Last year, Australia showed how unengaged and racist this country remains by refusing to insert an Indigenous advisory voice
Convenient that the author forgot to mention that the very person they’re writing about was a vocal No voter. You can say many things about Lydia Thorpe but politically unengaged is not one of them, and while she might be a little bit racist it’s definitely not against Indigenous people.
I’ll also note that the Tent Embassy had a giant banner hung up urging people to vote No, guess they’re all politically unengaged and racist…
Lidia Thorpe has also believed before the vote that a No vote would prove Australia is racist, just as a yes vote would prove Australia is racist. Given that, I think Lidia would agree with the author here.
To clarify, Lidia claimed that both the racist no campaign and the yes campaign drowned out the progressive no campaign.
I had zero clue there was even a progressive no campaign until after I voted no.
Then why didn’t you do some research to inform your position? I don’t understand people who form political opinions without backing them up with research. A lot of people in Australia are borderline illiterate, and are at the mercy of the media. But the educated ones should at least exercise their privilege and read before making decisions. My dad is a lawyer, but wouldn’t even read the uluru statement from the heart. Voted no based on spite, which is shameful. Couldn’t even justify his own position intelligently.
As someone who voted yes in a very no place, I was actually a bit frustrated by how poorly the yes campaign communicated with people - right up until those pamphlets came out, most of the people I was talking to had never heard of the referendum, and only after that most people started looking up what it was about.
I would argue the no campaign had a huge head start on the yes campaign, there was negative speculation going on a year before the referendum, and it gradually snowballed into misinformation before the yes campaign even started. So the stuff people found was all negative. For the people I was talking to, I was the only person they knew who thought a voice was a good idea.
One of the people I was talking to mentioned how they hadn’t even encountered a single ad promoting a voice to parliament until a week before, and it didn’t bother talking about how it would work or why it’s a good idea. They did eventually vote yes, but only after I talked to them about what I understood about it. In fact, my experience is that most people leaning no were willing to vote yes after hearing enough about it.
I think a huge issue is that the yes campaign either failed to reach here somehow, or just relied on the media and self-research for informing people. And the media was very insistent on platforming no campaigners while almost never platforming yes.
One of the most confusing things to hear was how people in the capital cities had heard so much about it when people here had barely heard of it. Some people missed the referendum date entirely.
I agree the yes campaign was a poor one. Also, there were 2 opposing messages being put forward simultaneously:
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The voice is a big leap forward and will improve the lives of indigenous people.
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The voice is just an advisory body with no real power.
I voted yes, but didn’t think the voice was an impressive proposal. I just thought the outcome of a no vote would be worse. The fact that so many people didn’t understand what was proposed is partly a media issue, and partly a government incompetence issue. But it also raises the question of why so many people will feel passionately about a position they haven’t even fucking bothered to research. We can’t have democracy unless citizens put in a bit of fucking effort to understand the society they live in, which includes political proposals.
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that’s pretty fucking bad but anyone voting yes after reading the legislation was even worse.
it’s sad to think without bigots like your dad we might have passed that nonsense.
That’s true, although she wanted a different voice and treaty right?
If you look at where majority no came from you’d have a hard time convincing me it was because people thought the voice wasn’t radical enough.
I will forever and always be on the side of indigenous people yelling at royalty
Last year, Australia showed how unengaged and racist this country remains by refusing to insert an Indigenous advisory voice
Right, those are the options. Either you voted yes or you’re unengaged and racist.
If I were, like so many others, to believe what it is I have heard and seen since Thorpe took to the floor, I would be convinced she had broken through the barricades, thrown open the doors, stormed to the front and then proceeding to call his majesty everything under the sun. I certainly wouldn’t get the impression that she, as an Australian senator, attended an event she had been duly invited to, engaged in an act of peaceful resistance by turning her back as God Save the King played and then proceeded to yell a few hard truths about the Crown and the history of this country
This writing is just floundering and bordering on dishonest. While I agree too many people are clutching pearls about it, yelling at the King is what it is. Other First Nations members and elders have stated their disapproval for obvious reasons. While the reactionary “shock” about it is tiring; this side of it is as well. As pointed out it wouldn’t be with the crown these things would negotiated anyway. It would be with the commonwealth/parliament. So yelling at the king during this sort of ceremony about it is not only inappropriate due the event but also due to it being the wrong person to bring this to.
