issue a statement of forgiveness? Because reconciliation can’t occur if one side is always apologising, but the other side is always accusing. How It Ended It seems most Australian’s agreed with Jacinta and Warren, that most modern-day white Australian’s do not behave in a racist manner toward anyone let alone Indigenous people. If you have good values and have settled in Australia with the intention of making it a better place, not a worse one, they don’t care about the colour of your skin or where you’re from. They want everyone who lives in Australia succeeding, including Aborigines. So, if some Indigenous people don’t live as long or as in good health as the rest of its Australian citizens do or end up in prison more often, it’s not because of white Australians. The October referendum implies that most Australians, whether they’re of European, Asian, African, Islander or Middle Eastern heritage, believe Aboriginals don’t need a separate Voice in Australia’s government because they already have a voice. They can vote, write politicians letters, attend protests and even run for parliament, as many Aboriginal people have done and won. Before every Australian sporting event, government speech, school and even sometimes work event, Australians must hear what is called a Welcome to Country. A Welcome to Country is a statement that reminds its listeners that the nation of Australia resides on stolen land. This statement also welcomes its hearers to this land. It welcomes them even though most listeners have lived on the Australian continent since the day of their birth. Many Australians say this statement has become enforced, ceaseless, repetitious and states what everyone has already always known. This probably coloured Australia's reception of the referendum as well as large native title claims, such as the one made by descendants of the Quandamooka people of Redlands. This land claim, if successful, would return 3500 properties, including cemeteries, to Indigenous people. The media and some businesses have also engaged in obnoxious and bullying behaviour by coercing Australian's into renaming its capital cities with Indigenous names without discussing it with its inhabitants first. Upon further reading, the Yolngu word makarrata has multiple meanings, as the ABC says Makarrata can also mean a traditional Aboriginal method of punishment where a criminal’s thigh is pierced with a spear which made hunting, walking and running impossible. If the Yes campaign had succeeded in implementing a Voice in Australia’s constitution, it seems that’s what most Australian’s believe a makarrata commission would have done. It would have crippled all Australians, no matter what their ethnicity or skin colour, and opened the door for the even wilder demands of present-day Aboriginal activists. The Uluru Statement of the Heart Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent lands and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years ago. This sovereignty is spiritual notion. The ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature,’ and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better of sovereignty. It has never been coded or extinguished and coexists with the sovereignty of the crown. How could it be otherwise? That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia and this sacred link disappears from world history in merely the last two hundred years? With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe the ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood. Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are alienated from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. and our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future. These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness. We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny, our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country. We call for the establishment of a First Nations voice enshrined in the constitution. Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and determination. We seek a Makarrata commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First nations and truth-telling about our history. In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. we leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.
References
‘Utterly confusing’: Brisbane Airport changes name to Meeanjin | Sky News Australia All rights to this article belong to the author, but, this article may be freely redistributed as long as the content of the article is not changed. Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |