With the Voice to Parliament Referendum date announced to be October 14 2023, this thread will run in the lead up to the date for general discussions/queries regarding the Voice to Parliament.

The Proposed Constitutional Amendment

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.

Past Discussions

Here are some previous posts in this community regarding the referendum:

Common Misinformation

  • “The Uluru Statement from the Heart is 26 Pages not 1” - not true

Government Information

Amendments to this post

If you would like to see some other articles or posts linked here please let me know and I’ll try to add it as soon as possible.

  1. Added the proposed constitutional amendment (31/08/2023)
  2. Added Common Misinformation section (01/07/2023)

Discussion / Rules

Please follow the rules in the sidebar and for aussie.zone in general. Anything deemed to be misinformation or with malicious intent will be removed at moderators’ discretion. This is a safe space to discuss your opinion on the voice or ask general questions.

Please continue posting news articles as separate posts but consider adding a link to this post to encourage discussion.

  • Whirlybird@aussie.zone
    33·
    1 year ago

    This isn’t “celebrating” our indigenous heritage. If anything it’s doing it a disservice by having the white people go “here you go little fellas, you can have a high chair up with the adults at the big table, but just shoosh and let us decide what’s best for you”.

    • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
      53·
      1 year ago

      If anything it’s doing it a disservice by having the white people go “here you go little fellas, you can have a high chair up with the adults at the big table, but just shoosh and let us decide what’s best for you”.

      Then why not ask Indigenous Australians what they think? Vote Yes if it’s what they want, vote No if they don’t.

      (The answer, by the way, is that about 80% of Indigenous Australians are in favour.)

      • Whirlybird@aussie.zone
        55·
        1 year ago

        The actual number bounces around depending on sample size and timing, but tends to land somewhere between the 80% in an Ipsos poll of 300 First Nations people in January of this year (this poll was commissioned by 89 Degrees East, where I am research director) and the 83% in a YouGov poll of 738 First Nations people conducted this month – the largest and most representative sample I know of to date.

        🤣 Sorry but those polls being used to say “80% of Indigenous Australians are in favour” is pathetic. Just over 1000 people, potentially significantly less with crossover, means you can throw that statistic in the bin.

        The largest poll being only 738 people is absolutely mind boggling. Imagine using that number to extrapolate out to an entire population of a country.

        • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
          71·
          1 year ago

          Tell me you don’t understand how polling works without telling me you don’t understand how polling works.

          Even nation-wide polls often use a sample size less than 5 times that, and I shouldn’t need to tell you that the Indigenous population of Australia is less than 20%.

          The polls’ conductors would admittedly tell you that obtaining a representative sample of Indigenous Australians is rather difficult, but this is accounted for in their margins of error, which are less than 10%. 80% ± 10% is still a pretty overwhelming majority.

            • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
              3·
              1 year ago

              And he has the gall to say in one comment

              it’s doing it a disservice by having the white people go “here you go little fellas, you can have a high chair up with the adults at the big table, but just shoosh and let us decide what’s best for you”.

              while in another pretending he’s not claiming it’s

              a racist policy imposed by white people on Indigenous Australians

          • Whirlybird@aussie.zone
            55·
            1 year ago

            I understand how polling works, and I understand that a sample size that small doesn’t extrapolate out with any certainty or accuracy to a population of ~5 million.

            They can say their margin of error is 10% but it doesn’t make it correct.

            You cannot conclude that 80% of a 5 million population support something based on a poll of 700 people lol. Absolutely absurd.

            • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
              71·
              1 year ago

              to a population of ~5 million

              It probably would, actually, since that would be roughly the same ratio of polled people to total population as the polls used to determine the views of Australia as a whole.

              But the Indigenous population is actually much lower than 5 million anyway. Try just over 812,000.

              It’s not very complicated. You can look up the formula for how to calculate a margin of error based on your sample size, total population, desired confidence level, and the percentage of the portion that gave an answer. z × sqrt(p × (1-p)) / sqrt((N-1) × n / (N - n)), where p is the sample proportion, n is the sample size, N is the total population size, and z is the z-score associated with your desired level of confidence. I’m using a 99% confidence interval; I was going to use 95%, but it turned out that with this sample size you can actually be a lot more confident than that and still keep quite a low margin. The z-score is 2.58. When I put in your figure of 5 million (remembering that this is actually more than 5× too large!), 700 people, and 80%, the margin of error is a measly 3.9%.

              Real polling is more sophisticated than that, since they account for how representative they believe their sample is of the whole population, but that’s what it boils down to. They know what they’re doing far better than you or I, and they’re quite confident.

              If you want to oppose the Voice, do so, and face whatever accusations may be levied at you because of it. But don’t hide behind the lie that it’s a racist policy imposed by white people on Indigenous Australians. Because the evidence is clear on that matter: Indigenous Australians support it.

              • Whirlybird@aussie.zone
                26·
                1 year ago

                The evidence is not clear. A poll of 700 people is not “the evidence is clear”.

                Margins of error are not “truth”. You can decide you’ve got a margin of error of 1% and be wildly and massively incorrect in your results.

                Also not sure why you’re saying I’m hiding behind a lie that it’s a racist white policy? Where did that come from?