There wasn’t any good reason to vote no, other than you didn’t want rural Aboriginal people to be communicating with the Prime Minister… As that’s all the voice was really about.
Also, a yes vote would have been a small step towards becoming a Republic.
The reasons I saw from the no campaign were 1. Unclear wording in the constitution 2. Bringing race into the constitution (either for all or none) 3. Lack of explanation as to how the changes, again to our constitution, would tangibly “close the gap”. I largely blame labour for it failing. Plenty of nos could have been yes if the campaign was more clear and informative imo but I don’t doubt racism played its part. Blaming it exclusively on racism and political apathy is disingenuous and certainly won’t inform people nor change their minds.
The campaign was plenty clear. People just didn’t want to hear it. “Don’t know, vote no” worked, even though the right response to “don’t know” is “do a modicum of fucking research”.
I feel like you could have sought out all that information though… So that’s not “reason” (which is what I said) - that’s you having further questions you could have answered with google, looking into it, and asking around the yes campaign.
Sounds like you fell for the no campaign and were just too lazy to give things a second thought.
P.S The constitution already contains stuff about “race” and identifies Aboriginal Australians as distinct from people who came here. It’s always had race in it …hence your argument that it “will bring race into the constitution” - is again just you not questioning the no campaign.
People being lazy and not bothering to find shit out isn’t the same as “having a reason” to vote no. It IS a reason a lot of people voted no, but that’s not the same as having had a legitimate reason to.
I’m providing some of the reasons I’ve read or heard from the campaign. Not that I support them or their validity. Regardless of whether people “could” have sought it out if labour wanting to put forward these changes the onus is on them address all the “concerns” either directly or by be being more informative in their campaign.
Which is all an aside, my point remains there were other reasons people didn’t vote yes contrary to what the writer of the article asserted.
Cool, but yeah, I do think modern western government are struggling to get messages out in the digital age of media consumption. People don’t have to go look for info, and often don’t care to, so they get bubbled in their own algorithms.
Agreed, even worse is algorithms continual boosting of “ragebait” or emotion centred content. Why read/watch an article that will “just” be informative when you can watch something claiming how any step forward means you’ll lose something.
The Liberal party literally wrote all their questions to the Yes campaign and they refused to answer any of them.
They didn’t refuse to answer, and some of the questions were designed to derail the effort, such as “Define Aboriginality” when that’s not in the purview of the Australian government (just like define britishness wouldn’t be), the Australian government can only (in a parliamentary setting where the questions were tabled) define Australian, and only do so in legal terms.
The reasonable questions were answered, such as “Would it be a decision making body” the answer being no, it was an advisory body.
But yeah, that the Liberal party wanted to play party politics with the good will and unity of the Australian people and the desire to settle historical and cultural divisions isn’t surprising and isn’t the win you think it is.
It’s just another sign they’re not responsible, and not fit to be in a leadership position that requires unity and good will, not attempts to derail the country by plunging it into culture wars.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2023/01/10/peter-dutton-letter-indigenous-voice-parliament/
There wasn’t any good reason to vote no
Voting yes was explicitly voting for racial supremacy.
Rightwingers always have these stupid teleological arguments that just completely jump the gun to extreme “civilization ending” conclusion that are never ever not even once accurate or even remotely true and it looks dumb as dogshit ever single time.
Social welfare is Communism!
Gender equality will cause the fall of Rome!
Immigration is white genocide!
…And what’s this, a new contender; the Yes vote was explicitly going to create a racial supremacist society!
No, the PM would just have to listen to some Aboriginal leaders now… Wouldn’t have to agree, or do what they said. Just he’d be mandated to every now and then, listen to the people we stole the country from.
No, the PM would just have to listen to some Aboriginal leaders now…
The vote was about giving a portion of society additional power to create rights for people based solely on their ethnicity.
Yes, that’s racial supremacy.
listen to the people we stole the country from.
The fact that you say “we stole the country from” whilst complaining about the right jumping to telological arguments is fucking hilariously ironic.
