LOL
That would imply social equality now, which as demonstrated is not the case. You could challenge it though, hopefully you’d lose.
[edit] I don’t see how it is segregation either, same laws and same rights as everyone else. See Constitutional expert report I linked to earlier.
That would imply nothing of the sort. Our party constitution states “…strives to protect and expand… social equality…” and an ethnic group, even the first peoples, claiming sovereignty and wanting a protected voice specifically for them clearly goes against that.
I don’t think it does at all. The voice has NO POWER. It is advisory. Whatever, I will be pushing for this regardless.
Considering the Recognition policy passed with about 99% support, I think the Party will support the Uluru statement.
Do the rest of us get a constitutionally protected advisory voice? No? Doesn’t sound very socially equal then, does it? You should probably back down a bit from your “will not lead a party on the wrong side of history” statement. Especially since, y’know, everyone is in full agreement about things like ending discrimination.
There is a big difference between recognising the past and allowing a claim of sovereignty and a voice of inequality.
No I won’t be backing down. I have a fundamentally different view of this issue than you do. I don’t see any special privileges from what they are asking for, advising is not legislating, it is not ruling, it is not enforcing, it changes nothing materially.
If I lose the leadership over this issue, I am fine with that. I would rather be on the side of the indigenous population than against them any day of the week. I know I am on the right side.
Considering you’re still using the word “indigenous” incorrectly, and again, everyone is in full agreement on things like ending discrimination, your words are ringing quite hollow right now.
I have been doing that deliberately, I don’t let my opponents define a debate.
Not on my watch …
The rest of us don’t need a constitutionally recognised advisory voice, because the rest of us get heard anyway. This is a mechanism to create the change required for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to get the freedom and equality that they’ve been denied for two and a quarter centuries.
Just like the rest of us got heard when at least two thirds of the population wanted the LNP to continue with FTTP. Oh wait… Oh! I’ve got an even better one! Remember when we were all heard when we didn’t want to go to war in Iraq? That was great.
This discussion has already touched on Australian democracy being broken enough times that your assertion is ludicrous.
Ah, the old “discriminate to end discrimination” and “create inequality to help end inequality” argument, aka affirmative action. Both thoroughly contradictory and absolutely abhorrent.
This has nothing to do with freedom and equality. It is about a group of Australians claiming separate sovereignty, speaking of “two worlds” and relying on guilt/virtue political correctness to let them get away with it.
If Frew wants to put this to a vote to have the party adopt it as policy, that’s fine with me. But first we have to change the party constitution, because right now it’s quite clearly against it.
Let us for a moment go back to Frew’s original post here.
The crux of which is:
There has been an indigenous summit held in Uluru over the last week. Aboriginal leaders rejected the Constitutional recognition campaign in favour of a representative body and a Treaty
[…]
I propose that we should […]have a position that we support the formation of a national indigenous body and will work in good faith to address any proposals that come out of it.
I would like for Australia to have a Treaty with the first inhabitants, but we should see what they decide they want first.
This is an entirely fair and reasonable course of action.
I recall the discussion that arose over a year or more ago within the Policy Development Committee when deciding we needed something that addresses indigenous policy. I know, that for me personally, i was very uncomfortable trying to come up with a policy stance for the party in a a bit of a vacuum, in that the PDC’s membership was devoid of indigenous people. So at the time, along with attempting outreach and attaining input from indigenous organisations, groups, people & members, we tried to draft a policy that drew upon what we could derive as coming from what we perceived as best reflecting the consensus of Aboriginal peoples wishes in the matter, at the time.
That consensus within the Aboriginal community has now changed, and therefore, so should our policy.
Internally there was the recognition that our original policy of supporting constitutional recognition was largely cosmetic and would not really address the fundamental structural changes needed to affect real change and therefore address the problems that beset indigenous people, politics and power relations in this country. However, again, it was a policy that, as best we could determine, reflected the wishes of the indigenous population, and despite wanting to say “hey, we think this would be better…” it was decided that such “better” ideas, at least in our policy docs, for now, would best come from indigenous people. Well, now it has.
The discussion has now moved on. And in a good way that appears to address the very concerns many of us ourselves had with the original policy. And so a fairly unified statement of desire from the Aboriginal community appears to have arrived. To not refine our policy in a way that is heavily influenced by this historical statement, seems to me to be risk repeating the historical mistakes all too many people have made in the past in regard to indigenous matters and despite ‘best intentions’ would in reality just be a repetition of patronising, paternalistic policies of “we know what’s best for you”. This very thing appears to me to be exactly the type of policy making that aboriginal people want to break away from. They want a voice and they want to be able to determine what is best for themselves. That to me seems not only a very valid human principle, but also a very piratey one.
I have a whole lot of other arguments to the various points raised in this thread, and i can come back to all that if necessary.
But before spend anymore walls of text doing so, i implore everyone reading this thread (especially those who are opposed to changing our policy to better reflect the desires of this country’s first inhabitants) to please watch the most recent Q&A episode. The very well put arguments from the people themselves driving these issues say anything better than i can myself.
And additionally, if you haven’t already, please read the full "Uluru Statement from the Heart" document
It can be found here in pdf format: https://www.referendumcouncil.org.au/sites/default/files/2017-05/Uluru_Statement_From_The_Heart_0.PDF
But for ease, i will paste the whole thing below. I think that it quite frankly speaks for itself.
ULURU STATEMENT FROM THE HEART
We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the
southern sky, make this statement from the heart:
Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the
Australian continent and its adjacent islands, 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 a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’,
and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples 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 ceded or
extinguished, and co-exists 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 this 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 aliened 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 self-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.
I suppose it’s great then, that on paper, they already have just as much of a voice as everyone else and can already determine what is best for themselves, again, just as much as everyone else.
