Australians are required to vote on a national referendum1 next Saturday (October 14, 2023), Yes or No, amending the Constitution, to add:
“Chapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice
In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:
there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
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;
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.”
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there are almost 1 million self-identified Aboriginal Australians, almost 4% of the population of Australia.
On the one hand, everyone should be equal, so why is this group being singled out for special treatment? On the other, everyone has not been treated equally historically, and in part this is because of systemic racial discrimination.2 As a result, different people (and groups of people) have different starting points in life, different inheritances of wealth, differences in the education level of their parents, and so on.3
So this is a “First Best/Second Best” problem.4 What you do in a first best world where everyone is equal (don’t differentiate by group) may differ from what you do in a second best world, where everyone has not had the same advantages, and those disadvantaged persons are disproportionately members of a specific group that has been discriminated.
Now, looking at the actual language, it is pretty innocuous.
Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders can (and in my view should have already) set up their own “Voice”, Australian Constitution or not, to lobby for what they can agree on.
Anyone may make representations to Parliament and the Executive of the Commonwealth on anything, as far as I know. (See Petitions.)
Parliament can make whatever laws it wants now, and can establish this anyway, if it wanted to. (And has, to limited effect, in the past)
I understand there is a lot of disinformation about what this will do. But everything still runs through Parliament, so it can’t do anything except ask Parliament to do things.
There are complaints about “Lack of Detail”. I think this is nonsense. The Constitution is a general document, and this whole thing seems pretty straight-forward, aside from how the elections will be run. This is Australia, and how it actually operates will evolve over time as systems learn and politics shifts.5
I don’t think there is really an information problem within Parliament, I believe if you disagree with outcomes, it is because there is a values problem or a politics problem. I believe all of the information is already out there for Parliamentarians to collectively sift through.6 People choose to believe and listen to and weigh what they want, and don’t make decisions on these kinds of things for lack of information.
Thus, my sense is that The Voice is mostly an instrument for Institutionalised Guilt. Australia, like many modern societies, is engaged a culture war where each side (recognising that each of us sides with at least one of the sides at least some of the time) tries to make the other side feel bad for their beliefs and behaviours. However, due to oversaturation, most people have become immune to this guilt. The Voice will have the following effects:
(A) It will make some Parliamentarians feel bad for not doing things they feel they should do, but don’t because of politics, corruption, or whatever
(B) It may try unsuccessfully to make other Parliamentarians feel bad, who are not subject to feeling guilt, because they think they are doing the right thing even if (or because) it contradicts the recommendation of The Voice.
(C) And it will help Parliamentarians feed good who feel they should do what The Voice says, and who do so.
(D) And it will conflict Parliamentarians who vote to do what The Voice says, because of politics, but who despite that think it is the wrong decision.
At best it will move some people who would have been (A) to (C). At worst it moves some people from (B) to (D).
But I suspect these feelings will dissipate quickly, and these numbers are small. The Voice will be praised by one party for being critical in an outcome that was pre-ordained anyway, and eventually condemned by the other. If I am being less cynical, it might do some good.
There are presently 11 Aboriginal members of Parliament (3 MPs, 8 Senators). They differ on The Voice. All 3 MPs (Burnie, Reid, Scrymgour) are Labor and Yeses. The Senators are a mixed bag: 2 Nos (Price, Thorpe), 2 want more information (Liddle, Lambie), and 4 Yeses (Cox, Dodson, McCarthy, Stewart). So 7/11 are clearly in favour, maybe 9/11.7
One can see why citizens who aren’t paying information to the issue might think the Aboriginal community is divided.
There is also a fear this is the first step toward a Treaty, presumably one which will take land, without sufficient compensation, from non-Aboriginal Australians. There should of course have been a treaty long ago. Yet, Native Americans will tell you how well governments honour treaties. Among so many other things, almost 200 years ago the Cherokee tribe was promised a Delegate in Congress, they are still waiting.
I personally am voting “Yes”. I hope the Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander Communities establish their own Voice-like Institution,8 if the outcome is unfavourable, since the non-Aboriginal community established a Parliament without Aboriginal consent, and Fair is Fair.
The Australian Constitution has been amended previously in this regard, but does not explicitly recognise Aboriginal Australians:
In 1967 the Australian people were asked in a referendum if the Constitution should be changed to remove section 127 which excluded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Australians from being counted in the census, and modified section 51 (xxvi) to allow the Parliament to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait peoples. The referendum was agreed to with the largest yes vote ever recorded.
“Provisions as to races disqualified from voting
For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any State all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the State, then, in reckoning the number of the people of the State or of the Commonwealth, persons of that race resident in that State shall not be counted.”
51xxvi “the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws;”
Note 21
Section 127 (titled "Aborigines not to be counted in reckoning population") was repealed by the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginals) 1967, and previously read as follows:
"127. In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted."
The Aboriginal Tent Embassy has been trying to make a number of points for decades.
Recall the American expression “Born on Third Base”, people who have almost scored, but think that it is due to their own work, rather than their inheritance.
Recognising “Fuck around and Find out” is not generally the best principle on which to operate a government, we also must recognise that not everything can be predicted.
Obviously it is too much for any single individual, but that is why there are committees, and staffs, and so on.
The House of Representatives has 151 Members, 3/151 = 1.98%, below average representation.
The Senate has 75 members. 7/75 = 9.33%, well above average representation.
Most power in Parliament is the House, but the Senate still has leverage.
And importantly, builds an Iconic building to house it, so that news reporters can stand in front of it, and everyone will recognise it on sight. Maybe it would be built near Uluru, so there is the backdrop.