We didn’t do anything. Not a single Australian alive today was even born under British rule, let alone during the actual colonisation period
No shit no one alive “did anything”*, it’s a euphemism for a part of history, it’s intended to impart a general understanding of the transaction in a brief amount of words that sums up events. It’s not intended to accuse modern people of litteral thieft.
It’s okay insecure white man, no mob is going to come a knocking with a deed to your property. They didn’t even have a system of written language, and your property didn’t exist.
That said there will still be people alive today who either were involved in the forced separation of Aboriginal children from their parents (because there was a spate of that in 1960s still, as per the “bringing them home” report, about the “lost generations”), and/or whose grandparents and so on were involved in stuff like that. Samantha Armitages’ family, and probably Gina Rhinehart’s… That’s part of the psychology of why some are paranoid on the issue.
But paranoia is by definition an irrational fear. The voice simply isn’t about reparations.
As for the idea it will give some racial groups more power than others - again this isn’t true because it wasn’t just about race. Does nothing for big city Aboriginal people for instance.
It was SPECIFICALLY about people from very remote Aboriginal communities who barely count politically and are unlikely to have any affect or contact with the PM otherwise. People who can’t just mount a protest in a capital city as most Australians could (90% of us live in Capital cities).
So it was about addressing a disadvantage creates by distance AND race/culture, caused by just how large Australia is (as well as our history, and why pockets of rural Aboriginal communities exist in the first place).
So nah, addressing the unfortune of being a small community that goes ignored isn’t a function of over powering them or giving them a “racial supremacy”.
No shit no one alive “did anything”*, it’s a euphemism for a part of history,
No, it’s not. It’s you actively blaming current Australian people for actions of people who lived generations ago.
It’s okay insecure white man,
Ah yes, and I’m the racist.
I never said you were racist, I joked about Aboriginal people showing up with a deed to your house.
You feeling blamed when I’m saying it’s a historical injustice, not a matter of modern theift, isn’t the same thing as me having blamed you.
I don’t even know you, you’re just some stranger on the Internet.
Pointing out this history of the country is just being honest. The people who can’t handle that are the ones being dishonest.
Anyways, if you need to lie and misrepresent the basic positions of the discussion, and the terms involved - I think that shows you’re not operating from reason.
So like I was saying, there was no reasonable case made by the No campaign during The Voice.
You feeling accused, isn the same as a reason, because reason operates on actual statements and substantial facts, not mischaracterisations and tangential FEELINGS.
It’s normal to have feelings, so sorry you let yours cloud your reasonable judgement of the actual facts and arguments being made. In that particular case (and that alone as far as I can tell) you ARE guilty.
Right, those are the options. Either you voted yes or you’re unengaged and racist.
Got another reason?
The same argument that won the gay marriage plebiscite - people should be equal under the law and, by extension, our constitution.
Yes yes rich and poor sleeping under bridges and all that. A convenient excuse that paves the way for never trying to improve things. Besides if we were all equal we would have treaty, as their ancestral rights would be recognised.
and a treaty was explicitly not on the table
I’m inclined to suggest some minor edits… “Either you voted yes or you’re unengaged and/or racist and/or have been manipulated by a brazenly racist no campaign.”
Loads?
How about not engaging in racial discrimination which is exactly what the referendum was doing, it was giving a group more power to decide the direction of the country because of their ethnicity.
It’s blatant racism and an attempt to cement racial superiority in the country by using victim status.
I know about indigenous history and I was still shocked. She’s unhinged. Not sure how lidia Thorpe gets away with her aggressive outbursts, especially after the racial abuse she spewed at that security guard that one time. She’s disgusting
No she’s not. It was a protest and it was effective. The King of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth was called out on a world stage.
Lidia Thorpe is a legend.
How was it effective?
She got the publicity she was after.
Well fair point there
Exposes people who I wouldn’t want to associate with. The people upset at Lidia would definitely be more likely to screw me over to gain favour with someone more influential. Those don’t align with my morals.
Lidia Thorpe is an example of someone who thinks they are superior to everyone else, and who thinks everyone owes her something.
All it did was show the world that she was a racist.