What we’re discussing here now is whether we should go all Orwell against the party constitution and let them be more equal than others.
exactly… the reality however seems somewhat different in practice.
Quite. Which means this whole conversation should be about how to fix Australian democracy.
I’d like to think we have other policies and conversations that address trying to fix wider Australian democracy. There seems to be no shortage of attention to that issue amongst us, in fact i would argue it is a large part of the reason for our existence.
This particular conversation/thread is about a proposed revision to our indigenous policy, however.
To presume we can just ignore the desires of the indigenous community and refuse to acknowledge all this as as a separate issue and to account for unique aspects of indigenous history and power relations in this country, well, that feels to me like a (non) solution more suited to colonial times.
We can listen to them all we want, but there is always a point where their demands may exceed what is reasonable. Claiming sovereignty, asserting their world as separate from the rest of the Australian population, and wanting a protected voice all exceeds reasonable. Much as it would exceed reasonable were any other subset of Australians to say the same thing.
Wait, I have an idea then. Let’s just fix Australian democracy concurrently and when that’s done we can disband the indigenous advisory body.
I think herein lies the fundamental crux that spawns disagreement on this issue.
Namely, are the people of the Aboriginal Nations of this land with a 60,000 year+ historical attachment & long history of oppression, along with the past unique special (and predominately negative) treatment given to them, are they just “any other subset” of people… or, as a result of that past (and current) history and treatment, are there unique aspects that should be considered when dealing with them as a distinct people & culture and therefore unique considerations, especially in regard to the past 200 years+ of interactions between the Aboriginal people and the representatives & subjects of the British Crown.
To deny them the right to be recognised as any kind of distinct culture other than just “any other subset of Australians” certainly feels to me a lot like saying they should just assimilate already, but i’m sure that’s not the intent here,
there is always a point where their demands may exceed what is reasonable.
I agree with you there on that, but where i dont agree with you is that i dont personally feel that their demands at this point are unreasonable. To me they seem reasonable, quite measured and potentially rather productive.
I’ve already stated several times that I am thoroughly in favour of doing everything to end discrimination, make reparations for past injustice to those that suffered from them, and to provide assistance for a whole list of problems that aren’t specific to Aboriginals. I’m also in favour of taking steps to preserve their history and culture as a matter of national heritage.
But when it comes to democratic input on what the Australian government does? You better believe I consider them the same as any other subset of Australians.
And they have, in fact, already been (forcefully) assimilated. What we’re talking about here is a subset of the Aboriginal population trying to un-assimilate and become the nation that ceased to exist quite some decades ago, if not longer.
But I’m repeating myself again.
(tldr, only just noticed this thread)
Let me get straight to it.
I will try to be pithy as this is a complex issue. Please bear with me if I sound angry.
As an outspoken supporter (see @ beedemocracy on Twitter) of Aboriginal Sovereignty advocates I embrace the move to scratch our policy’s support of ‘Constitutional Recognition’, something I’ve been uneasy with ever since attending this Panel discussion with members of Warriors of Aboriginal Resistance (WAR). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnpkCRjUj5I Since then I have met more sovereignty advocates through the student environmental movement and have just recently read Clare Land’s fabulous book Decolonising Solidarity: Dilemmas and Directions for Supporters of Indigenous Struggles, with a foreword by the legendary Gary Foley.
I strongly recommend ‘Decolonising Solidarity’ to anyone who is serious about helping rather than hindering Indigenous struggles in Australia. Serioulsy. Look it up. Read it. Think through it.
‘Recognise’ is a corrupt $20 million bipartisan campaign to try and convince Indigenous people that symbolically changing the Australian constitution to ‘recognise’ Indigenous people will help them. This attempt obviously failed, even among the ‘leaders’ or ‘delegates’, who overwhelmingly want some sort of treaty negotiations. At the same time, complaints of intransparency, railroading and lack of proper process are to be taken very seriously especially by a party who claims to be anti-authoritarian (like us). It is important to note that all the Victorian delegates as well as those from Dubbo, WA, walked out of the Uluru convention together with their 30+ supporters. (link includes video with statements) http://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/nitv-news/article/2017/05/25/breaking-delegates-walk-out-constitutional-recognition-forum-protest
Do we know that the roomful of delegates, of ‘leaders’ who had to be invited by the government to be allowed in at the convention, represent general Aboriginal opinion? Can we take their results for such a pivotal issue at face value? I think not. I have seen many blackfellas distancing themselves from all this, process and result. ‘Recognise’ have been going around the country recruiting supporters for years with a huge budget and are calling this ‘consultation’ in typical government style. This is not consultation. It is a government supported PR campaign, money which would have been spent much better on reparation payments.
There is a meeting announced at the tent embassy in Canberra for ‘all Sovereign people’ coming up in 4 weeks’ time. If we are to get this right, don’t just make up a new policy based on a 1 page statement result of some corrupt government process. Wait and see how the Indigenous community responds and what the result of the Canberra gathering will be. Listen to what Indigenous people have been advocating for ever: treaties, land rights, self-determination. We should educate ourselves on the issues and all its complexities. We desparately need to educate ourselves on the history of Indigenous resistance movements in this country. Only then will we be able to write a policy that is constructive rather than damaging through our own ignorance.
I want to finish with the recognition that Indigenous struggles are related to everyone’s struggles and the realisation of Indigenous Sovereignty goes hand in hand with everyone else’s liberation from the shackles of neoliberal capitalism (e.g. fucking cashless welfare cards, the dangers of coal seam gas fracking, giant coal mines and associated goverment corruption, etc.). Together we are strong. Power to the people.
From the heart,
Laura Killian