Hey, the Voice: It’s a NO from me!
When I heard that Peter Dutton was worried that he would be judged by his skin colour, should the 2023 Referendum be carried, my first reaction was: “Great. That serves you right. Now you’d know how it feels”.
That being said, I am voting No to The Indigenous Voice to the Parliament (the “Voice”).
It simply does not make sense to me in two ways.
First of all, just what does the Voice do and how does it work? Funny enough, even within the Yes Campaign, there are various explanations for it: Some insist that the Voice is advisory only and has no real authority, while others may go further and suggest that there would be “consequences” if the Parliament and the Government did not act upon the Voice’s advice.
Since the Australian government has published a referendum booklet and landed it in every Australian household’s letter box, the content therein must be official and represent the most accurate description of the Voice, then let’s have a look.
It says the following texts would be inserted into the constitution, should the referendum pass:
In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:
(i) there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
(ii) the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
(iii) the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.
The Yes Case then went on to say these about “How the Voice will work”:
The Voice is about advice.
When governments listen to people about issues that affect them, they:
• Make better decisions.
• Get better results.
• Deliver better value for money.
The Voice will give advice on key issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, from better infant health to improving services in remote areas.
Parliament and Government will still be responsible for all laws, programs and funding.
Patrick Dodson, Senator for Western Australia, Yawuru Elder: “When people on the ground are listened to and engaged, better laws and policies are made. Advice from the Voice will make our decisions and directions more informed and more successful. Recognition in the Constitution will help heal our nation.”
Although the heading line states again that the Voice is “about advice”, by reading between the lines in the paragraphs that follow, I could not help but feel the words are suggesting that if the Parliament and Government do not follow the advice put forward by the Voice, they would be acting against the best interests of the indigenous people.
Okay, I could be reading too much into it (or am I?). But if the Voice did act exactly as an advisory body only, as the proposal reads, then that just begs the question: Why should we alter the constitution just to establish a body that is only to generate bureaucracy, whereas in reality we already have various federal and state agencies on indigenous affairs? If the established organisations aren’t working as they should be, shouldn’t we be looking to find out where they have gone wrong or fallen short, instead of creating a duplicate only of less practicality?
A key word in the proposed texts of the amendment is “recognition”. I have to wonder, what actually are we “recognising”? Simply that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people are the “First Nation people of Australia”? If that is the case, does that really need to be written into the constitution which, as our government puts it, is all about setting “the basic rules for how Australia is governed”? Isn’t it, i.e., the “recognition”, something which is a common sense that is taught to those who grew here and told to those who flew here?
The more troubling aspect of the Voice is the “Black vs White” — to be precise, Anglo-Saxon (or Anglo-Celtic) White — mentality behind lots of the Yes campaigners, from both of the colours.
Just to name a couple here:
When nearly one third of the Australian population were born overseas, just how do they expect such narratives would speak to those people?? At least not to me! !
To those who claimed the Voice is “not racially divisive”, please read this again: “The Voice will give advice on key issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people…” While we are supposed to be in a society where everyone is treated equally, or at least so claimed — I am not naive, Australia is still a white-privileged country (I know this would make some white people cringe), the Voice would be carving out a cohort, if not yet a race, from the whole of Australia, and giving them the entitlement, albeit “advisory”, that is not to be enjoyed by any other races or cohorts on this land of down under. And what is the basis for this entitlement? Is it because the First Nation people are the “traditional custodians” of the land, which isn’t just another way of saying “I grew here, you flew here”? Or is it because of the British colonisation and all the sufferings it had brought to the indigenous people?
Please allow me to digress a bit before I get back to the above. Other than the Voice, another word has also been thrown around and has been popping up here and there in the news coverage of the former — the word is “Treaty”, which just hasn’t garnered equal attention, making it sound almost like a “hidden agenda”. The word somehow reminded me of a documentary film that I stumbled across on TV a few years ago, John Eales Reveals: The Haka.
“How are the dots linked?” One may ask. Well, for quite a few times over the years since we got together, my Aussie partner had mentioned to me that the Māori people are being looked down upon by their fellow Pacific Islanders, just because they signed a treaty with the British settlers. But after being told by my former Kiwi colleague that every school kid in New Zealand is taught to perform Haka, seeing the New Zealand Foreign Minister of Māori descend wear a traditional Māori facial tattoo and greet her foreign counterparts with Hongi, and most recently, discovering that the New Zealand national anthem is sung in Māori first and then in English at sports events, I have to ask, “So, what is to be ashamed of?” Meanwhile throughout his film, Eales had been wondering why such culture integration had not been seen across the ditch…
Now, our First Nations People also want a “treaty”. Who with? “Between colonial Australians and the traditional owners of Australia”.
Before I move on, I think I should put out a clarification: I respect the First Nations People and their culture, as well as the fact that their relationship with this beautiful continent dates back to thousands of years ago. I do not know every wrong that had been done to them back in the 19th and the 20th century. But I just need to learn one thing, i.e., the child-removal policy, to know that the way they had been treated was despicable. I am sympathetic for the torments the Aboriginal people had had to gone through.
However, with all due respects, I hope the masterminds behind the Voice, and ultimately the Uluru statement, realise that the demographics of the Australian population have changed significantly since 1967 — Don’t get me wrong, the whole Australia should be ashamed if there were still nearly 10% votes against counting the Aboriginal people as part of the nation, should the 1967 referendum have been held today — let alone the time when the Waitangi treaty was signed. These days’ stakeholders to the Aboriginal people are vastly different to those centuries or even just decades ago. If a mindset is still stuck in the past (Colonial Australians? Are we still living in the 19th century??), it is not going to take the “reconciliation” process anywhere — although personally I still don’t know what to make of that term.
I am a “yellow” bastard from China. I’m not subject to “white guilt”.
